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Iran and Orbital Nukes
January
29, 2007: Iran has converted one of its largest ballistic missiles, a 30 ton
Shahab 3, into a satellite launcher. It's possible, with modern lightweight
electronics, to build a 500 pound reconnaissance satellite, that the Shahab
could lift into low earth orbit. More worrisome is the fact that, with a
satellite that size, you can also put a nuclear warhead in orbit, and have it
descend to anywhere on the planet. Such weapons, called FOBS (Fractional
Orbital Bombardment System) were developed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. A
few of these FOBS carrying missiles were built and put into service, but no one
was eager to have nuclear weapons in orbit. It was considered cheaper and safer
to just use conventional ICBMs. Russia dismantled its FOBS missiles in the
1980s. But there's nothing to prevent Iran from building some FOBS missiles, as
a way to threaten the United States with nuclear attack. North Korea could also
build FOBS, because most of Irans long range ballistic missile comes from North
Korea.
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