Space war: battleships or castles?

[Rhinocrates]

This is highly speculative. In much of sf, war in space is conceived as analogous to naval or aerial warfare. However, I think that that is very unlikely.

Let us assume that economically viable settlements have been established thoughout at least some of the Solar System. Because they are economically and culturally significant (since many conflicts are based on cultural dominance), various corporate, national, multinational, whatever organisations consider them worthy of defence, neutralisation, or acquisition.

How might military force be projected in space across interplanetary distances? This includes direct offence/defence and deterrence.

Space is transparent and stealth is very improbable - a good telescope and an AI will spot a mere glint and track its source and trajectory. Distances are so great that it takes months or years to get anywhere. Weapons as we know them now are of limited use - over realistic distances, kinetic weapons would be effective, but easy to dodge. DEWs are not effective over long distances (hundreds of kms) as beams eventually spread. They would however be effective as defence against kinetic weapons spotted at close range. X-wings, Vipers, and whatnot are not serious.

The model of deterrence rather than tactics might be effective - that is, establishing 'castles.' A space castle is a concentration of force near (within hundreds of kms) a coveted or defended asset. It has the power to control, threaten, or potentially destroy that asset and its existence in plain sight is key to its deterrent power. Its mobility (beyond its orbit) is less important.

Or would the real warriors be lawyers, spies, and diplomats (human and AI)?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2HH7J-Sx80

In Spaaaaace!

 

[Archibald]

Iain Banks had an interesting take about the whole thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture

Otherwise : wormholes can solve the time and distance issues, at least partially. And then you have: The Expanse.

 

[Dilandu]

So to summarize, we have two concurring doctrines:

* The doctrine of warfighting - when the emphasis is put on the mobile force capable of force projection (that is usually based in safe rear, since it's imperative to save it from Pear
Harbor style first strike)

* The doctrine of deterrence - when the emphasis is put on deterrence force designed to launch a devastating counterattack against enemy strategic objects (and therefore placed near such object)

P.S. I think the more correct would be "battleships or boomers", since the second doctrine is close to what boomer submarines do; deter by the threat of devastating counterstrike.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Space War Intro - Atomic Rockets

projectrho.com

 

[Michel Van]

Otherwise : wormholes can solve the time and distance issues, at least partially. And then you have: The Expanse.

Or the Honorvers by David Weber
Who Novels are textbook on Space Warfare

Allot issues of Perry Rhodan feature Space Warfare
But since the Perryvers has own laws of hyper-physic
Most there weapons and stuff is not transferable to classic Space Warfare.
like FTL Weapons vs 5 Dimensional-Shield

 

[Byeman]

Space is transparent and stealth is very improbable - a good telescope and an AI will spot a mere glint and track its source and trajectory.

not true.

 

[Michel Van]

not true.

my last update on THERE AIN'T NO STEALTH IN SPACE see link
has something change over years ?

Detection - Atomic Rockets

www.projectrho.com

 

[Dilandu]

Allot issues of Perry Rhodan feature Space Warfare
But since the Perryvers has own laws of hyper-physic
Most there weapons and stuff is not transferable to classic Space Warfare.
like FTL Weapons vs 5 Dimensional-Shield

But you must admit, that it's extremely cocherent fictional physical model) And the power of transform-cannons before hyperspace dampening event was truly awesome) Thousands of gigatons shots as standard ammo of even small units, fired to lightminutes distance... PR authors clearly HAVE understanding of scale)

 

[Dilandu]

my last update on THERE AIN'T NO STEALTH IN SPACE see link
has something change over years ?

Not much, mainly the same arguments.

P.S. Albeit I'm not completely sure about "decoys are useless" part. After all, no one forbade us from deliberatedly worsening our ship engine output (for example, diverting part of exhaust to sides), to throw off enemy energy-thrust-mass measurement calculations.

P.P.S. In one of my own sci-fi concepts, I toyed with idea of "how to make decoys work". I came with the idea of "distortion field" - essentially a low-grade space-time warp field (a byproduct of FTL engine development) that could be spread over greater distances... but only affect a nearly-massless objects. Like photons) It can't trap photons, or something; it merely slighly change their parameters. So the image of the object inside the field became... distorted. The farther from the center of the field, the more distortion accumulate till the field became too weak to affect even photons.

