Orbital bombardment
Orbital bombardment is the act of attacking the surface of a planet from a spaceship, satellite, or other object orbiting in space above the planet. From the 1950s onward, various militaries have considered ways to attack surface targets from orbit, but no actual system has been developed to date. Article IV of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty[1] prohibits the orbiting of weapons of mass destruction in space.
At present, modern human civilization has no defense against a spacecraft parking itself in orbit and bombarding the planet, and as such we are currently defenseless in the unlikely event of an alien invasion.
Orbital Bombardment in Science Fiction
Orbital bombardment by various means is quite common in science fiction, for both precision strikes and indescriminate mass destruction.
- In the Star Wars, the best example of orbital bombardment is the Imperial Base Delta Zero operation, in which one or more Imperial Star Destroyers systematically destroy all life and all useful assets on a planet's surface with a continuous turbolaser barrage.
- In Star Trek, starships have occasionally used phasers and/or photon torpedos to destroy specific targets on a planet's surface from space, and in DS9's "The Die is Cast", a fleet of Cardassian and Romulan warships attempted to destroy the Founders by bombarding their homeworld.
- In Babylon 5, the a variety of methods were used for attacking surface targets from space, including directed energy weapons, missiles, and mass drivers that hurled asteroids at the planet's surface. The ancient Shadow and Vorlon races possessed dedicated planet-killing warships that could destroy all life on a planet's surface in a matter of hours.
- In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Navy of the Imperium of Man is capable of destroying all life on a planet with biological weapons delivered from orbit in an operation known as Exterminatus.
- In the Command and Conquer: Tiberium universe, the Global Defense Initiative (GDI) controls a network of orbital ion cannons for bombarding surface installations.