War in orbit???

> >
> > As for the ball bearing idea, you would literally need billions
before
> > it becomes a significant problem. One of the problems studied at
AIMS
> > and found to be insignificant was the 'artificial' meteors created
by
> > the mass drivers. All the mass used to move material from the moon
to
> > the colony would end up as earth orbiting debris that could be a
> > hazard for the colony. The results showed that with a billion
tonnes
> > orbiting the earth, you will get one broken window every 3 years.
> >
> The AIMS study is for unaimed debris. In a conflict, the ball
bearings
> would be aimed. The study's assumtions are invalid.
>

The assumptions still hold. Even though the debris in question can be
aimed, the colony can also be moved out of the way. A colony even in
earth orbit would have to be in high earth orbit. Any missle, debris,
etc would have a one week flight time from earth take off to hit the
colony. By that time, counteractions could easily be made. And if we
are taking about debris, sending them in a spiral orbit to earth is a
lot easier then the other way around.

The reality is that any conflict with a space based power would
quickly escalate to nuclear levels. As far as I know the human race
has never fought and survived a full scale nuclear war. For a colony
destroying the surface of the planet is a real option, because they
don't live there.

>
> Nonsense. As mentioned before, even a hollowed out asteroid will
have
> large, fragile power and/or thermal systems which can be destroyed
by
> well-aimed 'debris' and kept down by repeated attack. No colony can
survive
> without power and/or thermal control for long (a few days, perhaps).
>

That is the kind of systems that would have real defense systems from
random debris even if they are at peace.

> Since the colony originally came from Earth, my WAG is that Earth
would have
> significant space capabilities. It's true that today's Earth would
have a
> hard time fighting tomorrow's colony, but tomorrow's Earth might not
be such
> a pushover. Of course, today's colony has no military capability
whatsoever
> (actually, it doesn't even exist). Finally, when faced with a
threat, the
> 10 billion+ people of Earth will probably come up with effective
weapons,
> they have consistently done so for thousands of years.
>

You are now talking about an earth with significant space
capabilities. The original assumption was can a small group with there
own space capabilities effectively wage war against the earth. I have
argued that they can hide the capabilities long enough to establish a
colony, and could be a real threat to TODAYS earth.

Bill