The idea was straightforward and simple from this magazine editor's standpoint—parlay the buzz about China's lunar ambitions into a conjectural story about the weapons and tactics of a lunar battle. But my "battle for the moon" scenario started to fall apart immediately—mostly because the moon is of such little military utility.
The causes of American unease regarding the Chinese space program are easy to trace. A Chinese orbiter is currently circling the moon, looking for landing sites for unmanned missions. The nation's stated goal is to land men on the moon by 2020, and it's not yet clear if a permanent base is being considered. China's surging military ambition has increased Pentagon worry over its space program, because launch rockets and long-range missiles share many developing technologies. Furthermore, China's sole government-sanctioned rocket company, China Great Wall Industry Corp., is a dual-purpose military and space outfit. With these fears founded, what would a military space scenario look like?
Sci-Fi Space-War Scenarios
Any conflict, first of all, needs a motive. So I turned to Robert Heinlein, my favorite classic sci-fi author, whose revolutionary heroes in the novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress set up a plausible weapons system that flung unstoppable rocks at the Earth from the moon. That may have worked well for a lunar colony that was already established—the Loonies in the book weaponize an electromagnetic mass driver that flings cargo from one lunar destination to another—but it makes a lot more sense for an earthbound government to drop kinetic weapons from low Earth orbit.
Called "rods from God" by nerdish wags, the idea is that something dropped from orbit, even without explosives, would demolish anything it impacted. Such an orbital kinetic weapons system is a heck of a lot cheaper than setting up anything on the moon, and it would be just as effective, offering the target less warning. Any nation attacked by a space rock from the moon could see it coming and intercept it, or at least retaliate against the Earth-bound assets.
So I tried to channel a newer, lesser talent—action filmmaker Michael Bay. He wouldn't let common sense get in the way of a movie. (Witness his latest violation of history, physics and spaceflight in his portrayal of the Apollo 11 mission in the new Transformers trailer.) We need villains, something more reality-based than interstellar robots. The bad guys du jour are terrorists. But any group with the resources to take over a moon base would find better uses for its money, training and resources. So maybe terrorists take over and begin preparations to convert a mass driver into a weapon of mass destruction—and they are promptly blown to oblivion when a lunar cargo freighter shows up from Earth with a 300-megaton nuclear warhead in its hold. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
The Moon as Military Observation Post
A moon base could be a good place for a reconnaissance or surveillance platform. The advent of geosynchronous satellites has rendered that role obsolete, but Earth's orbit remains vulnerable—the U.S. and Chinese have blasted sats from orbit with missiles before. A lunar post would be better protected. So, what if the Chinese pop a few nukes in orbit, causing a ring of radiation that fries the global satellite network? Blinded, the U.S. and Taiwan are helpless to stop the Chinese as they use the moon base to coordinate an attack on Taiwan. By the time new satellites are launched, the island has been taken over.
Not bad. Not very realistic, but it's better than the Al-Aqsa Lunar Brigade invading Moon Base Alpha. It's also sort of boring. But as every defense reporter figures out, Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) is a vitally important part of combat—one that few in the general public care to read about. It's a far cry from the low-g ground fight I am imagining—the one the Army supposedly envisioned in the 1950s when it last studied this issue.
The Cold War Meets Star Wars: Project Horizon's Legacy
Arming the moon base was an extension of Cold War logic: If we build a moon base, we have to protect it. And that was the basis of Project Horizon, the 1959 plan for an armed lunar military base. In the late 1950s, deep government thinkers were pretty sure that the moon would be a base for nuclear missiles (before the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach any target within a half-hour) or for sensors that could detect launches (before satellites provided 24-hour coverage). So, of course, there had to be a plan to defend this asset from the Soviet Union.
A dozen soldiers would man the base, according to the plan. They'd live in an underground shelter, shielded from the low temperature, natural radiation and cosmic rays. They deemed getting to the moon first to be an imperative—"if hostile forces are allowed to arrive first … they could militarily counter our landings and attempt to deny us politically the use of their property."
The report specifies the weapons that would be used during a moon war. Most write-ups of the report (including Wikipedia and the online dictionary Astronautix) include the Army's consideration of using small tactical nuclear weapons and anti-personnel mines to defend the base.
But a close read of the report's two volumes doesn't include anything regarding armaments, beyond a single reference to a weapons storage area. Here are the PDFs—check them out and let me know if I missed anything.
But why let that spoil the fun—both ideas, even if apocryphal, may have some merit.
Idea No. 1: Mines on the Moon
The idea of using antipersonnel mines on the moon is interesting. These nasty weapons fire steel balls, often by command (rather than by tripwire.) The shotgun-style blast punches holes in enemy soldiers and light vehicles, and the kinds you'd want to use only spray in one direction. (Imagine a soldier hiding behind a lunar boulder, watching the Chinese rovers approaching, his gloved hand on the trigger mechanism...)
I'd suggest that the balls have some sort of self-destruct mechanism—the explosive blast of their release could send the projectiles into lunar orbit. These would be a risk to inbound craft and, as they are slowly drawn to the moon's weak gravity, would become a danger to anyone on the ground.
Idea No. 2: Davy Crockett Tactical Bomb
The Army's next alleged weapon for lunar combat was the Davy Crockett tactical nuclear bomb. On Earth this low-yield warhead could be launched from artillery. On the moon you could just lob it with a catapult to blast any incoming Soviet space commandos. It's a perfect weapon for repelling an enemy landing or advance. The shock wave and scattered debris would be as devastating as the searing heat.
So there are our marquee Hollywood explosions—but I don't see China or the United States bringing extra explosives and tactical warheads to the moon on the off-chance of an attack. I suppose the real weapons of a future moon conflict would be improvised. I could imagine a shuttle loaded with spent nuclear fuel and converted into a kamikaze dirty bomb. Or maybe something more simple: a talented saboteur lurking near a moon base could do more damage than a squad of space marines.
So there you have it—a future combat scenario that just didn't pan out. I suppose it speaks well of humanity that this is an intellectual flight of fancy instead of a serious analysis. But for those who feel that the weaponization of space can be avoided, I have some bad news—satellites, missile warheads, space planes and hypersonic aircraft are already marking space with a martial stamp. And as humanity expands, we're almost guaranteed to fight over the new terrain.
Who knows, maybe there's a reason to battle over the Martian moon, Phobos … I'll have to check into that.