In a perfect world, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty would be honoured by every nuclear-armed nation in the world, allowing everyone to breath easy about the fact that, of all the ways we humans have sorted out how to kill one another, at least we can rule out atomic fire from beyond our planet's atmosphere (yeah, ballistic missiles get high up there, but work with me here). Unfortunately, as recent events have shown, relying on treaties and the goodwill of other nations to keep folks out of harm's way is kinda bullshit. Right now, there isn't a military in the world that can say, with authority, that there's not a satellite with a nuclear weapon in it, circling our heads. It's a detection and engineering issue that we, as a species, haven't been able to solve… yet.
Areg Danagoulian, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, put himself up to the challenge. In a proof-of-concept study published today in the journal Nature, he proposes a satellite-based sensor system that could orbit near a suspect spacecraft and detect neutrons generated by high-energy protons colliding with radioactive material—a signature of a thermonuclear weapon.
Being able to uncover the presence of space-based nuclear weapons or top-secret nuke-powered satellites that could fall could endanger millions if their orbits were to degrade. That's a top-shelf use of science. But here's the question: what the hell could we do about it if we were to locate such a threat? Sanctions and embargoes have proven to have little to no effect on Earth, let alone on the stuff floating around it. Governments ostracized by the rest of the world commit new atrocities every day, despite being denied trade and resources. Maybe the smart money is finding ways to fight less and cooperate more. You know, like an alien threat: a menace that draws the Earth together in common defense, using our technology to create a ring of atomic weapons in high Earth orbit that'd act as a deterrence to any that would DARE to threaten us…
Sigh.
