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Originally Posted by Wombaticus Rex
^^Don't you think 2-D metaphors fall a little bit short for an omnidirectional, unprecedented exploration effort?
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Exploration of the New World was quite unprecedented in its day. The analogy stands.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wombaticus Rex
I guess to an extent we're speaking different languages, since most of the DoD/DARPA push is to weaponize space, which is mostly unmanned sattelites.
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Since the DoD and DARPA represent a small fraction of overall spaceflight dollars per annum, and precise none of the policy aspects of it, I'll sleep without worry tonight. Weaponizing space hardly turns the entirety of the sky above into a battlefield. Military planners are delusional to think even a thousand satellites in orbit with weapons represents any form of dominance, the volume of territory we're talking about is unbelievably large. A series of satellites, even with the kind of englobement that the GPS net represents is an insignificant overall threat. The effective range of the weapons currently available for use cannot cover sufficient volumes of space to make them even a minor threat. Consider the recent post that went over the energy requirements for relocating the Hubble space telescope from its current orbit to an ISS compatable orbit. The level of complexity and the timeframe involved in such a transit renders any conventional mode of ballistic attack virtually pointless, because the average tracking resolution of ground based radar can detect inbound threats and the intended target can easily dodge anything coming for it. Explosive require a medium of transfer (i.e. an atmosphere) to impart damage through overpressure, so area effect weapons aren't going to impress anyone either. Directed energy weapons have headaches with beam attentuation and available power generation capabilities in the satellite to give it enough punch.
The antiballistic intercept system being developed in the US is something of a gauze wall because even when deployed, it will not be able to stop a saturation effect series of launches of hostile ICBMs.
Warfare in space for the forseeable future is going to be a LOT like naval warfare in the age of sail. I wouldn't expect Star Wars/Star Trek level battles for quite some time.