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

Wonderful Plans said:
You're not considering what big industry and big corporate has already done and is already doing on scales greater than ancient Egypt. In the U.S.A. the government has to compete with big business to stay #1 and if it weren't for the military sector they would be badly beaten. If it can be done and a plan well modeled and the technology is possible and the money is there then there you go, they'll push through the plans as hard and fast as they can. It's trillions and trillions of dollars. Some asteroids have the potential to contain more of a single resource than all of the minable Earth.
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The trouble with Space Industry under that scenario is that its classic 'boot strapping'. There's no reason to mine minerals in space unless you have the demand for a large amount of space infrastructure to begin with and no mining of those minerals without the infrastructure.

In fact at the moment I can see only one space based industry that is likely to be both potentially viable and which could also (eventually) generate enough demand that spaced based mining/manufacturing becomes economical. And that is space tourism.

First though the cost per kilogram for launch has to continue falling. There will never be enough demand for 'bums on seats' while only millionaires and above can afford a seat on one of the new launch platforms. But if you can get it down to something approaching a first class airline ticket then there would be enough global demand that 'vacations' in orbital habs would become a big ticket item. More people in orbit = bigger habs with demand for more facilities. THEN demand for space mining and manufacturing becomes practical. And once it kicks off all the other options for space based industry become viable as well.

As for a pure 'space' war? Could happen but IMO at least for the foreseeable future seems extremely unlikely. Not only would it be horrendously expensive, it would be hard/next to impossible to hide. To many people watching and no way to magically contain the fighting to space if one side starts losing badly enough. So who attacked who first in a classic style military operation (vs say sabotage) is going to become public knowledge pretty quickly. Any sudden eruption of war in space would have to be linked to some kind of major conflict here on Earth, whereupon we all have bigger problems than who destroyed what moon base.
 
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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.
 
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DOR said:
What was the ROI on Lief Erikson's first visit to your neck of the woods?
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As OoE said, a colony. The same reason for pretty much all of the voyages of discovery in that era: Resources and Lebensraum.
 
DOR said:
So, for space exploration to be successful,
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You didn't ask about space exploration. You asked about old Lief.

DOR said:
the investors have to go along on the initial voyage, as colonists?
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The title of this thread is war in space. Is there anything out there worth going to war over.

DOR said:
I don't think so.
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How many investors are you are going to get with zero return for a money sink hole?
 
DOR said:
So, for space exploration to be successful, the investors have to go along on the initial voyage, as colonists?
I don't think so.
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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:

WABs_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?
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Officer of Engineers said:
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.
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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.
 
JRT said:
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.
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Yeah, but will it have frickin' laser beams on its head?

Sorry....
 
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'.
 
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Parihaka said:
The high ground
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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.
 
Great points raised earlier about potential future conflicts and resource mining in space, especially the strategic importance of the Moon. This article on Engelsberg Ideas expands nicely on that discussion by exploring the geopolitical implications and future of lunar exploration and competition over lunar territory and resources: https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/lunar-resources/.
 
Wonderful Plans said:
Where are some engaging and intellectual responses here? I think this subject is broad and fresh enough and relevant enough to warrant some deeper considerations. Any thoughts on the upcoming new chapter in human history? The huge and great space race. I personally think that whatever happens in the next 20 years of human occupation of space will decide the next course the whole of humanity will take.
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Watch or read The Expanse series. They have a version of warfare that is based on putting thought into it and is very different from Star Trek and Star Wars. In episode 4 of the 1st season (or in the book Leviathan Wakes) they depict warfare where these prisoners taken on-board a Martian ship (not aliens, colonists long ago from Earth that have become politically independent from Earth), one of them formally served in the Martian navy and he freaks out when he realizes the ship they're on he hears them firing rail guns. The emptiness of space makes firing actual bullets useless unless your opponent is close enough it becomes Close Quarters Battle (CQB).

I love The Expanse. Kind of killed Star Trek for me for potential space-based future.

As far as space stuff, I think Elon Musk's end goal is to create a community free of Earth-based government influence as much as possible. Kind of a real-life version of a Galt's Gulch: a SpaceX Company Town in Space. Ultimately it can't be free unless it could provide for itself. But he just got a President to essentially fund his company's research and plans to send people to Mars.

I don't think rest of the world matters other than China and Russia in space. Russia's occupied at the moment. China, we'll see. The ESA are going to follow NASA's lead. NASA's Orion capsule supposedly is going to bring us closer to a Moon-based version of the ISS. This is contentious in the community of people that care about such things on whether it can achieve that. The most 100% pro-space human exploration people seem to care a lot more about SpaceX.
 
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Wonderful Plans said:
I wasn't much of a Star Wars fan although I can appreciate the original movies and recognize them for their worth. Before Star Wars there was Star Trek, both scenarios seem unlikely but I can foresee that what reality will bring us with space tactics should be a balanced blend of the two concepts. Exploration and mining for resources versus territorial disputes and a scramble for tactical advantage over Earth from Space.

The Moon is of course number one on every space faring countries' list. In Ad Astra there is a battle portrayed between Moon cruisers and I would expect this sort of thing actually happening between two established Moon colonies be they corporate, private or governmental.

Personally, I don't think there will be an everlasting peace in space. Space craft are so delicate and combat so extremely easy in space that most two way combatants will end in mutual destruction. So, the tactics of success will be sneakiness and ambush and deception. We will have Russia, China, Japan, India and the U.S.A. as the largest contenders in space combat. The E.S.A. appears to be taking a more neutral role and I fear that they might get pushed out of the space race if Brexit is any indication of a near future E.U. split. And if so I would expect that emergent space agencies from a post-E.U. state would originate in France, Germany or Italy, perhaps jointly.

Corporate mining will be huge when they can start popping out the appropriate equipment at economical values. You got Virgin Galactic leading the private sector and talk of space hotels for tourists.

This subject seems broad and multi-fauceted. Any ideas anyone? What do you think of the space race of the mid-21st century?
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I predict we'll probably have a Lunar nation-state by the 2200s-2300s, however Mars is a bit more far-fetched, likely maxing out around 2 million in population. The Moon would be the only space colony capable of self-governance imo as Mars will be too dependent on either the Moon or Earth governments/economies to sustain. So a big Martian-Earthling war like in The Expanse is incredibly unlikely until we get into the thousands of years in the future. Possibly by the mid-3000's to early-4000's I could see a self-sustaining nation-state emerge from Mars or Titan to challenge earth, and even then Earth would still win I think.
 
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