They had a aircraft cannon attached to the Salyut 3 in 1974. No longer active of course.
I'm just pointing out that other countries are not afraid of weaponizing space- we are simply behind and at a disadvantage if we don't. Especially since satellites play an important role in military and civilian infrastructure.
How, exactly, are we at a disadvantage? We can rain destruction on any point on the Earth's surface, and have proven technology for shooting down satellites (and inevitably bringing down our own because suddenly there are billions of new objects in orbit from destroying 1 satellite.)
Where are the gaps? Do you anticipate an alien invasion? If so, we'd be fucked. Do you think the <insert current trendy US enemy here> has some secret space technology to turn the entire US into a parking lot instantly, and somehow we have to put $35bn BB guns on satellites to combat it?
There are reasons why they gave up the idea of having weapons in space. Weapons in space are very expensive and dangerous. And they can be easily destroyed. Currently there are no serious weapons that can be useful in space.
No, they just took a normal weapon and mounted it.
> dangerous. And they can be easily destroyed
Literally all mounted weapons can be described like this.
> Currently there are no serious weapons that can be useful in space.
Absolutely incorrect. The US has deployed laser-based weapons since the early 2000s. Used for missile defense mostly. As you can imagine, they perform well in the vacuum of space.
>>Absolutely incorrect. The US has deployed laser-based weapons since the early 2000s. Used for missile defense mostly. As you can imagine, they perform well in the vacuum of space.
Can you provide an example of a laser weapon(s) that can actually shoot down ballistic missile or cruise missile in real life scenario?
The best that current laser weapons can do is to shoot down drones from relatively close distance. [1]
Another issue with laser weapons in the space is powering them and maintaining them.