Does the Moon Have Military Value?

MarkWhittington writes "Despite the fact that under President Barack Obama's space policy, Americans will not be going back to the moon any time soon, discussions are occurring about what, if any, military value the Earth's nearest neighbor has. Opinions, as can be expected, vary on the subject."

Re:Whatever gets the space program more funding...

[JWSmythe]

    There's a pesky thing that the US and a few other countries (those with space programs, and those who wanted to play nice with the US, Russia, and China) have ratified named the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies", or simply "Space Treaty". One of the major points of it is the agreement that no one will militarize space.

    If anyone did militarize space, it would be nasty. It would either curtail all space exploration, or cause some pretty nasty wars. All the countries with space programs are very limited to what they can do right now. We can worry about nukes raining down from space, but for as much effort is involved, it could easily be eliminated at the cost of billions of dollars and a few lives. Consider if the shuttle were completely packed with any weapons. That would be a total capacity of approximately 8,400 pounds. Sure, it saves the required fuel capacity, but it's only the equivalent of a single Trident II warhead. It would still require fuel for it's deorbit burn. It's a lot cheaper and easier to have ground, sea, and air based deployment systems in place.

    If any country were to militarize space, they wouldn't have a distinct advantage, because there are too many traditional deployment systems in place that meet or exceed the capability.

    If, for example, the US did militarize space with the space shuttle, it wouldn't be long before future missions would be under threat of being shot down. Since too many countries depend on each other to make space missions work, it's not advantageous for any of them to create such a situation.

    But hey, if it'd get humanity back into serious space missions, maybe it's not a bad idea. Being that it's been decades since a human was any farther than just orbiting the Earth, it may not be all that bad. Well, until some country sets up a space based weapons platform. We have enough problems with the existing weapons systems, do we need to even consider having any more?

Re:The moon is a harsh mistress.

[WScottC]

Rah! Rah! R.A.H

This reporter Mark Whittington

[prakslash]

This reporter, Mark Whittington, is a Republican/Conservative reporter. Read any of his news reports on any issue such as the Gitmo prison, WikiLeaks, the financial regulations, the Ground Zero Islamic Center or the health care reform. He will start off bthis report by factually quoting a few people on either side of a given issue but will always slip in his opinion or editorial that is always pro-conservative and anti-Obama. You can check yourself by reading any of his reports. They are available by clicking on his name in the linked web page.

Even on this issue, notice the last paragraph written by him "The decision of the Obama administration to abandon the moon and apparent Chinese ambitions toward that celestial body has grave implications for the balance of power on Earth later this century." Oooooohh. Be very afraid.... Yeah, right! He is just like many other RepubliCons who hang out at the Weekly Standard or the National Review. They will will pick anything to bash the Obama administration.

Re:obligatory

[Sparx139]

*force choke* [xkcd.com]

I find your lack of original conversation disturbing.