Dale.Amon@H.CS.CMU.EDU (11/11/86)
OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa: A useful power sat is a fragile structure of very thin girders and solar cells and/or large solar concentrators for Rankine cycle or other type generators. They are literally huge and very flimsy by the very nature of what they do: maximize collecting area and minimize mass. Nobody interested in making a profit is going to build them any other way. I'm really amazed at your level of paranoia. Did the USA turn around and conquer Britain? No. It wanted left alone to go it's own direction. The same will happen at a space settlement, which is very vulnerable to outside attack*. Protection by rock would be limited to that necessary to stop particles from the direction of the sun. None of the various designs would hold up long against concerted attack, if the attackers didn't care if they killed most everyone. A takeover could be quite difficult if you wanted to take live prisoners. * Note: except for a lunar settlement, which could be near invulnerable to even a concerted NUCLEAR attack. You might have to take out each building seperately. But then, it has a gravity well, so it's not really the high ground you speak of. A battle station is a VERY different proposition. A non rotating structure buried in a sphere of rock and slag, with passages to bring replacement weapons and sensors to the surface after they get blasted off. Think of the difference between the hardness (and price) of a cadillac versus that of a battle tank with Chobham armor. The caddy might eat a Volkswagen strike, but it won't handle anything SERIOUS. And even if you do harden everything, fight the war and get someone to surrender (without having an army that can stand up when it lands, or knows how to deal with mosquitos, killer bees, thunderstorms, mud, etc), you then have to keep 7 billion people under thumb somehow. How? The Russians can't even keep an empire together (they've got some 7-8 revolts against them around the world) and they are here, they have an army HERE, they have an army that knows how to live HERE, and they aren't afraid to use any amount of force or deadly gas that comes to hand. How do you propose that a bunch of colonists are going to pull off this coup? I find it an utterly ridiculous concept. I think you've been reading too much Starship Troopers. There is really no chance they would attempt an attack on the other OTHER THAN TO REMOVE THEMSELVES FROM ITS GRIP OR THREATS. People on frontiers look outwards, not backwards. The ones you have to worry about are the patriotic military forces from Earth wanting to hold Earth-Moon space for mother (pick your favorite super power) ______ in order to make the Earth safe for (pick your favorite ideology) ________. All things considered, you are probably safer if they ARE independant. If you want to hypothesize some far future time (500 years or so) when the population density out there is such that there are aged cultures spread around the system, ones whose energies are not entirely taken up by building and surviving and expanding, then there might be some credence to your worries. However, at that late a date, it won't really matter WHERE they are based, because with a fusion drive, you can move the whole damn thing. But why would you move a city closer when all you really want to do is send your weapons to dominate the high ground? And I'm still not sure that I see any gain worth the cost. It just doesn't seem feasible to conquer 7 Billion individuals. Easy to kill a lot of them off, but not so easy to leave anything intact that will make the attempt worth the cost. And as to selective forces, I strongly suspect people will adapt to low or zero gravity, possibly in only a few generations. Most people, after having been up long enough to stop tossing their cookies have preferred it. The choice may be one way: once you adapt you can't EVER go back. Children born in low gravity (the moon for exasmple) may likewise never be able to visit a high gravity planet, or would simply not be interested in the huge effort required to get in that kind of physical condition. Simple power has very rarely been the only, or even a major driving factor behind war. Most wars are caused by religion, scarce resources, fear or rebellion against an oppresor. I'm hard pressed to think of any major confrontations in the last 2000 years that was mainly for power, other than Kenghis Kahn and Adolf Hitler. And if a power crazed maniac comes along, it probably doesn't matter where he starts out. The result will be the same.