Cheap Mass Produced Space Missiles Probably Won't Look Like An Earth Missile...

[kerbiloid]

When the orbital stations are having to launch defensive missiles to intercept incoming rockets, the space debris is the most negligible problem

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[tomf]

The fuel tanks probably won't be spherical because spheres are much more of a pain to manufacture than cylinders.

[Nuke]

4 hours ago, wumpus said:

 

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Douglas Adams

You really can't fill up space.  You'd have a hard enough time filling up the elliptic.  You can have issues with space junk in Earth orbit, and certainly any debris crossing GSO would be bad.  But those are just tiny portions of space that humans care about.  In general, any debris field will rotate and expand around the Sun until it might not exist.  Compare to the asteroid belt.  As far as I know, no craft has ever needed to take evasive action in the asteroid belt and that is almost certainly the canonical example of "space debris field".  Also look at the "space metro map": the map only cares about delta-v, because you are unlikely to ever use the same route twice between the planets.  There really is nowhere for "space pirates" to lay in wait, with the possible exception of a weird orbit that will just happen to line up with an optimal launch window between planets the next orbit or two (and even then, it is a one-shot event.  You'll have to move on to be in position for the next good launch window.  And if there *are* space pirates, you probably aren't going to wait until the window opens up, especially if it increases the chances of a lost vessel.

To answer the original question (why, why do I do this?), it depends.  If avoiding RADAR detection is key, then they will look like current atmospheric missiles.  If not, expect spherical tanks, possibly with multiple stages of large/medium/small tanks (hint:  think of the rocket equation).  I've assumed some sort of stealth, but thinking about it a bit more it should be trivial to cover any likely battlefield (like the solar system) with enough sensors to watch for missiles firing their engines.

thats why you only create a cloud of shrapnel in the terminal phase, same idea as aa flak. 

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, darthgently said:

The problem with the "space is big" answer is that any created debris will occupy an orbit that intersects the orbit it was in prior to becoming debris generally speaking.  The initial orbit now has debris that will periodically intersect with it.  So craft collision debris is not randomly distributed, but tends to end up in orbits that intersect previously planned orbits.   This is, as you note, far more of a deal around a planet where certain altitudes and inclinations are prime sat real estate.  But, ideally, one wouldn't want unnecessary debris intersecting the paths of Earth's Lagrange 1 and 2 points either, for example

Near future orbital wars has this as an serious problem. In an war involving fusion or orion engine warships will mostly move at solar escape velocities. 
Now if you hit something in orbit you would generate fragments in orbit even if your missile hit at 100 km/s, more so if hitting an large target like space stations or capital ships. 
The L1 and L2 points are probably less affected by this as you don't need much more velocity to escape earth hill sphere / SOI.
More an issue for the higher LEO orbits and GEO, 
So rules of engagement will play an role around Earth, around Mars then you fight the grandchild of Musk, ruler the planet has has gone to war with Earth is less important outside that you might have to occupy it after winning. 
For Mars making GEO and death zone will give you more enemies. 
So taking out the US space force flagship Montana parked in GEO might be an bad idea (also evil towards Montana who finally got an capital ship   )  

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Near future orbital wars has this as an serious problem. In an war involving fusion or orion engine warships will mostly move at solar escape velocities. 
Now if you hit something in orbit you would generate fragments in orbit even if your missile hit at 100 km/s, more so if hitting an large target like space stations or capital ships. 
The L1 and L2 points are probably less affected by this as you don't need much more velocity to escape earth hill sphere / SOI.
More an issue for the higher LEO orbits and GEO, 
So rules of engagement will play an role around Earth, around Mars then you fight the grandchild of Musk, ruler the planet has has gone to war with Earth is less important outside that you might have to occupy it after winning. 
For Mars making GEO and death zone will give you more enemies. 
So taking out the US space force flagship Montana parked in GEO might be an bad idea (also evil towards Montana who finally got an capital ship   )  

Wait... what about North Korea lol?

Ever see Iron Sky? This part was hillarious... and frankly has some basis in reality with how nations actually are:

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by Spacescifi

[Nuke]

4 hours ago, tomf said:

The fuel tanks probably won't be spherical because spheres are much more of a pain to manufacture than cylinders.

look up explosive forming on youtube. its easy to turn a polyhedral (easy to build/weld) into a sphere using explosives. 

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, tomf said:

The fuel tanks probably won't be spherical because spheres are much more of a pain to manufacture than cylinders.

The cylindric vessels have torispherical heads, so no difference at all.

The spray balloons are even more tricky.