Space Wars

The History Channel series, The Universe, generally deals with astronomy, cosmology, and physics. Last night, however, it took on space wars. The subject lent itself to cool pictures and a discussion of physics, but the underlying concept of wars in space is highly questionable.

One scenario the show presents is a lunar colony starting a war of conquest and independence. As the show also points out, any such colony in the foreseeable future will be incredibly vulnerable to military attack, so why any leadership of such a colony would start a shooting war is unclear. Much more likely, the leaders of such an independence movement would adopt a subtle strategy driving on the colony's economic importance to Earth.

The show also looks at wars in deep space, complete with neat space cruisers. Again, the idea of military conflict in interplanetary or interstellar space is questionable. If most wars are put down as contests over natural resources, the universe-- and likely every inhabited solar system-- has resources galore. Forcefully taking some would be unnecessary. If wars are seen as clashes of cultures, it's hard enough to find other cultures in space. Going to war with somebody light years away makes very little sense.

Still, there were some great action sequences.