[ExI] China to Own the Moon by 2027

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2012-04-04 08:29, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> If you have launching facilities you can retaliate by a hail of
> tungsten at high Mach.

Note that retaliation ground-orbit and ground-ground is actually easier 
than orbit-ground, since you need to provide enough delta-v to make an 
Earth-intersecting orbit (and in orbit you will tend to be reaction-mass 
poor). You don't drop things from orbit, you have to throw them very hard.


> And since having the Moon means having access to the entire
> Solar system you could go out, and divert something bigger.
> Like few km boulders, precision-guided, or even a 10 or 100 km
> object.

Big boulders are hard to accelerate, so you will throw them at normal 
orbital speeds closely along their natural orbits. This means they will 
take years to arrive.


-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford University