Does the Moon Have Military Value?

MarkWhittington writes "Despite the fact that under President Barack Obama's space policy, Americans will not be going back to the moon any time soon, discussions are occurring about what, if any, military value the Earth's nearest neighbor has. Opinions, as can be expected, vary on the subject."

Comments

Whatever gets the space program more funding...

[mykos]

Are you reading this, The U.S. Government? The moon is of endless strategic military value! You could be the most powerful military on earth if you had the most advanced space programs.

Divert some of that ridiculously high military funding toward space programs, as much as you can spare!

Re:Whatever gets the space program more funding...

[Kjella]

As for rare earth minerals, they're not that rare. Even the most expensive minerals only cost about $100k/kilo, meaning a $100 million dollar expedition - not even a Mars Rover - would have to bring back a ton in 100% pure form. And that needs to cover a full excavation, processing and launch system plus operating costs of such.

Something like gold is only $3k/kilo, so more like 300+ tons. It's doubtful you could turn a profit even if there were 24 carat gold bars lying on the moon surface waiting to be picked up. Maybe someday in the future we will become far more desperate for this, but most likely it's cheaper to exploit every vein, dig up every land fill and recycle every last gram rather than try getting it from space.

The moon? No.

[Microlith]

Low Earth Orbit? Yes!

Military wants the high ground, and in terms of Earth-focused warfare the most you need is LEO. Lunar puts you 3 days out at Apollo speeds, and at the bottom of a gravity well (even if it is significantly weaker.) LEO puts you over any potential target every 90 minutes and less than a day away from resupply.

Until you've got strategically valuable positions in space between the Earth and Moon, the Moon itself will hold no value militarily.

Re:Hells yea...

[tm2b]

Read a great quote a while back. "There are two kinds of Libertarians: those who don't know Heinlein was writing fiction, and those who don't know Ayn Rand was writing fiction."

The moon is a harsh mistress.

[symbolset]

You don't need nuclear weapons from the moon, nor toxic weapons either. Apparently the moon has a rich supply of these mysterious city-killing weapons called "rocks" which, when catapulted out of the moon's gravity well naturally fall into Earth's. The Earth's gravity operates on the mass of the rocks, accelerating them to great terminal energy - enough to look as much like nuclear weapons as makes little difference. Done with sufficient precision, or simply enough quantity, it should be more than enough force to get the Earth to capitulate. Scary thought: the entire moon is made up of these disastrous weapons of mass destruction, which require no fine art to deploy. I read a book about it once, a long time ago. Wish I could remember the title.

Odd note of geek trivia: the "Toynbee Tiles" enigma is precisely about this.

"Unsinkable Carrier"

[Dails]

I am reminded of the Battle of Midway, where Midway island was thought of as an "unsinkable carrier" and the plans for defense included heavy use of the airstrips on the island. The island was also far from resupply or support. Once the battle started, the Japanese, who knew exactly where Midway was, bombed the hell out of it. The primary strength of aircraft carrier is their ability to move; when properly used they're hard to find even while employing their airpower in combat. The moon, I think, is analogous in both the unambiguous location and difficulty of resupply.