Star Wars

You guys are giving me the willies!

Are we going to be having "Duck and Cover" drills again?

I spent a good chunk of my youth thinking the Russians were going to bomb the snot out of us any second. Fortunatly my own children dont have that....(Ok commercial airliners scare the poo out of them ) WMD in space, under any pretense is scary....I don't want it. I don't want starwars because it opens the door to offensive weapons. When I look at the moon, I want to think green cheese, romance, H.G. Wells, and Harriman Industries. I don't know how we can do it. How we can stop it, verify it or any of that stuff. I am no dove. We have a need to be able to defend ourselves, and offend where needed. But please, no weapons, platforms, or bases in space, or on the moon.

Weapons in space is a disgusting idea. Explosions in space would add thousands more objects floating out there that we would have to track. The increased risk to the ISS and other manned flights is unacceptable. Do we want to stay stuck on this damn planet? (no there's nothing wrong with Earth but still)

explosions in space are virtually harmless unless they're very very close to a 'soft' target like a space station or ship. the heat and radiation mean very little, and even the shrapnel isn't really bad enough to do anything. note that close in space is different than close on earth. an explosion within a thousand kilometers is a viable threat to just about anything current if it has any meaningful power.

I agree that weapons in space are a grave concern. However, a greater concern is how can we respond to others who may put weapons in space if we do not have any capabilities in that arena.

All though out our history, peace has only been maintained by a strong defence force of some kind. While I would like to think we have learned from this, I do not think we have.

So it becomes imperative that we defend our assets (mechanical or human) in space. Exactly how and what level is sufficient, I have no clue.

Please note that the following is written by a die-hard capitalist who lives by the principles of free trade. Take that into consideration before you flame me.

There will be a military presence in space from the moment that free enterprise is permitted into space. The first man to make a profit in space will soon be followed by the first man to rip off somebody else in space. This will quickly degrade into a highly anarchic situation where one can do as one pleases as long as one does not offend (or underpay) the local officials. Open space will become as open water, the realm where the dregs of society rule.

That said, there's some damned good money in bounty hunting.

I wouldn't flame you for that fella. Someone will alway be making more money than someone else at what ever venture you look closely at. Space industries will be no different. It'll make for interesting times.

What of all this "buying property on the moon". If its not enforced then its pointless and enforcement of that sort means astronauts with guns.

Imagine what a single high velocity bullet would do to the space station.

*shudder*.

...and that's why you use armor plating...

While we are at it and talking about the future:

Thats why you use deflector shields. Armour plating is nigh impossible to get to orbit.

While we're talking about deflector shields, why don't you send me a couple blueprints? I'd love to see it.

I was not, and am not, joking or kidding in any way, shape, or form. As far as I'm concerned this is a reasonably serious debate. (note the reasonably -- I'm not taking any offense to what you said, just pointing out that I actually meant the whole armor plating thing)

And exactly what kind of moron will try to raise heavy metal armor to orbit, when there's plenty floating around on the Moon and in the Belt. Truck your happy ass over there, duct tape a rocket motor onto a 'roid, push it into roughly the same orbit as the space station, and voila! You have a full planetoid just brimming with raw materials.

No argument that I'm vastly over-simplifying this whole thing, but I don't happen to have a MSAE on hand to give me the equations. And in any case, you get the general idea. Oh, sure, it's expensive as all hell, but if you're building a battle-worthy space station, it's also a pretty good idea.

you also need defensive weaponry. in fact, that's probably more important than the armor plating. after all, a couple nukes won't even be slowed by something as pathetic as iron plating, and probably not by anything else you could get from the asteroid.

You wouldn't need to defend against nukes, because your Orbital Defence Systems would be knocking them out. Ha! I love the idea of towing an asteroid into orbit, hollowing it out, using the raw materials, introducing spin, and moving in.

Granted that nukes wouldn't even notice armor. But a railgun shell wouldn't even notice a laser defense system -- the shells are moving too fast for the lasers to target them. Active and passive defense are both necessary.



...
If you have an "Orbital Defense System", I think that's considered a defense against nukes... Or maybe it's just me... But yes, some sort of defensive weaponry (whether railguns or lasers) would be necessary.



It'd get fairly claustrophobic, and remember that you can't spin it at 1g. 0.5g would be the absolute max (for a big 'roid), 0.25g recommended.

Yeah, the spin might not be that great, but I guess that depends on the size of the asteroid you capture. There are some huge ones out there. Plus, to take a leaf out of Kim S Robinsons Mars trilogy, you could run a track around the inside, and spin an accomodation ring even faster than the asteroid it resides in. That ring would then have a great "gravitational feel" than the rest.

But we digress, I guess space habitats should be a different thread.

The problem of which appears to have at least partially solved by our friend RBFFFF.