The nation with the largest amount of military force and nuclear weapons, as well as control of the globally used & prized currency ($ USD), and even the universal language of the skies (well, maybe you could say it's England's language, but the central power of the U.S. is the reason it's the language of the skies), has around 1/3rd of it's nation that actively would like to see at least an other 1/3 of it's nation die, and said other 1/3 really only wants to get things like nationwide enforcement of basic human rights (like in all other, I think, 32 of 33 highly developed nations do), and to actually embody the meaning of "welfare state" that the U.S. has been defined as for... idk how long tbh, but for quite some time - Along with a want for the aforementioned 1/3rd not wanting to literally kill them.
And they're simply unable to come to any understanding, after decades of botched discourse.
I don't see how some group of people focusing on space travel as a way to potentially divert the end of humanity as something that bad
Another thing to consider is that fewer than 4% of human beings live in the US or are USians. If the US is to establish military superiority in space, this would be, by definition, a plutocracy established over all of Earth.
I'm not sure the other 96%+ of us humans are really interested in that outcome?
While I get the intent of what you are saying, you should know that the US is the only space faring nation that is trying hard to be collaborative and inclusive in the peaceful exploration and utilization of space and space exploration.
You say that you understand people risking their lives "for country". I don't understand that.
There are lots of motivations in life and nationalism is only one reason. Personally, I don't think nationalism is good for motivating people towards more than warfare. I would argue that even the Apollo Program wasn't motivated by nationalism (it merely exploited nationalism for budget and attention) – its real motivation was true to the George Mallory explanation for risking his life climbing Everest: because it's there.
I do understand doing things to reach the edge of space because its there. For the engineering interest. To change people's perspective about what is difficult and what is easy. To make people look towards space instead of towards their borders and flags.
People have stopped thinking that progress can be made in space. Virgin Galactic and other commercial space companies are trying to change that. Sending rich people to space is simply a funding model.
Given that no one has real "people based" access to anything beyond earth, I find it incredibly egotistical to have a space treaty. I think perhaps it is driven more from "If anyone gets there before me I still want a piece of it if they get there before me"
I have no doubt that once a nation, Company, top 1% elite get somewhere out there in space, their language will change and they will say it belongs to them.
Look at Antartica ... it has already been divided up into regions more or less belonging to different nations despite the retoric.
The extent to which the space programs of nation states are little more than fig leafs over what are in reality a bunch of maladjusted homicidal maniacs, and the extent to which the average person has absolutely no concept of this can be really frustrating at times.
The whole notion that it is "noble" to "reach for the stars" when in reality everybody can see you're trying to develop ICMBS so you can extract resources from competing nation states over threat of nuclear annihilation...makes me want to kick their children's genitals until they become bloody pulp.
"Moreover, if mankind ever expands into space, it would be rather naive to think that earth's nations would play a role there in the long run."
Assuming some sort of breakthrough in cheap propulsion and living systems, I couldn't disagree more. If anything, you'd see efforts at a sub-state level with the early colonies in the Americas given as examples.
I think that states, and particularly nations, are well suited to large scale efforts with minimal or no immediate payoffs. It's hard to get a sufficiently large group to pull on a rope at the same time.
You need to read what I'm actually saying instead of assuming that I fit your archetype for ‘opponent in a dialog’. You still completely misunderstand my stance despite my having belabored the point extensively. Your claim was as follows:
> The issue is, what happens if you decide you don't want to do business with that entity anymore?
> In case of state, the punishment is prison and, resisting that, death.
My claim is that if you stay on that government's land, you are not in fact choosing not to do business with that entity. Period, nothing more.
Nowhere did I claim that you have to accept the status quo. Nowhere did I claim that nothing can be done to improve liberty or individual freedom. Those are positions that you attributed to me because you aren't arguing against me, you're arguing against a straw man instead of taking the time to understand what I'm telling you.
