4 ms·

This. Land-based missiles are far cheaper and more effective.

• dfox 9y ago
  Recently I've seen this quote: "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC And exactly this thing seems to be the major problem with essentially every space-related weapons platform other than ICBMs. Simply almost every such proposed system uses some expendable ammunition that is significantly more expensive to deploy or even just manufacture than what it is supposed to destroy.
  • bluGill 9y ago
    part of logistics is the ability to do something. It doesn't have to be practical for me to drop a heavy thing on you, I just need the ability to do it if you push me hard enough. If I'm governor of a space station I'm better off not turning half my space station into a bomb on your capital, but if you push my hard enough I might feel compelled to do that so you will treat me and my needs with respect.
    • dfox 9y ago
      Problem with this is that it has to be credible threat. Even when you would fill ISS with conventional explosives and somehow arrange for it to land on reasonably precise spot and explode on impact the damage caused will be many orders of magnitude smaller than what you would expedite to do all that (and this holds even when you take the expense as a fraction of relevant defense budgets instead of absolute values)