Hi Valery Once again we are in substantial agreement :)

Re 3 Geopolitical Consequences. I have the same opinion that there is almost a zero chance that the major powers and probably minor Nations too, as most are aligned with the majors and vote according to the lead of their major ally ,will endorse any 3rd party to have nuclear weapons in space particularly if they have them exclusively even if it acquires Nation status at a later date. The only credible option I see is an International body for the control of a weapons platform similar to the ISS with China who is absent coming into the program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PoliticsoftheInternationalSpace_Station Meanwhile major powers continue to weaponise space in their own National interest and the USA appears to want to maintain and increase it's dominace in this field using space debris and recently Near Earth object preparedfness as a justification the former being a more immediate problem that needs a solution

" The 2011 National Security Space Strategy declared, “Space is vital to U.S. national security and our ability to understand emerging threats, project power globally, conduct operations, support diplomatic efforts, and enable global economic viability.”

Maintaining the benefits afforded by space is central to a wide range of U.S. national interests" I cannot see them giving that up in favour of Asgardia or anyone else without a fight. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43353.pdf

and recerntly as posted elsewhere on forum the USA appears to want to go solo on this despite it's calls for international co operation as I suspect they believe it is in the National interest , they will be the major source of funding and are ahead of the curve with a serious competitive advantage in this area so again It will be almost impossible to have them give that up in favour of 3rd parties https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-white-house-strategy-preps-earth-for-asteroid-hit-scenarios/

Re 2 Strategy I have read a number of articles that strongly suggest blowing up asteroids is not the way to go propellant being the current favourite and will add links later . However it seems that the immediate threat is actually space junk and non nuclear weapons of some kind could be useful in this regard.

Re 1 The statistic risk may be underestimated and is certainly debatable. The moon has a surface area of 38 million km2 while Earth is 12x as large with 500million km2. The moon has 5,185 craters of 20km + wide and 1 million 1km plus wide. https://lovethenightsky.com/many-craters-moon/ Given that the Earth has 12 x larger surface area + stronger gravity could we extrapolate to estimate that Earth has had 12 x as many hits or 60,000 catastrophic hits and 12 million very serious hits? Still long odds but reduces the 10km crater odds from 1 in 100M yrs to considerably less? Whichever is nearer there is a need for a space platform with some type of offensive ability but the concept of international co operation, using AI control systems and relinquishing National interest particularly if you have spent $billions to be leaders in the field is a really big ask. An intersting article and good read from 2,000 trying to put both the optimistic and pessimistic side of the argument/risk ... from page #3 " Even if a billion people are cooked by asteroids over a million years, he says, "The total number of people who will die in that time is in the trillions." The danger of dying from an impact, he says, is "comparable to flying an airplane, it's about the same risk." http://whyfiles.org/106asteroid/index.html

How will Asgardia bring China , Russia and USA together to co operate under an international organisation? The UN path is currently highly suspect given Trumps open critisism of the organisation. Make another toothless, unenforcable agreement/treaty which major powers ignore? We need a credible strategy for this and must realise that this is a decade/s long endeavour with no quick fix

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I was of the understanding that the effectiveness of nuclear weapons in space is pretty limited. The majority of the damage from a nuclear weapon is trom the atmospheric shockwave. No atmosphere = no shockwave.

Wouldn't it then follow that the possession of nuclear weapons by a space based nation would be viewed with great skepticism as to the intent for their use?

This reaction would most likely be the same for any weapons system dedigned to deal with space based threats: Turn them Earthward and you have a potentially devestating weapon of mass destruction.

Asgardia is going to need research teams of fully qualified professionals in all the disciplines before any of its ideas become workable.

As Scarbs says. Using nukes in space is a bit useless. There are many other methods with a better effect.

A better option for example would be a giant laser. And this laser would need to be placed on the dark side of the moon. This way it would make it impossible for the laser to target anything on earth. So no country should have a problem with it being there.

But if you want to talk about nukes. The role that i could see for us is that of nuclear missle prevention. We could announce that any nuclear missle will get destroyed so that no country can shoot them at each other.

We need to investigate in weaponry more powerful than nuclear weapons.

We already have technologies more powerful than nuclear weapons. This isn't a productive use of resources, however, as these things are only possibly capable of destruction.

As a way to provide massive kinetic transfer to an otherwise potentially hazardous asteroid(PHA) then it can hardly be described as a "weapon". PHA 2002 NT7 represents a low probability of impact with the Earth, not even featuring on JPL's "upcoming close approaches to Earth" table - 2017 BB7 comming alarmingly closer, and three times the distance to the moon - and sooner. And that's just this time around, with how orbits work our paths cross again. Using kinetic transfer to move it this time is an effective last-ditch solution, it's unlikely to be a long term fix and require to happen again, and again, each time you do so making more and smaller lumps to track/mitigate. It's making so much more sense to steal these things and mine them to nothing.

It is a good job that they made here debating their approaches, which I imagine, based on a previous research and / or their knowledge in the field. I continue to note that they try to impose their concepts which only limits their reasoning abilities to possible alternatives such as this time with the theme of nuclear warheads, a subject of which I do not have much more information referring to the propulsion, I do not know If anyone here is aware of the diversion of matter by water? In more I only have to comment that they do a very good job but they lack that predisposition of cooperation to carry out tasks as important as those in this post are raised and under a margin of military type that is inadmissible. I hope not to offend anyone with this last comment which should be taken as constructive and aimed at improving. For my part I will continue reading your post as well as I have made it known hoping to contribute, perhaps much - perhaps little, in this nation project! Respectfully Air Force Soldier Parachutist Fusilier, Edgar Issael R. Sánchez Alcocer.

Actually nuclear weapons are effective in space, just not as effective as it would be in on a planet, but I think that's a bit much and this time I have to I agree with EyeR and scarab