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Interesting, but ridiculous. Why build such a moon base when you could easily fly in a spaceship and destroy it without the effort of actually landing and build

by chj 13y ago

Interesting, but ridiculous. Why build such a moon base when you could easily fly in a spaceship and destroy it without the effort of actually landing and building on moon?

ChuckMcM 13y ago
Ok, follow that line of reasoning for a bit. In order to destroy a Moon base, you have to get to it to destroy it. That takes time, up to several days if you don't have a favorable launch window from your launch pad. Next you need a pre-text. I'm going to assert that it is a reasonable assumption that the Moon base is presenting as either entirely docile (scientific research etc) or entirely hostile (sending rocks at the planet). If its the latter taking out the handful of launch facilities is pretty straight forward which prevents any future attack from that vector. If its the former, well your attacking country needs to come up with a reason why they are flying what is no doubt a nuclear warhead, in the guise of a satellite toward the Moon. Then there is terminal control (targeting at the site). So you may know in general what facilities are on the Moon from an initial landing point, but if the base has existed there for any length of time all bets are off. Also making the initial establishment on the dark side would force an adversary to first orbit the moon trying to identify your base, and then de-orbit into an attack orbit. During its orbit your attack device will be vulnerable to orbiting defensive satellites which probably also play the role of communications relay which justifies them in lunar orbit in the first place. My point is that mounting an attack on the Moon from the Earth is much more difficult and expensive than mounting an attack on the Earth from the Moon. Because the moon has a much shallower gravity well and the Earth has a much wider variety of targets which are more easily threatened. The US and Soviets understood this although the technology to implement it was so expensive neither could afford to carry through. The cost of the technology has come way way down and once again there is another country putting its hat in the ring as 'superpower.' In a weird way, that means someone is going to the Moon, to create a permanent installation. My thought is that the US is like the hare in the story of the tortoise an the hare, confident in its ability to make that happen if it becomes necessary.

by chj 13y ago

Interesting, but ridiculous. Why build such a moon base when you could easily fly in a spaceship and destroy it without the effort of actually landing and building on moon?

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Ok, follow that line of reasoning for a bit. In order to destroy a Moon base, you have to get to it to destroy it. That takes time, up to several days if you don't have a favorable launch window from your launch pad. Next you need a pre-text. I'm going to assert that it is a reasonable assumption that the Moon base is presenting as either entirely docile (scientific research etc) or entirely hostile (sending rocks at the planet). If its the latter taking out the handful of launch facilities is pretty straight forward which prevents any future attack from that vector. If its the former, well your attacking country needs to come up with a reason why they are flying what is no doubt a nuclear warhead, in the guise of a satellite toward the Moon. Then there is terminal control (targeting at the site). So you may know in general what facilities are on the Moon from an initial landing point, but if the base has existed there for any length of time all bets are off. Also making the initial establishment on the dark side would force an adversary to first orbit the moon trying to identify your base, and then de-orbit into an attack orbit. During its orbit your attack device will be vulnerable to orbiting defensive satellites which probably also play the role of communications relay which justifies them in lunar orbit in the first place. My point is that mounting an attack on the Moon from the Earth is much more difficult and expensive than mounting an attack on the Earth from the Moon. Because the moon has a much shallower gravity well and the Earth has a much wider variety of targets which are more easily threatened. The US and Soviets understood this although the technology to implement it was so expensive neither could afford to carry through. The cost of the technology has come way way down and once again there is another country putting its hat in the ring as 'superpower.' In a weird way, that means someone is going to the Moon, to create a permanent installation. My thought is that the US is like the hare in the story of the tortoise an the hare, confident in its ability to make that happen if it becomes necessary.