Why one day or less? No military "missiles" are capable of anything but
suborbital capability. Using Titan Centaurs would work, but considering
the military industrial way of doing things, the loonies would see such
mobilization coming.
As for Earth... use those Saturns to put lots of missiles in
> terrestrial orbit. Then the Lunies are also at the bottom of a gravity
> well.
a few hundred miles up is still 238,500 miles away.
True, from Earth orbit you'd still need to give them a big kick
> to reach the Moon quickly, but you can get out of Earth's gravity well
> ahead of time.
But you are still talking about NO surprise capability. Surprise is
essential in a first strike. READ YOUR SUN TSU.
>
> And quite possibly frigates or bases would be put in *lunar* orbit.
> Better aim, and faster. If the energy isn't enough, use nukes. Not
> much to contaminate down there...
ANything put in lunar orbit would get shot at. A lunar Govt would
neccessarily declare lunar borders to extend to L1, L4, and L5 lagrange
areas, just as current earth borders claim to extend upward into space
forever (which is ludicrous, as that means we are trading territories
every minute!).
>
> } neccessarily be at least 6 feet under the lunar soil or rock surface.
> } Any inhabitable space would be an automatic bomb shelter. So even if the
> } Earth takes out your gun, you still have the rest of your infrastructure
>
> 6 feet isn't much protection in the kind of warfare we're talking about.
Sure it is. Read your 50's era directions on bomb shelter construction.
Lunar habitats far exceed these requirements. On the moon, while there
would be more damage in close proximity, with habitats being constructed
to handle in excess of 50% of the differential between vacuum and sea
level pressure, there would be less collateral damage.
>
> } and population. The Earth population, living in a society ignorant of
> } the concept of civil defense, would suffer great losses. In this
> } scenario, Mutual Assured Destruction would not be a viable strategem of
> } political gamesmanship.
>
> How do you know the population would still be ignorant of civil defense?
They are they have and they always will be. people would rather ignore a
problem hoping it will go away than rationally plan to deal with it.
> You're changing one factor and assuming all other stay constant, when
> the first change could well change other relevant factors. But whether
> civil defense is meaningful for a big and intraconnected target is
> debatable. A different problem is that the spacers may not be willing
> to engage in MAD against Earth. Earth has tons of people and the only
> natural ecosystem -- certainly of any complexity. Colonists *could*
> have an ornery 'screw-you' attitude, willing to wipe all of the above
> out for their own survival or independence; but they could also be much
> more reverent or 'moral', and find threatening 'wipeout' against the
> Mother World repugnant or unthinkable. Asimov's Settlers are as likely
> as Heinlein's Loonies.
Any lunar settlers would contain a high percentage of people who are
disposessed, alienated, exiled, as who would give up living on earth if
they didn't HAVE to? THink of this: a lunar settling corporation puts
together a deal with earth governments strapped with overpopulated
welfare rolls to take welfarees off their hands for a set fee. The corp
ships em to the moon and puts them to work shoveling dirt and growing
food. how many of these people would be PISSED at the earth for kicking
them out?
>
> Earth, by contrast, has the problem of wiping out a few thousand
> ingrates wielding a big gun on a dead world. Zap.
Sure, but you've got a population of highly "humane" leaders who dodge
drafts, hug trees, and avoid conflict when ever they can as decisive is
not a word in their vocabulary. While a sizable percentage of rabble
rousers would love to wipe out the ingrates, nobody would want to pay
for it.
And if enough welfarees are shipped up there, you'll have all of their
relatives marching on Washington for picking on minorities on other
planets.
-- TANSTAAFL!!!Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ President retroman@tpk.net Northstar Technologies Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com Inventor of the Lorrey Drive Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com
Website: http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/ Now Featuring: My Own Nuclear Espionage Agency (MONEA) http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/MONEA1.htm MIKEYMAS(tm): The New Internet Holiday http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/mikymas1.htm Transhumans of New Hampshire (>HNH) http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/TRANSHNH.htm ------------------------------------------------------------ Transhumanist, Inventor, Webmaster, Ski Guide, Entrepreneur, Artist, Outdoorsman, Libertarian, Certified Genius. ------------------------------------------------------------ If I saw further than others, it is because I had an unjoggled view from standing on my own two feet. - Mike Lorrey