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If someone ever wanted to understand what a space force might provide, consider what happens when someone wants to use one of the lagrange points for their own

If someone ever wanted to understand what a space force might provide, consider what happens when someone wants to use one of the lagrange points for their own purpose, and it's currently occupied by someone they don't like. There's more to what any military force brings, obviously, both positive and negative. It's just sometimes when discussing the purpose of a military with others, the concept seems a little too fuzzy because most resources seem broadly available enough that they could easily be shared from a laypersons perspective. Lagrange points are very finite. edit: apparently the area contained within a lagrange point is larger than I expected. Negates my point.

pohl 5y ago
How would a space force take possession of a lagrage point, though, without creating a permanent field of dangerous debris?
- xyzzyz 5y ago
  Rendezvous, attach booster, and deorbit, or just fly away?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- simcop2387 5y ago
  Only reasonable way at the moment would be some kind of satellite capture system that nobody has publicly demonstrated.
- cgriswald 5y ago
  None of the ideas in the sibling comments (to my post) will work, because they ignore the fact that enemies will employ counter-measures which may cause debris to be formed. In the extreme case, a nation's military may decide to deny the area to anyone rather than lose their own access, intentionally creating such a debris field.
  - ericbarrett 5y ago
    You'd have to fill the volume of at 25,000 Earths (or more, that's just my napkin math), where orbits aren't stable for more than a year or two, with enough debris to hit something a few meters across. No using explosions to do this either because debris with more than a few m/s aberrant velocity would be ejected from the Lagrange point even faster. Seems unlikely.
    - cgriswald 5y ago
      The entire thing is unlikely. I'm just pointing out that you can't claim space 'cleanly' when your adversaries are actively opposing your claim. To play devil's advocate further though: As the 'defender' you likely don't need stable orbits. A year or two of denial might buy you what you want. You also don't need to ensure a collision against a single small target, you just need enough debris to make use of the area cost prohibitive in terms of risk.
- m4rtink 5y ago
  AFAIK Lagrange points are not fully stable, so any debris cloud will likely disperse into the Solar orbit, which is kinda big.
ziotom78 5y ago
You make it look as if one should stay exactly on the Lagrangean point to appreciate its benefits. The reality is that spacecrafts fly on very large orbits around these points: the Planck spacecraft followed a 400,000 km-wide orbit [1] around the Sun-Earth L₂ point, and this is the same for many other spacecrafts that have flown around that place. 400,000 km is ~30 times larger than the Earth's diameter. Unless somebody has nasty intentions like e.g. purposefully crashing their own spacecraft against some other, there is no reason to be worried. There is more space around these points than here on Earth. [1] https://sci.esa.int/web/planck/-/34728-orbit-navigation https://sci.esa.int/web/planck/-/34728-orbit-navigation
WaxProlix 5y ago
I don't think there's much ambiguity around a military's utility in forcefully enclosing the commons, or claiming extranational resources at gunpoint. I suspect people who are leery of a 'Space Force' have other reasons to feel that way. And I'd hope there are other ways of managing the sharing of things like Lagrange points than outright violence (though I suppose some body must have the capability to employ force or else any agreements made would be easily violated, yadda yadda).
jakeinspace 5y ago
You don't need to reach the exact Lagrange point and reduce your velocity relative to it to 0. James Webb will be orbiting the Sun-Earth L2 with an apogee of nearly a million miles. There is a ridiculous amount of room for craft to orbit L2, just like there is to orbit Earth (beyond LEO).
- bdcp 5y ago
  Also there are other satellites at L2 already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_points https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_po... It's really a none issue
cgriswald 5y ago
The United States Air Force started off as a division of the United States Army Signal Corps. It didn't become its own branch of the military until after 40 years and two world wars. Lack of a "space force" doesn't mean lack of military capability in space.

pohl 5y ago

How would a space force take possession of a lagrage point, though, without creating a permanent field of dangerous debris?

xyzzyz 5y ago
Rendezvous, attach booster, and deorbit, or just fly away?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
simcop2387 5y ago
Only reasonable way at the moment would be some kind of satellite capture system that nobody has publicly demonstrated.
cgriswald 5y ago
None of the ideas in the sibling comments (to my post) will work, because they ignore the fact that enemies will employ counter-measures which may cause debris to be formed. In the extreme case, a nation's military may decide to deny the area to anyone rather than lose their own access, intentionally creating such a debris field.
- ericbarrett 5y ago
  You'd have to fill the volume of at 25,000 Earths (or more, that's just my napkin math), where orbits aren't stable for more than a year or two, with enough debris to hit something a few meters across. No using explosions to do this either because debris with more than a few m/s aberrant velocity would be ejected from the Lagrange point even faster. Seems unlikely.
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    The entire thing is unlikely. I'm just pointing out that you can't claim space 'cleanly' when your adversaries are actively opposing your claim. To play devil's advocate further though: As the 'defender' you likely don't need stable orbits. A year or two of denial might buy you what you want. You also don't need to ensure a collision against a single small target, you just need enough debris to make use of the area cost prohibitive in terms of risk.
m4rtink 5y ago
AFAIK Lagrange points are not fully stable, so any debris cloud will likely disperse into the Solar orbit, which is kinda big.

ziotom78 5y ago

You make it look as if one should stay exactly on the Lagrangean point to appreciate its benefits. The reality is that spacecrafts fly on very large orbits around these points: the Planck spacecraft followed a 400,000 km-wide orbit [1] around the Sun-Earth L₂ point, and this is the same for many other spacecrafts that have flown around that place. 400,000 km is ~30 times larger than the Earth's diameter. Unless somebody has nasty intentions like e.g. purposefully crashing their own spacecraft against some other, there is no reason to be worried. There is more space around these points than here on Earth. [1] https://sci.esa.int/web/planck/-/34728-orbit-navigation https://sci.esa.int/web/planck/-/34728-orbit-navigation

WaxProlix 5y ago

I don't think there's much ambiguity around a military's utility in forcefully enclosing the commons, or claiming extranational resources at gunpoint. I suspect people who are leery of a 'Space Force' have other reasons to feel that way. And I'd hope there are other ways of managing the sharing of things like Lagrange points than outright violence (though I suppose some body must have the capability to employ force or else any agreements made would be easily violated, yadda yadda).

jakeinspace 5y ago

You don't need to reach the exact Lagrange point and reduce your velocity relative to it to 0. James Webb will be orbiting the Sun-Earth L2 with an apogee of nearly a million miles. There is a ridiculous amount of room for craft to orbit L2, just like there is to orbit Earth (beyond LEO).

bdcp 5y ago
Also there are other satellites at L2 already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_points https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_objects_at_Lagrange_po... It's really a none issue

cgriswald 5y ago

The United States Air Force started off as a division of the United States Army Signal Corps. It didn't become its own branch of the military until after 40 years and two world wars. Lack of a "space force" doesn't mean lack of military capability in space.