Defending Asteroids [Space/Spaceships]

[AlexanderHowl]

Within any star system, there are likely asteroids (or other minor bodies) of exceptional value that organizations will want to claim effective control over. If properly exploited, they can provide their owners with unimaginable wealth for tens of thousands of years. If improperly exploited, they can cause economic catastrophes, as formerly rare materials flood the market in bulk. In our own system, 16 Psyche is a prime example, as the body is estimated to have a few trillion tons of precious metals, as well as a couple quadrillion tons of industrial metals.

How would you go about defending a possession of that magnitude of potential value? Could a private organization muster enough power or could a cartel of private organizations muster such power. If not, could a single nation muster such power or could an alliance of nations?

[Anthony]

If there's a functional government, you try to get them to recognize your claim. If there isn't, you probably can't make much use of it anyway, but if necessary you can put your own armaments somewhere.

In general deep space mines aren't very hospitable targets for theft, because, while it might take a long time for law enforcement to get there, it takes equally long for you to move any stolen product, and they can just watch you and arrest you when you arrive at your destination because there's no easy way to break contact in space.

[Ulzgoroth]

What threat profile are you trying to defend against, is the question.

Against claim jumpers, unless the system is highly developed and balkanized, as Anthony says a legal claim is way better than actual armaments.

Against anyone who is willing to destroy the mine rather than seize it, defense is probably impractical. An asteroid is a non-maneuvering sitting duck, so it's straightforward to smack it with high-energy impactors.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Against anyone who is willing to destroy the mine rather than seize it, defense is probably impractical. An asteroid is a non-maneuvering sitting duck, so it's straightforward to smack it with high-energy impactors.

A lot is going to depend on what you have access to, here. A high-energy impactor striking an asteroid is indeed fairly straightforward, but careful use of lasers to ablate the impactor's surface can readily throw it off course. Someone who is really intent can overcome this, of course, as the asteroid (and any nearby vessels) can probably only hold so many lasers, while there's pretty much no limit to the amount of junk you can throw at it (just chew up your own asteroid and use mass drivers with the bigger chunks). Superscience, of course, can also help quite a bit, even if not directly deployed on the asteroid - in Schlock Mercenary, the Battleplates were large vessels designed to use their shields to protect Earth (and other planets) from high-velocity impactors by basically just getting in the way and tanking the hit.

With the comment in another thread that many asteroids may essentially just be piles of gravel held together by gravity, I have a comical image in my mind of the asteroid simply shifting to have a hole in the middle, and the projectile passing harmlessly through. The alternate, naturally, is the asteroid functioning as billiards and the impactor as the cue ball.

[AlexanderHowl]

Though that depends on the technological assumptions of the setting. If reactionless drives do not exist or reactionless drives are inertialless, then high velocity impactors are quite difficult to do and are quite easy to defend against.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Though that depends on the technological assumptions of the setting. If reactionless drives do not exist or reactionless drives are inertialless, then high velocity impactors are quite difficult to do and are quite easy to defend against.

...No, real physics really doesn't make kinetic weapons impractical.

I said 'high energy' impactors, not 'high velocity' impactors. Relativistic small projectiles, inter-planetary transfer speed mid-size impactors, or modest orbital speed large impactors all work for trashing a predictably-moving target. Pick whichever is most practical with the available resources.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

What threat profile are you trying to defend against, is the question.

Against claim jumpers, unless the system is highly developed and balkanized, as Anthony says a legal claim is way better than actual armaments.

Against anyone who is willing to destroy the mine rather than seize it, defense is probably impractical. An asteroid is a non-maneuvering sitting duck, so it's straightforward to smack it with high-energy impactors.

If you can stick some relatively tiny thrusters on your claim, it becomes effectively impossible to hit it with a single relatively large impactor; barring "near-lightspeed grain of sand" sort-of shenanigans.

Whether or not there is FTL is something I think needs to be clarified.

Edit: The thread updated while I was posting. I have edited in response. Please respect the edits.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

the body is estimated to have a few trillion tons of precious metals

I estimate the earth has ten million trillion tons of precious metals, even assuming the core and mantle have no greater density than the crust. And not one atom of those precious metals are any further away than 13,000 km from corporate HQ. Multiplying big numbers gives you big numbers. Existence of an element isn't nearly as important as how accessible it is.

Originally Posted by Anthony

If there's a functional government, you try to get them to recognize your claim.

This is a necessary step. You don't have to defend your asteroid against some claim jumpers or thieves. You have to defend it against other governments. If you're going to do that with arms, then you need arms on a scale to equal alliances of other governments -- which means being backed by a significantly powerful one.

You then have the problem of defending your prize against your patron government. History tells us governments have little problem redefining laws or simply ignoring them when it suits their purpose, so an army of lawyers isn't necessarily going to help any more than an army of security guards. Maybe the Alien Space Bats will lend a hand, because they're honorable, not to mention beyond corruption by your little pile of shiny metal since they have galaxies full of the stuff.

[AlexanderHowl]

I believe your estimates are off by an order of magnitude (the Earth does not have 1500 ppm of precious metals). The vast majority of the precious metals on Earth are unaffordable to mine even at high TLs without superscience (especially considering that over 99.9% of the precious metals on Earth are in the mantle or core). The precious metals we do have are primary the results of asteroid impacts over the last couple of billion years and they tend to average 100 ppb and most of the commercially viable amounts are in specific concentrated veins.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

If you can stick some relatively tiny thrusters on your claim, it becomes effectively impossible to hit it with a single relatively large impactor; barring "near-lightspeed grain of sand" sort-of shenanigans.

Only if you require that the impactor be less maneuverable than an asteroid mine.