Essentially:

* From long range, you could only see a big, featureless blob of heat emissions. You could easily calculate the total amount of heat, but hardly anything more. You can't say, is there an enemy armada, or merely one tiny decoy drone that just PRODUCE HEAT as its only function.

* If you came closer (say, several light-minutes), you would be able to discriminate individual heat sources inside the field and their individual emissions. You still can't say what exactly you see; just how many heat-emitting objects are there. It may be enemy armada; or a swarm of decoys. Or several warships surrounded by decoys, to make the impression of the force being bigger.

* And only if you came really close (lightseconds range), the light started to get to you un-distorted enough, so you could finally understood what exactly are you dealing with.

So the overall concept, is that neither side could be exactly sure where enemy forces are and how many are them. The decoys are cheap; even the small warship could carry several dozens of them (so even if you, say, managed to put recon drone close enough to the enemy force to scan it - the enemy could just change trajectory a bit and launch a cloud of decoys on different trajectory. And you again would be forced to guess or recon.

(sorry for a long sci-fi rant, but I just love this particular concept. Copyrighted, by the way)))

 

[Michel Van]

But you must admit, that it's extremely cocherent fictional physical model) And the power of transform-cannons before hyperspace dampening event was truly awesome) Thousands of gigatons shots as standard ammo of even small units, fired to lightminutes distance... PR authors clearly HAVE understanding of scale)

The Transform cannon is one way matter transmitter, who send something true hyperspace to destination.
But is unable to materialise correctly at target, the Humans in Serie use this "issue" to send modified hydrogen bombs,
faster as speed of light to a target were it explode more violent as normal.

On the defence side are 5 Dimensional-shield like the Paratron who is from of lightning conductor,
who transfer the enemy weapons energy into Hyperspace.

What let to arms race from the 22th to 35th century, about calibers of Transform cannon from 500 GT to 6000 GT (Gigatons metric)
and improvement in Paratron energy shield technology...

 

[Dilandu]

The Transform cannon is one way matter transmitter, who send something true hyperspace to destination.
But is unable to materialise correctly at target, the Humans in Serie use this "issue" to send modified hydrogen bombs,
faster as speed of light to a target were it explode more violent as normal.

Yep! I love the concept - it's very organically written in how hyperspace & matter transmitter worked in PR)

P.S. To clarify - Transfrom cannon was invented by Posbis, humans borrowed the concept & improved it mainly in rate-of-fire and accuracy terms.

What let to arms race from the 22th to 35th century, about calibers of Transform cannon from 500 GT to 6000 GT (Gigatons metric)
and improvement in Paratron energy shield technology...

If I recall correctly, the original Posbis design was capable of 1000 GT max. The ultrabattleships of GALAXIS-class, produced since Masters of the Island crisis, were already armed with 6000 GT cannons?

(seems I should re-read the first cycles, I forgot some details)

 

[Michel Van]

If I recall correctly, the original Posbis design was capable of 1000 GT max. The ultrabattleships of GALAXIS-class, produced since Masters of the Island crisis, were already armed with 6000 GT cannons?

The CREST III got 60 Cannons with 1000 GT in year 2404.
The MARCO POLO got also 60 Cannons, but with 4000 GT in year 3437.
While the SOL got Cannons with 6000 GT in year 3540.

 

[The K2]

While we’re talking about science fiction, I’d like to bring up this starship and the design philosophy behind it:

http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/pdf/specials/Special%203%20-%20U.S.S.%20Vengeance.pdf

 

[Dilandu]

While we’re talking about science fiction, I’d like to bring up this starship and the design philosophy behind it:
http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/pdf/specials/Special 3 - U.S.S. Vengeance.pdf

The "design philosophy" always follow the function & available technology.

 

[Rhinocrates]

The Infinite Improbability Drive seems to be the perfect defence as well as transport since it can turn attackers into sperm whales and bowls of petunias, but how high can you get the TRL? I'm interested in what could be used to protect, neutralise, or acquire assets over interplanetary scales according to laws as we know them now.

 

[Antonio]

As Archibald already pointed, from my limited Astronomy knowledge, referring to orbital and inside the limits of a star system, the Expanse would be the most realistic and accurate description to date.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Given that any fight close to the structures you're trying to protect will likely see missed shots and battle debris damaging or destroying them, it makes sense to take the fight to the enemy in a meeting engagement. Both sides would want to fight well clear of the important structures, so it's not just the defenders trying to force an interception and the attackers wanting to press on (in most cases).

