> You only need to pop up to 300 miles, hang in space for a moment, and let the satellite crash into you.
In the article's scenario, that's 300 miles and an indefinite timespan where you're being continuously burned by a megawatt to gigawatt-class laser that can penetrate meters-of-amor per second.
An ASAT weapon is pretty small. It can be launched from a small platform like a fighter jet and produces nowhere near as much light and heat as an orbital rocket or an ICBM.
Most likely it hits you before you know what hit you.
If there's one thing I've learned from ToughSF & Project Rho, is that you'd better run the numbers before you say anything like "a missile boosting into orbit will be hard to see and hit you before a laser reduces it to smithereens".
In the article's scenario, that's 300 miles and an indefinite timespan where you're being continuously burned by a megawatt to gigawatt-class laser that can penetrate meters-of-amor per second.