Extrema solstormar kan orsaka allvarliga störningar i samhället. Stora delar av Sveriges elförsörjning kan slås ut, och indirekt även mobilnätet. – Samhället blir allt mer sårbart för den här typen av händelser, säger rymdfysikern Urban Brändström.
1859 orsakade den så kallade Carrington-händelsen stora skador på dåtidens viktigaste kommunikationskanal; telegrafnätet. I både Europa och Nordamerika förstördes telegrafrullar och telegrafister fick el-stötar. Då såg man norrsken ända nere i Karibien.
1921 förstördes en telefonstation i Karlstad och ledde till omfattande problem med rikstelefonin.
1989 drabbades miljoner kanadensare av ett flera timmar långt strömavbrott
2003 blev tiotusentals personer i Malmö utan ström i knappt en timme efter en solstorm.
Following a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that space can be used for peaceful purposes- but that it can also be used with aggressive intentions.
“Satellites can be jammed, hacked or weaponized. Anti-satellite weapons could cripple communications and other services our societies rely on, such as air travel, weather forecast or banking,” he said.
Stoltenberg’s comments echo those of the Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Lieutenant General Scott Kindsvater, who presented a space briefing before the Committee last month. “Space is part of our daily lives,” he warned, “It is therefore important that we are vigilant and resilient – also in space”.
NATO’s decision to adopt space as an operational domain is in line with decisions already made by a number of countries, including those already party to the treaty. In August this year, Washington launched the US Space Command to oversee off-world military operations; the Command’s leader, four-star Gen. John Raymond, describing space as a “warfighting domain.”
in SpaceX to support its plan to deliver hundreds or thousands of micro satellites into a low (750 mile) orbit around the globe to serve Internet to rural and developing areas of the world. The Information's sources indicated that Google was in the “final stages” of investing in SpaceX and valued the company at “north of $10 billion.” SpaceX is apparently courting other investors as well.
Elon Musk indeed has a Google-sponsored card up his sleeve.
It is highly likely that the Trump administration will move to have the U.S. deploy weapons in space. If this happens, it will be profoundly destabilizing, setting off an arms race and, also likely, leading to war in space. For decades there’s been interest by U.S. administrations—the Reagan administration with its “Star Wars” plan a leading example—in placing weapons in space. But that has alternated with some administrations more-or-less opposed, the Obama administration an example.
"One idea that has kicked around for decades is a system that would consist of a tungsten projectile and a navigation system. Upon command, these ‘rods from God’ as they are poetically called would re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and would strike a target, even one in a superhardened underground banker, at 36,000 feet per second, obliterating it.”
Paul Craig Roberts via Ria Novosti: "The new sanctions announced by Washington and Europe don’t seem to make much sense. I would be surprised if Russian oil and military industries were dependent on European capital markets in a meaningful way. The Russian companies should be able to secure adequate financing from Russian Banks or from the Russian government. If foreign loans are needed, Russia can borrow from China."