The U.S. set off a nuclear bomb in space in 1962

Unless a few multi-megaton nukes can take out ALL of the LEO satellites at once.

I kind of don't think Starlink would be a big target at least until they have satellite to satellite comunication; if they get multiple hops in space communications working and especially it can be used from end-user to end-user without spaceX ground stations, then satellites become a target. Otherwise if you want to disrupt communications, the SpaceX ground stations are in known (or knowable) locations and easy to target.

But, if you did attack the satellites, I suspect you'd do something MIRVish, so assume 10ish strikes per launch, and there's some number of strikes less than the fleet that ruins the orbits for everyone for a few years.

All that’s needed is a debris field to render the orbit unusable for decades.

Surface based missiles would suffice.

Not at all. The easiest way to take down Starlink is with ground-based lasers. Superpowers already possess this capability.

This comment struck me as hilariously American. "We". "The bad guys".

If it's one-missile per satellite, that could be true. Even at that rate, without the need to orbit, I believe a plane mounted missile could reach up to a Starlink satellite. However, there are a lot more effective ways. A cloud of debris it could take out whole orbits. An EMP could take out giant swaths of satellites within a certain radius. A software based attack could knock out the whole constellation.

Should be in retrograde orbit to work better in that orbital plane.

This bucket of nails isn't related to a USSR satellite, but was theorised by Arthur C. Clarke.

>2 For the origins of Clarke’s “bucket of nails” argument; Clarke gave the speech “Where is Mankind Headed?” on May 25 1983 for the Reader’s Digest Worldwide Editorial Conference. In the conference’s summary “Memories of Monaco,” Clarke’s speech was described as follows: “After dinner, Arthur Clarke, the noted British science-fiction writer, spoke on ‘The Militarization of Space.’ To put nuclear war into perspective, he quoted a chilling statement from Carl Sagan: ‘A full-scale thermonuclear exchange would be the equivalent of World War II, once a second, for the length of a lazy summer afternoon.’ Clarke went on to demonstrate that there’s no security in technology, concluding that the only defense is to prevent weapons from being used. Thus, the problem is political, not military. At one point, he described how a sophisticated, multi-billion-dollar laser weapon system could be destroyed by a bucket of nails,” see “Memories of Monaco from Reader’s Digest Worldwide Editorial Conference,” May 21-28, 1983, Folder 4, Box 144, Arthur C. Clarke Collection (Acc. 2015-0010), Air and Space Archives, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 14-15.

From: https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/398410/Th... [PDF]

The easiest way to take down Starlink is with ground-based lasers. Superpowers already possess this capability.

a lot is made of MAD, but it has to be remembered that both sides' own people (scientists, soldiers, generals) were largely and painfully aware that thermonuclear war would have likely been excessively disastrous, regardless of whether the other side could shoot back. This was already fairly clear after bombing Japan, to people who had the right information, but over the subsequent 20 years it became widely understood. While politicians saber-rattled, their own subordinate hierarchies often recoiled in horror. When even scientists start going "well, we probably shouldn't learn more about that", you know you're on the edge of existence.