This means fleets and meeting engagements, assuming nobody is throwing stealth spacecraft around.

my last update on THERE AIN'T NO STEALTH IN SPACE see link
has something change over years ?

Detection - Atomic Rockets

www.projectrho.com

Yes, there's a couple of solidly reasoned options for relatively decent thermal and radio-frequency stealth.
1) "hydrogen steamers" https://www.projectrho.com/public_h...#039;t_No_Stealth_In_Space--A_Dissenting_View

2) "ATOMSS" http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2018/04/permanent-and-perfect-stealth-in-space.html

In both cases, but especially in the case of the ATOMSS, the idea is to drop the thermal emissions of the ship down to the noise floor of the cosmic background radiation or close to it.

You'd still be vulnerable to detection via eclipsing stars due to motion, though. But it's not easy to build up an optical track only from "hey, that star blinked out for a moment"

I've also run across a third option for "stealth" but it involves hacking the sensors so that they don't report the presence of something, or report it in a different location. This came from Jay Posey's OUTRIDERS novel. (I strongly recommend it, great story)

 

[Dilandu]

Both sides would want to fight

Assuming that both sides want to fight. If at least one side want to deter the other, then it actually make sence for her to place deterrence assets as close to enemy structures as possible.

 

[Michel Van]

On Star Trek's ships like U.S.S Enterprise or the U.S.S. Vengeance
They have issue to be more like Navy Ships in Space, but that works not wo well...

in Perry Rhodan series humans build spherical Battle Spaceships.
Advantage less expose surface and they rotate there weapon system better to enemy.
Those who attack the humans, with cylindrical Battle Spaceships, learned hard way not to engage them...

 

[Dilandu]

in Perry Rhodan series humans build spherical Battle Spaceships.
Advantage less expose surface and they rotate there weapon system better to enemy.
Those who attack the humans, with cylindrical Battle Spaceships, learned hard way not to engage them...

Well, humans didn't actually invent kugelraumer design... they "borrowed" it from Arkonides, who inherited it from Lemurians.

 

[Rhinocrates]

You'd still be vulnerable to detection via eclipsing stars due to motion, though. But it's not easy to build up an optical track only from "hey, that star blinked out for a moment"

Not yet...

Just a cloud of guesses. First, Ukraine and Israel has shown that many initially innocuous technologies can be weaponised - obviously drones and pagers. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of hand to hand combat with eggbeaters now.

The sort of technologies used in astronomy to spot occultations and map galactic superclusters can be used for surveillance within the Solar System, along with that used to track junk in Earth orbit.

Gaia (spacecraft) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Euclid (spacecraft) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Tracking of near-Earth asteroids is only going to improve too.

Also, there is so much junk in orbit and already thousands of satellites used for Starlink, GPS, and their emerging competitors, astronomers will have no choice but to develop software that will filter out false positives. The Vera C Rubin Observatory, which is intended to perform highly detailed all-sky surveys would need this.

Vera C. Rubin Observatory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Now, what AI is very good at is drinking from a firehose - of information, I mean. Take Wide-Area Persistent Surveillance such as Gorgon Stare, for instance.

Gorgon Stare - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Couple passive sensors a couple of decades ahead of what we have now, with AI likewise ahead of the present state of the art, and both developed for civilian and scientific use as much as military, a stochastic 'Solar Panopticon' assembling various glints and sparkles into a map of all significant active spacecraft and their trajectories is not unlikely. Targets will initially be given long cones for their expected trajectories, which become increasingly narrow as observations accumulate. Algorithms will assess their threat levels. These techniques can be applied to cubesats, space junk, meteoroids, asteroids, exoplanets, comets, and military assets.

'Stealth' doesn't mean 'invisible', it means 'low probability of being observed.' Over time, proability of being obderved inevitably increases. A stealth bomber on its way to a target has to avoid being seen for hours. A stealth spacecraft has to avoid being seen for months or even years. I don't think that's feasible. Moreover, no spacecraft that is active can emit just 3K permanently, so it will stand out against the cosmic microwave background for at least some time. If its radiators are aligned with one line of sight, that will help, but if two sensors are looking at a region of space from different angles, one will spot the heat discharge.

I can imagine that some heat dump could be conducted by a means other than a 2-D radiator panel such as a 1-D laser, but I don't know of any research in this direction.

