Who will become the ruler of the Moon or is there a great cosmic confrontation coming?

Elon Musk is launching space projects one after another, China is constantly postponing its exploration of the natural satellite of the Earth, Russia is inventing new types of weapons and testing its satellites and recently established a separate branch of the military – the space troops.

Where does all this go? To a conflict on extraterrestrial territory – the Moon. But why?

At the moment, cosmic lunar dust, regolith, is under exploration at the moon’s surface. It contains helium-3, which can be used as an energy resource. The surface of the Moon is a global property of mankind, therefore any of the Earthly countries can extract from the Moon whatever they want and wherever they want.

At the moment, the Chinese adhere to the strategy of keeping secrets in their exploration of the lunar surface and annually plan regular landings and studies of the moon. This means that the Chinese are not simply interested in the Moon, there are some motives for these actions.

Technical possibilities of warfare in outer space

In the vacuum of outer space, many types of weapons will be difficult to be utilised as it is also impossible to use classic artillery pieces with powder shells. Of course, you can bring compressed air to the Moon, but it will be expensive because of the large volume of containers that will not fit into the launch vehicle in sufficient quantities.

You can consider the use of laser weapons that run on electricity. But the use of a laser with a power capable of destroying some objects will be limited, since a large consumption of electricity is necessary. In lunar conditions, it will be difficult to build a power plant, as well as operate it but it will be necessary for the maintenance and operation of objects moving on the Moon.

Nuclear power plants will be the most convenient and economical way to produce electricity on the Moon, since other alternative energy sources will not be available at low space temperatures and the absence of oxygen.

Even if a person can land on the Moon, which many experts refute, believing that the Moon is influenced by huge solar gravity (the Earth is surrounded by the Van Allen anti-radiation belt), then his stay cannot be long and it will be almost impossible to conduct military operations on the surface of the Moon.

Where would it be more practical to place remote robots and remote installations capable of performing the protective functions of their Lunar bases. Most likely, huge Lunar bases of different countries will be placed on the Moon, and some bases will be more suitable for extracting the necessary resources, and then the Lunar conflict and confrontation will begin.

Distant objects on the Moon’s surface won’t be able to be placed for long, as the surface is constantly bombarded with space debris without a lack of restraining forces (on Earth, it’s an atmosphere where a bunch of space objects burn up).

In order to avoid the influence of space debris, it will be necessary to hide their bases directly inside the moon. It is necessary to carry out “regolithic” work, to excavate huge spaces under the surface of the Moon and place our objects under it.

The base will be a nuclear power plant capable of powering facilities that extract resources, and it will also house security systems for the base from outside intrusions of neighbors.

The security system is an unlimited number of robots controlled remotely from the Earth. The weapon will be using a small amount of electricity and with a pulsed mechanical defeat mechanism.

That is, the machine gun familiar to us will be equipped with springs that are contracted due to an electrical signal and releasing bullets due to reverse stretching. In conditions of low lunar gravity, the bullet will gain more speed due to the initial acceleration and hit the target.

Currently, an artificial intelligence system and object management with special AI are being developed. It is possible that people will put their robots in autonomous mode and give their control to artificial intelligence, but now this is under development and it is not known how soon the robots will gain their “consciousness”.

The outcomes of military operations today are calculated using smart programs and artificial intelligence, which make it possible to correctly place their battalions on the battlefield. But the main factor in the outcome of events is still a person, since even drones in the sky are controlled by a person.

So far, there are prerequisites in the world for the creation of robots with fully autonomous control – this is an autopilot for airplanes, drones, cars, trains, determining the outcome of events using special programs. So why doesn’t humanity introduce those very autonomous robots that can move independently, as in those science fiction films?

As for the dark side of the moon, where it is believed there are extraterrestrial civilizations, no mere mortal knows the answer to this question, as yet.