Does the Moon Have Military Value? 332
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."
Whatever gets the space program more funding... (Score:5, Interesting)
Divert some of that ridiculously high military funding toward space programs, as much as you can spare!
The moon? No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Low Earth Orbit? Yes!
Military wants the high ground, and in terms of Earth-focused warfare the most you need is LEO. Lunar puts you 3 days out at Apollo speeds, and at the bottom of a gravity well (even if it is significantly weaker.) LEO puts you over any potential target every 90 minutes and less than a day away from resupply.
Until you've got strategically valuable positions in space between the Earth and Moon, the Moon itself will hold no value militarily.
Re:Whatever gets the space program more funding... (Score:5, Interesting)
Funnily enough, it could very much be not just strategic but also of value as a raw source of minerals.
It would give a military somewhere to put whatever the fuck they want:
Dirty nukes?
Toxic weapons?
Not to mention the ability to do research on virus strains as weapons without any fear of the subject 'getting loose'.
Now, throw in the fact that china are being very cagey of late about letting anyone have a share of their rare minerals and the moon becomes more use further, both for mining as well as a staging point for asteroid mining, with a much lower requirement on vehicles needing to leave its surface in regards to escape velocity.
Give me some science reports and a few half-whacko strategists and I am sure I could write up a few hundred pages of document as to why it must be seized immediately, if only to deny 'the enemy' the chance :)
Yeah, tons of speculation, but I have a few cups of good Earl Grey in me, there's not much else to do at this stage.
Hells yea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever read Heinlein? Lots of good/bad ideas. Rocks are easier to throw downhill. So are nukes. Lots of nefarious uses you could put it to if you wanted.
Strategically, it's the equivalent of taking the castle on top of the hill...much easier to fight invaders coming up, and to reign death down upon anything lower than it.
But like that castle, it is in a precarious position in that supplies can be cut off...
The moon is a harsh mistress. (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need nuclear weapons from the moon, nor toxic weapons either. Apparently the moon has a rich supply of these mysterious city-killing weapons called "rocks" which, when catapulted out of the moon's gravity well naturally fall into Earth's. The Earth's gravity operates on the mass of the rocks, accelerating them to great terminal energy - enough to look as much like nuclear weapons as makes little difference. Done with sufficient precision, or simply enough quantity, it should be more than enough force to get the Earth to capitulate. Scary thought: the entire moon is made up of these disastrous weapons of mass destruction, which require no fine art to deploy. I read a book about it once, a long time ago. Wish I could remember the title.
Odd note of geek trivia: the "Toynbee Tiles" enigma is precisely about this.
"Unsinkable Carrier" (Score:5, Interesting)
I am reminded of the Battle of Midway, where Midway island was thought of as an "unsinkable carrier" and the plans for defense included heavy use of the airstrips on the island. The island was also far from resupply or support. Once the battle started, the Japanese, who knew exactly where Midway was, bombed the hell out of it. The primary strength of aircraft carrier is their ability to move; when properly used they're hard to find even while employing their airpower in combat. The moon, I think, is analogous in both the unambiguous location and difficulty of resupply.
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, if we get nuclear fusion operational, that might not be too far from the truth. An ideal fusion fuel, Helium-3, is found on the moon in absurd quantities (due to it's constant exposure to solar radiation), and can literally be scooped up from the ground (ironically the richest deposits are surface, or just-below-surface deposits : no digging required, a spoon will do).
The advantage of Helium-3 ? It fuses without neutron radiation. This means no radioactivity has to be evacuated from the fusion reactor. You could eat the fusion products (after cooling them) and no harm would befall you.
A small scoop of helium-3 in a fusion reactor would produce enough power to transport all of humanity off the earth (by contrast, all the oil in the world could barely move a million people into orbit).
The helium-3 total on the moon contains enough energy, so that if released through fusion it could heat up the earth by 10.000 degrees. All the oil that ever was in the ground was barely enough to heat us (at least directly) 0.0001 degrees. And, the best part, suppose we strip-mine the entire moon blank, after 2 years we'll have another 20 cm of Helium-3 to mine.
So it would basically mean unlimited, "renewable" (as renewable as solar power at least) energy supply for the foreseeable future.
Re:Whatever gets the space program more funding... (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference is that sinking a ship in the ocean doesn't hurt anything but blowing up something in orbit only turns one orbiting object into many orbiting objects. Imagine the ocean being 30 feet deep. A sunken ship is a hazard to every other ship just like a destroyed satellite is a hazard to other satellites.