>First: If it otherwise takes a year to build them, no difference.
This overlooks a couple factors. First, a raid requires building and launching a fleet of vehicles — a massive investment in logistics and capital. Second, most materials targeted for raiding take less than a year to produce. Spending enormous resources to steal something that can be manufactured more cheaply on Earth or in situ is economically unsound. In nearly all practical scenarios, the costs and risks associated with long-distance raids vastly outweigh any marginal benefits. So yes, and colony on Mars would be safer from raids than one on Earth.
>Second: If they're useful for you in-situ, they're useful for anyone else in-situ.
This is totally different than the Suez Canal, because it would require the raiding party to want to completely relocate for those resources to be useful. There's no meaningful trade between Mars and Earth due to logistics, so they cannot economically utilize those resources of Mars on Earth.
> False. Whether attacker or defender has advantage is not distance dependent, it's tech-dependent. Absolute stealth in space only becomes impossible when you've already got something around a K1.5 civilization in the vicinity, before that you can fairly easily hide passive IR signatures, deflect/absorb/otherwise minimize active EM scans, and the defender doesn't have the resources to saturate volume with gravity sensors to spot attacker's mass.
Irrespective of the level of technology available, distance imposes inherent logistical constraints. A nearby attacker can maintain sustained pressure, rapid resupply, and repeated engagements at lower cost, while a distant force must overcome long transit times and a vulnerable supply chain.
As for stealth, sven assuming near-future stealth and tracking advancements, proximity still affords defenders longer reaction times and more thorough surveillance.
>Contiguous. And that's per ground station, not total, you'd need in the order of 250 for the default proposal just to reach current Terran electrical power usage levels, or 2000 if you add in non-electrical power usage levels. Name an existing artificial 10 km diameter contiguous surface.
2,000 city-sized rectennas to power all of Earth seems like a great deal.
This 2002 study models a 5 GW SBSP system with a 12-km rectenna that is transparent enough to allow vegetation to grow underneath. This mitigates land-use concerns while allowing high efficiency for power collection:
This overlooks a couple factors. First, a raid requires building and launching a fleet of vehicles — a massive investment in logistics and capital. Second, most materials targeted for raiding take less than a year to produce. Spending enormous resources to steal something that can be manufactured more cheaply on Earth or in situ is economically unsound. In nearly all practical scenarios, the costs and risks associated with long-distance raids vastly outweigh any marginal benefits. So yes, and colony on Mars would be safer from raids than one on Earth.
>Second: If they're useful for you in-situ, they're useful for anyone else in-situ.
This is totally different than the Suez Canal, because it would require the raiding party to want to completely relocate for those resources to be useful. There's no meaningful trade between Mars and Earth due to logistics, so they cannot economically utilize those resources of Mars on Earth.
> False. Whether attacker or defender has advantage is not distance dependent, it's tech-dependent. Absolute stealth in space only becomes impossible when you've already got something around a K1.5 civilization in the vicinity, before that you can fairly easily hide passive IR signatures, deflect/absorb/otherwise minimize active EM scans, and the defender doesn't have the resources to saturate volume with gravity sensors to spot attacker's mass.
Irrespective of the level of technology available, distance imposes inherent logistical constraints. A nearby attacker can maintain sustained pressure, rapid resupply, and repeated engagements at lower cost, while a distant force must overcome long transit times and a vulnerable supply chain.
As for stealth, sven assuming near-future stealth and tracking advancements, proximity still affords defenders longer reaction times and more thorough surveillance.
>Contiguous. And that's per ground station, not total, you'd need in the order of 250 for the default proposal just to reach current Terran electrical power usage levels, or 2000 if you add in non-electrical power usage levels. Name an existing artificial 10 km diameter contiguous surface.
2,000 city-sized rectennas to power all of Earth seems like a great deal.
This 2002 study models a 5 GW SBSP system with a 12-km rectenna that is transparent enough to allow vegetation to grow underneath. This mitigates land-use concerns while allowing high efficiency for power collection:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3427153_How_Safe_Ar...