That brings up another issue: radiator panels are fragile and indeed, spacecraft are fragile - and very expensive. You don't need to blow a spacecraft up to accomplish a mission kill - simply shred the radiators with buckshot. If you kill a mission, you set your opponent back months at least and very likely years.

The way around all this, I guess, might be the potential weaponisation of ostensibly civilian assets, which might not be possible due to political and legal restrictions in anticipation of precisely such a scenario. Still, right now we're seeing Putin's application of maskirovka or 'masked war.'

That said, I think wars will be fought in space and I'm wondering how. My guess is that sf is wrong in thinking that it will be like aerial or naval warfare and that it will be more like espionage, taking months or years of preparation, seconds of execution, and then another extended period for consequences to become clear, mainly in the political and economic spheres.

 

[Dilandu]

A stealth bomber on its way to a target has to avoid being seen for hours. A stealth spacecraft has to avoid being seen for months or even years. I don't think that's feasible. Moreover, no spacecraft that is active can emit just 3K permanently, so it will stand out against the cosmic microwave background for at least some time. If its radiators are aligned with one line of sight, that will help, but if two sensors are looking at a region of space from different angles, one will spot the heat discharge.

Well, it may be feasible for boomer-type deterrence platform - basically passive missile carriers, that only supposed to wait patiently, doing nothing, until the order to launch came. They wouldn't be completely "cold", of course (the nuclear warheads would still produce some heat) but probably could be cold enough so their heat could be dissipated very covertly.

 

[Rhinocrates]

OK, here's an idea for a semi-stealth radiator.

You pump heat into some sort of storage medium until it can take no more. The radiator is something like a shallow truncated double pyramid or cone (like an hourglass, say). The flat surface of the truncation is the radiator while the slanted sides of the pyramid or cone are reflectors. When you're reasonably sure that nobody's looking on a specific axis, you orient it along that axis and pump coolant through the heat sink and the radiator, which for a while gets really hot. Repeat as needed. During combat, you fold the whole thing away and hope that the heat sink can cope as long as you need. At this point, stealth is pointless, so use other means and bugger low observability - ablation, venting coolant, whatever. Maybe the cloud of vapour will even act as a defence.

 

[Dilandu]

You pump heat into some sort of storage medium until it can take no more. The radiator is something like a shallow truncated double pyramid or cone (like an hourglass, say). The flat surface of the truncation is the radiator while the slanted sides of the pyramid or cone are reflectors. When you're reasonably sure that nobody's looking on a specific axis, you orient it along that axis and pump coolant through the heat sink and the radiator, which for a while gets really hot.

Hm. The problem I see is that storing a large amount of heat for prolonged time without any emissions leaking out would be... problematic. It could be done, of course, nothingbimpossibke here, but it would require really complex multi-layered actively cooled isolation system that would trap heat emitted by inner levels and store it in outer layers. Basically it would be like trying to sneak quietly while carrying a boombox playing loud inside soundproof box. The size and complexity of the box at some moment would start to hinder you more than sound.

 

[Michel Van]

Issac Arthur on space Stealth

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdPgI7rsQHM


Issac Arthur on space Battle

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LolF5iI3xEs

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTMxO1nJaA4

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvs_f5MwT04

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mw1r3FnHBo

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8y45fEiviI

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bgW_-GQVUY

 

[Scott Kenny]

Not yet...

Just a cloud of guesses. First, Ukraine and Israel has shown that many initially innocuous technologies can be weaponised - obviously drones and pagers. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of hand to hand combat with eggbeaters now.

The sort of technologies used in astronomy to spot occultations and map galactic superclusters can be used for surveillance within the Solar System, along with that used to track junk in Earth orbit.

[...]

Couple passive sensors a couple of decades ahead of what we have now, with AI likewise ahead of the present state of the art, and both developed for civilian and scientific use as much as military, a stochastic 'Solar Panopticon' assembling various glints and sparkles into a map of all significant active spacecraft and their trajectories is not unlikely. Targets will initially be given long cones for their expected trajectories, which become increasingly narrow as observations accumulate. Algorithms will assess their threat levels. These techniques can be applied to cubesats, space junk, meteoroids, asteroids, exoplanets, comets, and military assets.

Agreed here.

'Stealth' doesn't mean 'invisible', it means 'low probability of being observed.' Over time, proability of being obderved inevitably increases. A stealth bomber on its way to a target has to avoid being seen for hours. A stealth spacecraft has to avoid being seen for months or even years. I don't think that's feasible. Moreover, no spacecraft that is active can emit just 3K permanently, so it will stand out against the cosmic microwave background for at least some time. If its radiators are aligned with one line of sight, that will help, but if two sensors are looking at a region of space from different angles, one will spot the heat discharge.

