How the military imagined combat around the Moon

This week the top officer in the U.S. military said that troops need to be ready for combat on Earth and around the Moon. 

Speaking at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said that the U.S. military needs to take steps so it “is prepared to fight, endure and win […] from the seabed to cislunar space.” 

Caine’s comments come a few days after Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink revealed that Space Force had put weapons into orbit. Space Force has not said how many “space control weapons” it has sent up, or what kind of weapons they are, but it was the first acknowledgement that the U.S. military put offensive capabilities in orbit.

But the military has been studying and theorizing about armed conflict in space and on the Moon for decades. During the Cold War, the U.S. military looked at several ways to send forces into space and then wage war. Starting in the 1950s, several branches of the armed forces looked at ways to operate from, fight on or even attack, the Moon. Driven by the Sputnik panic, several ideas were proposed. The Air Force suggested a military base on the Moon, one that would feature a highly accurate “Lunar Based Earth Bombardment System.” 

The Army meanwhile developed Project Horizon, a plan for a lunar base crewed by several soldiers and defended with specially made guns. During the 1960s, before NASA sent people to the Moon, the Army considered the rapid rate of spaceflight a sign that the base was a realistic possibility. Meanwhile, it also looked at a line of weapons that soldiers could use, including spring-powered pistols.

A 1963 Air Force film imagined what space combat might look like in the future. The animation depicted small, fighter jet-like space ships operating from a docking station, flying combat sorties in orbit. 

But after the Space Race died down and the realities and challenges of going to the Moon became clear, the idea of armed forces operating from the lunar surface fell out of favor.

Modern orbital warfare

In the present, the military has discussed potential conflict in space, but not specifically the Moon. In recent months, Space Force leadership has talked about “orbital warfare” and looked at ways to defend against enemy satellites. It is still unclear what kind of weapon the U.S. put in orbit, but discussed options include both kinetic and non-kinetic weapon systems.

Kinetic weapons, be it firing projectiles or explosives at something in orbit, aren’t new. Anti-satellite or ASAT systems have been developed for years. However, these kinetic systems run the risk of generating increasingly more space debris, endangering other satellites or ships in orbit. 

As such, the U.S. and other countries have looked at non-kinetic weapons, such as electromagnetic jammers or directed-energy systems, which could take out adversary satellites without flooding space with dangerous detritus. Space Force has acquired systems like this but these are terrestrial, rather than orbital.