How effective is warfare in space? Can lasers and missiles really hit moving objects from a distance in space?

We have all read about it and seen it in science fiction books and movies. Ships firing at each other from huge distances and somehow directly striking their enemy with a catastrophic and fatal blow. It makes great special effects. We even play(ed) the same thing on arcade games. Although more recent movies portray the encounters at closer range these days.

What are the issues with space-based fighting with lasers and missiles?

Let’s consider lasers. Even though space is primarily vacuum, a beam of any radiation will dissipate in intensity over distance as the beam spreads. A point is reached where the effectiveness of the laser is as potent as pointing a laser pointer at a screen. That suggests that laser based warfare needs to be up close and personal with a tightly generated beam of energy to cause damage to another object, e.g. spaceship. This brings up images of World War 1 dogfights, which is the type of fighting usually encountered in films like Starwars.

Using bullets or other unguided projectiles to destroy an enemy ship requires spraying the nearby volume of space with them and hoping you hit it without hitting one of your own ships. Since it takes time for the projectile to travel the distance between your ship and whatever you aim at, the target has time to manoeuvre out of the way — hence the need to spray the volume and hoping to hit something before they travel beyond the fighting space.

Guided missiles, where you lock the missile to the target, seem to represent the most effective kinetic weapon to use. However, they need rapid response propulsion systems to maintain their lock, since the targeted ship would constantly try losing the missile by changing position in a random manner. And the missile only needs to miss by any margin to fail. You could place some form of proximity sensing on the missile to detonate within a particular distance, but that would only be effective at a short range.

So, space warfare? Yes, it’s possible as it’s portrayed in science fiction. But it has limitations.