Space exploration isn't necessary to improve liberty or individual freedom, it's necessary for a return to individual sovereignty without many people dying. You're welcome to improve liberty or individual freedom all you want, either from inside the country or outside of it. What you can't do is live inside of the country but somehow consider yourself above that country's laws because you have an eternal inalienable right to sovereignty. No government recognizes that right, because if they did governments could not function. You can have life, you can have liberty, you can have pursuit of happiness. Sovereignty is not on that list.
There's a lot of enthusiasm in the parent, but not a lot of support for it.
> If an axis of China, Russia or and any other countries domainate space, you aren't free or sovereign when you need to ask their permission.
That doesn't mean the US needs a space force. It's not clear the assumption is accurate, that those countries seek to dominate space, or that such an axis exists. There are many, many outcomes besides national military competition: For example, throughout the Cold War the US and Russia kept space pretty demilitarized and non-competitive, and even used it to promote peace by allowing flyover and intelligence gathering to support treaties and prevent misinterpretation of actions.
> Managing orbital and space faring traffic and securing access to key orbits that facilite whatever economics come out of them is essential.
In what other domain are those functions performed by the military? Usually they are performed by cooperative intergovernmental bodies, such as the International Maritime Organization.
> in the next 50 years, near earth orbits are going to be full of self-defending orbital satellite and space faring vehicles providing economic resources back to nations on earth.
That's a pretty bold prediction with no support. Self-defending satellites?
Its a capability demonstration - mostly for domestic consumption.
> They care about the long term viability of human space travel as much as the US.
At the leadership level it may be that they only care about it as an area for inter-state competition or selling crewed lift capacity. The latter business is nearly done.
As someone who doesn't give two cents about 'national prestige', I sincerely hope some other country picks up the slack and does great things in space. The US is certainly not heading down a road that leads to renewed leadership in this area, but hey we'll have some border walls soon to keep out them nasty criminals!
There's a lot of americans that have bad blood with the space program; deaths in a colonization program would just fuel them.
I'm pretty sure the number of deaths doesn't matter either. Only a few people died in the boston bombings and that didn't stop the entire country from turning upside down over it for a few weeks.
In Sweden this has long been portrayed as a foolish, nationalistic enterprise by someone who should have known better, sacrificing lives for no reason. (Combined with a bit of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)
I wonder if it wouldn't have been (previously) portrayed as primarily courageous in the US, had it all taken place with people from there?
... related, while there is a lot of new excitement about human spaceflight in the US now, almost every single piece of ~current mainstream TV/film drama (with the notable exception The Orville) focusing on space/scifi is dystopic and/or really negatively focusing on the human/family costs of the main characters (example: For All Mankind), to the point where it's getting a bit silly.
I can't upvote this enough. If we could somehow establish that tribalism and nationalism were the only ways for us to get into space, then spaceflight wouldn't be worth it.
Nuclear weapons are arguably necessary with a nuclear armed neighbor they've regularly been at war with, and the space missions have the potential to make profits for India.
The US funds space missions with folks dying for want of medical care, but people don't tend to complain about that.
I'm not sure funding their NHS is going to do all that much good when the drug costs multiple times the per-capita income of Indians.
Let's not make generalizations about a country of 1b+ people based on one aspect of their space program. You could easily draw an equally unflattering image of the US or any other nation if you're willing to extrapolate from a single datapoint like that.
Well, there's the rub. While I imagine there's a school of thought that says "fuck you, we're on Mars, we're declaring independence, whaddya gonna do about it?", there's also a school of thought that says "we have nuclear weapons, interplanetary missiles, media control, and the political will to do the obvious".
Economic worth is not what wars are fought over. They are fought over the prospect of losing face. It all boils down to dick-waving, even over the vast expanses of space.
I mean, who would object to a limited tactical strike with no boots on the ground on a radical (possibly insane) terrorist controlled (I hear they abuse children) space-pirate-fortress?
And they're simply unable to come to any understanding, after decades of botched discourse.
I don't see how some group of people focusing on space travel as a way to potentially divert the end of humanity as something that bad
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