I can imagine that some heat dump could be conducted by a means other than a 2-D radiator panel such as a 1-D laser, but I don't know of any research in this direction.

Superexpansion rocket nozzle that reduces the exhaust temperature down to 3-5K.

That said, I think wars will be fought in space and I'm wondering how. My guess is that sf is wrong in thinking that it will be like aerial or naval warfare and that it will be more like espionage, taking months or years of preparation, seconds of execution, and then another extended period for consequences to become clear, mainly in the political and economic spheres.

Yes, that's certainly the likely answer.

Well, it may be feasible for boomer-type deterrence platform - basically passive missile carriers, that only supposed to wait patiently, doing nothing, until the order to launch came. They wouldn't be completely "cold", of course (the nuclear warheads would still produce some heat) but probably could be cold enough so their heat could be dissipated very covertly.

That's basically the ideal mission profile for the Hydrogen Steamer. Also, if we're talking planetary bombardment, no nukes required.

OK, here's an idea for a semi-stealth radiator.

You pump heat into some sort of storage medium until it can take no more. The radiator is something like a shallow truncated double pyramid or cone (like an hourglass, say). The flat surface of the truncation is the radiator while the slanted sides of the pyramid or cone are reflectors. When you're reasonably sure that nobody's looking on a specific axis, you orient it along that axis and pump coolant through the heat sink and the radiator, which for a while gets really hot. Repeat as needed. During combat, you fold the whole thing away and hope that the heat sink can cope as long as you need. At this point, stealth is pointless, so use other means and bugger low observability - ablation, venting coolant, whatever. Maybe the cloud of vapour will even act as a defence.

You can use superexpansion nozzles to dump the coolant, get thrust out of it, and the coolant temp at the nozzle will be 3K.

Edited to reduce quote size.

 

[Dilandu]

Also, if we're talking planetary bombardment, no nukes required.

Only if projectiles are massive enough or fast enough. Stealth platform could hardly carry either.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Only if projectiles are massive enough or fast enough. Stealth platform could hardly carry either.

You did see the size of the conceptual Hydrogen Steamer, didn't you? Payload area 117m long and 3m in diameter, 1000 tonnes of total payload mass. The whole ship is 2.5km long!

 

[publiusr]

There was a time when mil-space advocates thought big:

"A Vision of the Future": Military Uses of the Moon and Asteroids (1983)

The story of spaceflight told through missions and programs that did not happen - that is, the great majority of them.

spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com

Now, it’s this:

Space Force defends plan to buy smaller, cheaper satellites to reinforce GPS

The program known as “Resilient GPS” faces congressional skepticism

spacenews.com

Ugh….Elon, you’re my only hope

 

[Scott Kenny]

There was a time when mil-space advocates thought big:

"A Vision of the Future": Military Uses of the Moon and Asteroids (1983)

The story of spaceflight told through missions and programs that did not happen - that is, the great majority of them.

spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com

That was when they had the entire USAF budget to play with.

Now, it’s this:

Space Force defends plan to buy smaller, cheaper satellites to reinforce GPS

The program known as “Resilient GPS” faces congressional skepticism

spacenews.com

Now, Space Farce is to the USAF what the USMC is to the Navy: A tiny fraction of the budget! And a much tighter focus on what they need to do, which is why you see plans like "Instead of buying 20x $1bn satellites, we're going to buy 2000x $10mil satellites."

 

[publiusr]

That was when they had the entire USAF budget to play with.

Now, Space Farce is to the USAF what the USMC is to the Navy: A tiny fraction of the budget!

I know—that and the loss of ABMA does this to my blood pressure:

Palmer-Thing

The Palmer-Thing was a Thing which assumed the form of Palmer, an American mechanic stationed at U.S. Outpost 31. The creature appeared in the 1982 film The Thing. In a bid to determine the identity of the remaining crew of U.S. Outpost 31, R.J. MacReady developed a rudimentary blood-test...

thething.fandom.com

 

[Byeman]

I know—that and the loss of ABMA does this to my blood pressure:

The army and the military no longer needed ABMA. They only needed a group to deal with Pershing, ATGMs, SAMs and ABMs. There is no way the military could keep Von Braun busy.

