Space Battles & Physics

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The Iranians are insane and intend to commit genocide. That is their purpose of use for atomic weaponry. The USA, even though we used two atomic devices on two cities in Japan, we stopped when they gave in and decided to end the war as per cost-benefit analysis. When the Soviets copied our technology and also had atomic weapons, it was actually a good thing, and still is, as per the M.A.D. policy. Mutually Assured Destruction only works when all parties are sane and don't intend to start their version of the apocalypse.

Having nuclear weapons does not mean that they will be used to kill people. It is the intentions of those possessing the weapons which indicate their desired future use. Having a gun or a laser does not make someone a murderer. And what if the person carrying the marshmallows jabs the person with the gun in the trachea? You don't even need a tool to kill, just using hands will work.

Fine, you don't respect people who were awesome. Your loss.

I am not sure if you are referring to my views in particular, that I have no love of seeing things die personally, or if you mean a strawman version of Churchianity. But either way, I look upon the Romans and Spartans and their technology and weaponry and otherwise what and how they did things as I would look upon a chessboard. The weapons, such as the gladius, pugio, pilum, how they were used, the tactics employed, are fascinating. The courage of the Spartans is respectable also, though I don't like many of their elements of society or value on human life. I can see things as a game and understand how they worked together, regardless of the moral value of their actions.

The Iranians are no more insane than the Israelis or the North Koreans whatever you think of their society. Look how quickly the west respected the North Koreans when they fired off their atomics. If you believe having a gun is equivalent to being able to kill someone with your hands you are even more unrealistic than I had previously assumed and that's saying a a great deal.

To regard the social directions of the Romans or the Spartans as mere game ploys is so shallow an outlook as to be totally incomprehensive of the nature of societies.

How long has Israel had nuclear weapons? How many have they used? What is their stated intention of use for them, covertly or openly?

How long has North Korea had nuclear weapons? How many have they used? What is their stated intention of use for them, covertly or openly?

How long has Iran had nuclear weapons? How many have they used? What is their stated intention of use for them, covertly or openly?

How long has Russia had nuclear weapons? How many have they used? What is their stated intention of use for them, covertly or openly?

How long has the USA had nuclear weapons? How many have they used? What is their stated intention of use for them, covertly or openly?

I would have to agree that the Romans were well on track for building a more enlightened technological society. One stumbling block of theirs was the legal concept of a half truth. Had their society lasted longer they could have refined it past these absolutes. They could have formulated much more just laws, continued their inventions such as aqueducts, forced air heating, indoor plumbing, transportation/message systems.. and so on.

Fine, you can respect or disrespect the societies for their morality and whatever socialogical aspects you like, and as a fan of strategy I'll respect them for their military achievements, technology, and general awesomeness. While you continue to twist my words like my contemptible stepdad does, and thus find someway to hurl yet more insults at me so as to proclaim how bloody wonderful you think you are, you just continue to promote your own view as rhetorically better acording to some undefined standard. Or worse yet, you hold your strawman version of Churchianity as my view and pretend that your attitudes are better in "my view" than mine.

Continue this as you wish. Your triumphalism can vaporize for all I care.

Your stepfather sounds interesting.

This website: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/

Yes, we can move industries to space. At current technological levels, it would be horrendously expensive; but interestingly, as this is done, it would, as a byproduct, generate the new technologies that would make it cheaper and easier to do.

Militarization of space is also possible, although militarization of anything besides planetary orbits would be kind of silly - space is BIG. ("You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space! Listen...") For the foreseeable future, weapons would almost certainly consist of missiles for long-range work, and bullets closer up, because we don't have really powerful beam weapons that could take acceleration well yet. Bullets would work in closeup engagements, because once you poke a hole in an enemy craft's hull, anyone not in a pressure suit has problems. Once we work out powerful beam weapons, the fact that they fire at or near the speed of light ("near" for collimated charged-particle beams) would obviate the need for missiles. If the first sign you have of a weapon's firing is that discharge's arrival at your location, you can't dodge...

Oddly, industrialization of space could well call for the peaceful use of nuclear explosives, either for Orion-drive spacecraft or for a similar technology for moving asteroids for smelting into useful ores. (Find the center of mass of the asteroid. Draw a line through it, from where it is to where you want it to go. Place a nuke directly opposite your destination. Move to a safe location, then set the nuke off. The asteroid will begin to move. The more times you do this, the faster it will move, with the added benefit that the crater will channel later explosions for increased efficiency. Remember that you'll need to do this again to make it stop at its destination, so don't use too many, or you could find yourself shattering the rock during deceleration - or worse, running out of nukes to slow it down with!)

Personally, I'd rather mine asteroids than Mars, as the delta-vee required to move the rock could work out to be less than that required to lift either refined ore or metals from the Martian surface. However, placing a manned outpost on Mars does have a certain psychological appeal...

Bullets are effectives in any range in space, getting you can aim correctly. But it will be insane to use them in planetery orbit because they could then became dangerous debris, then again so would be dangerous the debris of any destructed ships. For moving a asteroid it would be wiser to use nuclear engines rather that nukes, getting that you could manage to built such a engine.