0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
I am happy China is doing this.Maybe the thought of actually losing the high frontier will wake up the pillocks in the West.
Like the Soviets did in the 1950's and in the 1960's..
You have to admit - it certainly woke up the sleeping giant.
The high ground was my first thought.With today's technology an enemy could fire projectiles from the moon with rail guns and hit targets on earth with a fair degree of accuracy. Even if you can see the projectiles coming there isn't much you could do except get out of the way. They could only do it once or twice per day but they could do it every day until we gave them what they wanted.I believe the concept was to fire tungsten telephone poles called "Rods from God" and they would carry enormous kinetic energy upon impact. You only gotta be close.
Actually, using a mass driver from the lunar surface, you could have a constant stream of projectiles, 24/7, just by altering the ejection speed slightly to send them on slightly different trajectories. It's not as if you can shoot down a rock, even if you know it's coming.(I was fascinated by The Moon is a Harsh Mistress when I was younger and actually worked out the math for a bombardment from Luna. It's a good treatment of the idea - solid, too).
Does anyone know where Trump stands with space program? No jokes please.
I'm afraid I honestly don't know, Freya. It's not something that really came up. I can see him going either way on it - he's a pragmatist and there are a lot of problems to fix first. But space exploration is also still very much a grand gesture - and he's big on grand, symbolic gestures.
I hadn't thought about it but that's true.Interestingly enough my first introduction to science fiction was also about a revolt against earth. (Revolt on Alpha C)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_on_Alpha_C
I do like to think they'd have supported it just because - neither of them have completely lost their sense of magic yet - but you are probably right.
Space is one you could have counted on both Cruz and Rubio for. Florida and Texas both have major NASA presence.
And he wants to be first in everything. I'm pretty sure we have the technology to get to Mars. We just don't have the technology to come home.
Always liked Silverberg, though Samuel Delaney's poetic prose knocked him down one slot in my rankings. Think my favorite of his was Tower of Glass.