 

[Byeman]

That was when they had the entire USAF budget to play with.

Now, Space Farce is to the USAF what the USMC is to the Navy: A tiny fraction of the budget! And a much tighter focus on what they need to do, which is why you see plans like "Instead of buying 20x $1bn satellites, we're going to buy 2000x $10mil satellites."

No, the USAF siphoned off funds from space programs or put them at lower priority. Much like the CAS mission for the Army. Now the budget is fenced off and more integrated with the NRO.

 

[Byeman]

There was a time when mil-space advocates thought big:

Ugh….Elon, you’re my only hope

And they were wrong. More smaller spacecraft is more robust architecture than a few large ones. Satellites only need to be big when physics demands the sensor to be big. Mirrors don't need to be bigger than 3-4 meters.

The moon does not make a good military base for earth defense,

 

[Rhinocrates]

And they were wrong. More smaller spacecraft is more robust architecture than a few large ones. Satellites only need to be big when physics demands the sensor to be big. Mirrors don't need to be bigger than 3-4 meters.

The moon does not make a good military base for earth defense,

A rationale I've heard for basing strategic weapons on the Moon is that they'd be only useful for a retaliatory strike and therefore offer more stable deterrence. Anyone on Earth planning a first strike would have to take out the lunar battery, launching literally days in advance and therefore giving notice, while anyone on the Moon planning a first strike on the Earth would face the same problem. This only applies to confrontation on Earth, but the principle of 'distant deterrent' might be broadly applicable if the second-strike weapons could be immune to interception en route.

They needn't be nuclear, by the way. Spacecraft are so inherently fragile that custard pies would be adequate, considering orbital velocities.

 

[Scott Kenny]

No, the USAF siphoned off funds from space programs or put them at lower priority. Much like the CAS mission for the Army. Now the budget is fenced off and more integrated with the NRO.

Not when the USAF was talking about Orion-powered battleships.

 

[uk 75]

Apart from satelites in Earth orbit I cannot see anything worth fighting for in space.
Control of Earth's orbital space is not easy to achieve without triggering conflict Earthside.
I think that is why the US and Soviet Union were able to negotiate various limits on military use of space.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Apart from satelites in Earth orbit I cannot see anything worth fighting for in space.
Control of Earth's orbital space is not easy to achieve without triggering conflict Earthside.
I think that is why the US and Soviet Union were able to negotiate various limits on military use of space.

Till the first asteroid-load of Iron and everything else arrives.

"Yeah, this asteroid is about 75% iron. The rest of the mix ends up being a really nice grade of stainless steel, essentially. We have a million tons of the stuff RIGHT NOW. Nevermind the 10ktons of gold we found."

 

[Rhinocrates]

Till the first asteroid-load of Iron and everything else arrives.

"Yeah, this asteroid is about 75% iron. The rest of the mix ends up being a really nice grade of stainless steel, essentially. We have a million tons of the stuff RIGHT NOW. Nevermind the 10ktons of gold we found."

Or rare-earth 'strategic minerals'. People worry about China monopolising those.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/business/china-critical-minerals-semiconductors.html

It's one reason why investors are looking at seabed mining. Materials like iron are heavy and consumed in large quantities and therefore expensive to move. The mining and trade of minerals locked up on earth might justify the costs with relatively small masses transported, rather like the spice trade.

 

[martinbayer]

A rationale I've heard for basing strategic weapons on the Moon is that they'd be only useful for a retaliatory strike and therefore offer more stable deterrence. Anyone on Earth planning a first strike would have to take out the lunar battery, launching literally days in advance and therefore giving notice, while anyone on the Moon planning a first strike on the Earth would face the same problem. This only applies to confrontation on Earth, but the principle of 'distant deterrent' might be broadly applicable if the second-strike weapons could be immune to interception en route.

They needn't be nuclear, by the way. Spacecraft are so inherently fragile that custard pies would be adequate, considering orbital velocities.

The Moon would be a rather arbitrary location to stage strategic weapons, taking any potential international treaty restrictions into account, besides elementary physics considerations. Retaliatory nukes could (at least in my extremely limited understanding, so please, correct me if I'm legally wrong) theoretically be placed in any optimized Earth orbit without running afoul of any potential legal constraints as well as not having to crawl out of the lunar gravity well, but then again, I'm not a lawyer, and any informed feedback is more than welcome.