Quote Originally Posted by mcv View Post
With current technology, high speed acceleration costs enormous amounts of reaction mass. This will probably change in the future, but if it doesn't, evasive action will end up being too expensive.
I think this leads to an important point. What space combat will look like will depend greatly on what technology we will have in the future. Currently Space Combat consists of using missiles to shoot down satellites and (possibly) ballistic missiles. Future space combat will depend greatly on:
  • What kind of propulsion is available? Chemical rockets? Ion drives? Fission rockets? Fusion rockets?
  • Can space ships be armored?
  • How much energy is avaliable to the ship?
  • Do high powered lasers exist? How well can they be focused?
  • What is the goal of a Space Navy? Is it defending Earth from invaders or protecting space lanes to Mars?
  • What is the rate of fire of high powered lasers? Are they like modern chemical laser which require fuel or do they only require power?
  • How effective is missile defense?


Personally, I feel that combat at light second distances will be very difficult. remember a light second is about the distance to the Moon and it took the Apollo astronaughts days to get that far. I doubt any missiles or projectiles will be able to go much faster. In addition, the defending ship can be shooting at the missiles as they approach. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, it will be very hard to aim and focus lasers at those distances.