Sun Tzu Was Right
"One who seeks to conquer by sheer strength, clever though he may be at winning pitched battles, is also liable on occasion to be vanquished; whereas he who can look into the future and discern conditions that are not yet manifest, will never make a blunder and therefore invariably win."
I was recently chided by a worthy interlocutor for not mentioning the ultimate in Chinese Take-Out -- the recent 14 orbit, 21 hour flight of Yang Liwei of Communist China. [he took food, didn't he? see where your mind goes. . .]
By 2010 China hopes, in the words of its chief space scientist, Ouyang Ziyuan, to "set up a base on the Moon and mine its riches for the benefit of humanity".
Given the history of China's concept of "for the benefit of humanity," and their incredible accomplishment of becoming a spacefaring nation within a 10 year span, I think it is time for a little well-directed panic on the part of the rest of the world. My theoretical basis is explained here and below: [NB The snark is actually fear-inspired.]
Allow me to explain the source of my dismay, nay, alarm. Slowly and with words of one syllable or less for ease of digestion: Point #1: Gravity makes things fall toward the center of the Earth. [with me so far? don't hesitate to ask questions...] This happens not only at the surface, where we live, but all the way out to where the Moon is, and beyond. Point #2: Whoever is standing at the top of a hill can throw rocks down onto whoever is standing at the bottom of that hill. [this was grasped at the beginning of time and exemplified in the castles of the middle ages. This is not rocket science.] This is the part where there is new information, so stay with me: The Moon is the top of a very large hill. There are lots and lots of free rocks on the Moon. With just a little bit o' math, those rocks can be tossed down onto a particular place. ** Like, say: THE PENTAGON. Or, NEW YORK CITY. [Ring any bells?] or CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN or SAN FRANCISCO or KANSAS LONDON or NEW DEHLI or TOKYO This concludes your physics and history lessons for the day.
**Yes, the process is a little more complex than that explanation, but it is the basic concept I am interested in highlighting, here, not the orbital mechanics.
This may actually be good news. As I see it, we, the U.S., have three choices:
1. Take China on now.
This is not going to happen IMHO. There may have been some small chance of that before 911, but not now, we have other fish to fry.2. Give up, bow down and take it.
Bush will not allow that and if his successor in ‘08 is Ms Rice, as I hope, she will not either.3. Build our own moon base.
The problem here is NASA. It would be a lot better to give the job to the Air Force. Not that they are that great, but in comparison to NASA… Here is how they should do it:1.Turn the space station into a construction shack.
2. Add 1 billion to the X Prize to be used for more R&D. Give 500 million each to the second and third teams to meet the X Prize goals in the next five years.
3. Set up a new contest with a 5 billion prize and a 10 billion dollar space transportion contract to anyone that can fly a 30 ton load to the space station for 5X what it cost to fly it from New York to LAPosted by on 10/25/03 at 11:46 PMThis ignores the laws of physics. Anyone doing this would have to first overcome the moon’s gravity, which is pulling more strongly on the rock than the Earth for the first 3/8 of the way here.
Mining the moon is insane unless it is being done to support further space exploration, or unless they are mining extremely expensive stuff.
A far more dangerous thing would be for China to just stick some nukes in orbit.
Posted by John A. Kalb on 01/14/04 at 10:12 AMPerhaps I did not state clearrly enough the orbital mechanics of this problem. I postulated *some* boost to escape the Moon’s gravity well. Simply to place an object in Earth’s orbital path—stationary—would give it sufficient kinetic energy, combined with the moving mass of the planet, to bake a big boom.
And if/when China attempted to boost nukes into orbit, just the *intent* would be sufficient to set off a bigger kerfluffle than I believe they would like to handle.
Posted by Claire on 01/14/04 at 10:30 AMBut it would be a lot easier to hide the effort. A modern strategic nuclear warhead is roughly the size of a watermelon. I don’t know how good Chinese miniturization tech is right now, but from what I understand, we’ve developed tac nukes that can be fired as 155mm (6 inch) artillery ammo. Moving that into place, perhaps as part of putting up some spy satellites, a GPS constellation, or even offensive satellite network, would be far easier.
It would also be far cheaper. They would probably have to send tens of thousands of tons of material to the moon in order to set up such an operation. Given Gregg Easterbrook’s estimate of $15 billion to move 600 tons there, the cost would be $1 trillion minimum, provided they can mine fuel there.
Another issue with big rocks is that they have much bigger global effects than nukes. Remember that one about 6 miles wide killed the dinosaurs. Even one big enough to stomp the Pentagon would likely kick up enough dust to cause famines in overpopulated countries like China. The blowback on that thing might well be worse than the damage it would cause. And how the hell would you aim the bloody thing? Sure, you can do calculations, but things happen.
This is especially true when one considers how long it would take to carry out such an attack, and there’s no way of calling it off. Remember, it took the Apollo missions days to get to the Moon. I can’t imagine it’d be any faster using rockets to take a big rock up to a high enough velocity to escape the moon’s gravity and
Posted by John A. Kalb on 01/14/04 at 01:47 PMMy mistake. Depending on the actual size, it might not get to a trillion dollars (I messed up doing math in my head). It would still, however, be far greater than China’s annual military budget.
Posted by John A. Kalb on 01/14/04 at 01:50 PMThe material for nuke-manufature are finite, hi-tech and fairly well monitored. I think someone would notice if China were launching nukes.
And I think anyone who might find themselves so desperate as to resort to a nuke *or* rock has passed the worry-about-the-blowback stage…
As to China’s military budget, they’ve already made a committment to have a base on the moon within 10 years. I’d rather be the ones to stamp their passport and scan their retinas as they arrive than the other way round. You?
Posted by Claire on 01/15/04 at 05:56 AMThe difference between the rock and the nuke is that with the nuke, especially an orbital one, you have some hope of a decapitation strike, while with the rock, the people would have several days to evacuate.
Also, China is already building nukes. It’s hard to hide nuke-building facilities, and even that those facilities are active, but easier to hide how many you’re producing, and how much U-235 and plutonium you’re keeping in reserve. That’s the whole pickle with North Korea.
I’ve got no objection to a moon base, but talking about weaponizing the moon reminds me of Air Force white papers written in the late 1950s talking about building nuclear powered lasers on the moon to shoot back at earth by the mid-60s. I’m not kidding here. Before NASA was founded, and even for a little while afterwards, there were people whom the Air Force was paying to advocate sending a total of 42 people to the moon by 1966 with a permanent staff of 16 manning a moon base with a giant laser pointed back at earth. They projected that it would have required 200 successful Saturn launches. The fact is, the moon is an awful distant striking point for the earth, and we have a lot of stuff in low orbit that we have to worry about, like if China ever puts up a GPS constellation, or if they ever seriously develop offensive satellites to disrupt our GPS net.
Additionally, I really don’t put much stock in what the leaders of *our* country say they’ll do in space, let alone the leaders of a communist country. They’ve still only sent up one astronaut, and they don’t seem to have any plans to do anything further in the near future. Considering that a moon shot would require a new, snazzier rocket, which will have to be designed, built, and tested, I have my doubts that they have any serious plans.
I have no problem with us building a moon base or having a Mars expedition or whatever else. But let’s not pretend that the moon is of any real strategic or economic value.
Posted by John A. Kalb on 01/15/04 at 08:05 AM
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