"The Growing Risk of a War in Space" Topic

"…long checklist of strategic U.S. space assets, disabling the nation's military capabilities from above. It is a Pearl Harbor above the atmosphere, an invisible first strike.

"The emptiness of outer space might be the last place you'd expect militaries to vie over contested territory," Lee Billings has written, "except that outer space isn't so empty anymore." It is not only science fiction, in other words, to suggest that the future of war could be offworld. The high ground of the global battlefield is no longer defined merely by a topographical advantage, but by strategic orbitals and potential weapons stationed in the skies above distant continents…"
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Amicalement
Armand

There will be war in space.

Many of the sci-fi books I read back in the day said so, and they can't all be wrong.

Yep, only a matter of time.

"Defending the high ground" will be rather difficult, since in space, there's no where to hide, or run, in most cases, unless you're near the moon, or agile, and very, very, very small and stealthy.

"Many of the sci-fi books I read back in the day said so, and they can't all be wrong.

Yep, only a matter of time…." (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

As long as it doesn't go nuclear, I don't see anything different or worse since how war has been planned since the 1960's.

Even a non-nuke war in space would be devastating.

We have so much space junk floating around from launches, dead sats, and space weapon tests that it's getting hazardous just to operate a civilian satellite. A full war in space would endanger all sorts of satellites, especially LEO imaging and comm satellites. GEOs wouldn't be as threatened from incidental debris but if targeted their loss would be huge.

If you like using your debit card at the gas station, using GPS to find your way to your kid's soccer game, looking at satellite images of Google earth, or getting a weather report for next week's cookout then even a limited space conflict will ruin your day. The economy would also take a serious hit in areas such as logistics optimization.

Already understood that.

If you aren't already aware that the next war between world powers would involve attacking civilian communications, financial, and utilities infrastructures, you would find out quickly.

Sadly true…

Amicalement
Armand

So maybe we should try to work towards having the last war on Earth rather than the first war in space. Wouldn't it be better to defy human nature rather than defying gravity?
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Sadly, you will have better luck changing the law of gravity, Rod.

Lion in the Stars:
"Dark energy" and possibly accelerated expansion/inflation of the universe IS changing the theory of gravity as we live! So if gravity can change, why not humanity? Easy, no but possible, a hopeful yes.
Ecce in pace amaritudo hominem mundum.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

If there is a way for humans to kill each other in any environment … we will … we will find a way. always have … It's very much human nature, it seems to me.

All any ETs have to do is pick up our daily TV news signals or TV shows. They will learn quickly, even if they would come in peace … They see how we treat each other. They may not want to risk how the "primitive" humans will react to a real Aliens.

Or not want to commit genocide on an entire planet of what they might consider, what we would call "monkeys" or "chimps" … They'd put out a buoy saying … "Stay way … these humans are mindless killers."