War in Space, Space to Earth War, Moon to Earth War

[Officer of Engineers]

Timemark : 1:55

[Parihaka]

He's no Jedi.

[Monash]

The high ground

Only when there's something on (or in this case in) that 'ground' worth fighting for. You'd have to heavily militarize space and/or have a lot of valuable civilian capital located there before its worth fighting over and at the moment that's not the case. There's no particular reason to militarize space extensively when all the valuable assets are on the ground and readily reachable with the weapon systems you've already got deployed.

[Officer of Engineers]

The high ground

He's no Jedi.

[Parihaka]

The title of this thread is war in space. Is there anything out there worth going to war over.

The high ground

[Monash]

Doesn't matter where you want to go in the solar system or what you want to do once you get there the first step is having a 'critical mass' of activity in space and hence potential demand to justify the cost of getting there. And the first missions are always 'loss leaders' i.e. science missions that get paid for on the tax payers dime. That's not a bad thing but you won't get mass transit to location X until there's enough demand for whatever X has to make it profitable to go there. First step is always going to be getting lots of people into Earth Orbit 24/7. After that simple demand should generate venture capital to investigate retrieving and processing 'stuff' from the Moon and asteroid belt etc. The critical mass of people and capital equipment goes up again and the cycle repeats.

And it would be the same thing for Mars, science missions first but no large scale migrations until costs come way down & the potential benefits go way up! Even the colonization of North America only proceeded because simple demand/cost equations made it worthwhile (lots of demand, manageable if expensive costs/risks) .

The only other way to get it done would be for a certain command economy have its leaders say 'just do it'.

[Albany Rifles]

Some advocate for beam powered propulsion, for example some sort of offboard system directing a tight beam of powerful microwave EMF at the spacecraft from a distance (source could be a terrestrial power source, an orbiting system, moon based, etc.), converting that received EMF to electricity onboard the spacecraft and using that electricity to power the spacecraft including its electric propulsion system. Generate a plasma using that electric power and some onboard liquid hydrogen, and use a powerful magnet system to accelerate the plasma rearward on a steerable vector, impulses of low mass at very high velocity to steer and propel the craft forward.

Yeah, but will it have frickin' laser beams on its head?

Sorry....

[JRT]

Until we solve the fuel mass problem, ie we have to carry our fuel with us into space, this is all just purely speculative. The Return on Investment ain't there once you calculate in the fuel you need to get there and get back.

Some advocate for beam powered propulsion, for example some sort of offboard system directing a tight beam of powerful microwave EMF at the spacecraft from a distance (source could be a terrestrial power source, an orbiting system, moon based, etc.), converting that received EMF to electricity onboard the spacecraft and using that electricity to power the spacecraft including its electric propulsion system. Generate a plasma using that electric power and some onboard liquid hydrogen, and use a powerful magnet system to accelerate the plasma rearward on a steerable vector, impulses of low mass at very high velocity to steer and propel the craft forward.

[TopHatter]

So, for space exploration to be successful, the investors have to go along on the initial voyage, as colonists?
I don't think so.

I'm a little surprised at this response, DOR. I expect this kind of knee-jerk, simplistic, putting words in my mouth, sort of thing from a Trump follower, not you.

As OOE said:

You didn't ask about space exploration. You asked about old Lief.

The title of this thread is war in space. Is there anything out there worth going to war over.

How many investors are you are going to get with zero return for a money sink hole?

[Officer of Engineers]

So, for space exploration to be successful,

You didn't ask about space exploration. You asked about old Lief.

the investors have to go along on the initial voyage, as colonists?

The title of this thread is war in space. Is there anything out there worth going to war over.

I don't think so.

How many investors are you are going to get with zero return for a money sink hole?

[DOR]

As OoE said, a colony. The same reason for pretty much all of the voyages of discovery in that era: Resources and Lebensraum.

So, for space exploration to be successful, the investors have to go along on the initial voyage, as colonists?
I don't think so.

[TopHatter]

What was the ROI on Lief Erikson's first visit to your neck of the woods?

As OoE said, a colony. The same reason for pretty much all of the voyages of discovery in that era: Resources and Lebensraum.

[Officer of Engineers]

What was the ROI on Lief Erikson's first visit to your neck of the woods?

A colony.

[DOR]

But by its very nature, this has to be huge and a grand operation. To deliver the ROVER to Mars took over a $billion and all we got back are nice pictures and some measurements

What was the ROI on Lief Erikson's first visit to your neck of the woods?

[tantalus]

This is probably the equivalent of 1989 and the invention of the World Wide Web. A platform to innovate upon and difficult to predict the outcomes. Spacex have dramatically altered the cost of going to space through reusable rockets and now the second space era begins and it will be privately driven and market driven. As we well know, thats a powerful mechanism once applied to a space, pun intended.

There may very well be an explosion in Earth orbit applications which will dramatically increase economic activity in space.

The big question is the moon and the big unknowns are next gen tech that alters the calculus in ways we cant forsee. Perhaps helium 3 will be the key resource to fusion energy as many have predicted. There are good reasons to expect there is far more helium 3 on the moon for us to mine. That could single handely create a self sufficient lunar colony that the earth depends on. They may be able to produce rocket fuel from lunar ice and export it to orbit at far cheaper prices than on earth due to their lower gravitiational mass and mine rare minerals in lunar impact craters that have been left undisurbed or move asteroids to the moon orbit. They can make concrete as lunar soil has the right ingredients ans create large buildings to support tourism. Not to mention low gravity manufacturing and environmentally polluting industries if we ever externalise economic costs properly on earth and ESG investing reaches logical consclusions. Over time an economically dependent moon could thrive and lay the groundwork for a broader space faring society.

I would suspect that space war would be signficant impacted by cyber and earth based communication disrpution. It would be largely dominated by economic considerations and asymmetric realities, meaning small remote piloted or autnomous devices that are cheaper to build would damage large expensive and vulnerable infrastruture that is fixed or predictble orbits. This could allow terrorist organisations or smaller nations to have disproportionate impacts.