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From: dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Eggs in one basket...
Message-ID: <8603232010.AA14089@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Sun, 23-Mar-86 14:20:38 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8603232010.AA14089
Posted: Sun Mar 23 14:20:38 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Mar-86 03:38:22 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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I've seen some comments about interstellar war being impossible due to
the distances involved.  These comments strike me a optimistic.  Indeed,
the technology needed for making starships can be adapted without
difficulty to build interstellar weapons.

For example, very large lasers have been proposed for propelling light
sails.  A laser several tens of thousands of kilometers across could
focus intense light on a target at interstellar distances (assuming you
know where the target will be in a few years).

Starships themselves can be adapted as weapons.  A 1000 ton starship
travelling at 1/2 the speed of light has the energy of several teratons
of high explosive.  An unmanned "bus" with a large tracking telescope
could carry hundreds of thousands of kilogram-sized submunitions to
a target star system.  Several light weeks out it would aquire targets
in the star system (perhaps optically, or by detecting radio emission)
and release the submunitions, which would be tracked with high precision
and guided onto trajectories intersecting likely targets.  Before
impact each submunition would disperse into a cloud of dust and gas.
Each 1 milligram dust particle would hit with the force of a several ton
bonb; the gas molecules would simulate a pulse from a neutral particle beam
accelerator.  Such a weapon might be easier to build than a starship,
since it needn't slow down upon arrival.