U.S. Eyes Space as Possible Battleground

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The only country capable of getting resources from the moon, even 20 years from now, is the U.S. The U.S. doesn't need to put weapons in space to prevent other countries from harvesting resources from the moon, because no other country has the economic means to acquire said resources. There's a big difference if, in the next few years, China sends a manned mission to the moon, as opposed to setting up a resource gathering station for helium 3.

Since no other country has the economic means to set up such a system, it is also simplistic to think that such countries would then turn around and spend money on developing a fusion system capable of reliably using helium 3 if they can't put such a system into practice.

So, since the U.S. is the only country with the economic means to get resources from the moon, they similarly are the only country with an incentive to build a reliable helium 3 fusion reactor.

As such, the U.S. will likely be the first to develop such a reactor, and since the economic means of implementing it already exist, they will be first to harvest the moon's resources. Other countries may follow, only after the technology becomes more available, but we are talking several generations into the future, when all the choice spots have already been claimed by the U.S.

None of this will change in the near future. By near future, I mean in the next generation or so at the least, and more likely, our life-times. So, while everything that Tal points out is certainly a theoretical possibility, the only thing that is a near-certainty is that the U.S. will have a monopoly over the moon's resources - not because it will prevent other countries from doing what they are doing - but rather because the countries lack the technological and economic means of implementing anything near the level that the U.S. will be capable of. So while I agree with the essense of Tal's point, I disagree by the method of which it will come to pass. Let's face it, if you get there first, to the winner goes to spoils...

 

Well HELL.

Here I was all setup to play this little game and everything. And since I was expecting the currency to be Euros, I was going to pay with Greenbacks. "Yeah, we own the moon. Why don't you take it from US? Or just surrender, like usual. Boy, you'd be sucking if we decided we didn't want to take prisoners, and just started throwing everyone off a cliff, instead. Or do like Stalin, and throw everyone in some frozen wasteland gulag. I don't know what the French would eat or drink if they were locked up on the tundra. Not many snails, and it's too cold for wine and cheese."



Too bad there's so many Czechs and Balances in our government to actually go pwn Luna. I know in movies and games that I mess around with, the writers leave out those critical little details like background checks and security clearances and psychological profiling and oversight committees and political scandals that aren't a classified intelligence-agency operation. You just can't write a very good story if you actually go and include that built-in control stuff. Regardless of nationality.


I'm not going to go into a rant. I'll tell you that Amerikan society is too founded on religion to be able to maintain the "lead" past the next century. Amerikans are taught to repress and deny, not to accept and address. At all levels of society, domestic and cultural. Personally, I give us about 50 years. Either China's going to overtake us. Or Europeans will finally stop arguing among themselves, choose one (or two) languages, and form a Democratic State. Both Europe and China have worked on their societies for so long, with all the nasty intra-personal relationship issues, that they have the vast majority of societial problems in balance. Not too many kids hunting each other through secondary school halls, and hommies sportin' the bling-bling on the Portuguese Entertainment Channel so all the other G's know who to envy. Europe's had a thousand years of bloodshed to figure things out. Also, using America as a landfill in the 1700's helped, but that's old news now. The only thing missing is the technology, and that's going to be Amerika's handoff.

...

In fact, you train even harder.

 

U.S. Eyes Space as Possible Battleground.

The eyes of U.S. citizens are looking skywards.

The the U.S. Government PLC skillfully takes this carefully coordinated oppurtunity to pick the plebs pockets, using the money for schools and hospitals to research new space age technology.

This technology is used as the basis for the creation of new companys, chaired in the future by...why, it's ex-members of the U.S. Government PLC.

In short, it's just another scam to create 'jobs for the boys'. The tax-funded research may create oppurtunities for a lot of commercial revenue, but nowhere is it written that the people who paid for the research will be the same people who reap the rewards.

Joe Average in America knows this, that is why he has to be scared into handing over the money. Hence the need for Joe Average to think that he needs to be able to shoot down bombs that in truth could be more cheaply built 'as required' by hostile operatives in the target country.

It would be interesting to do a 'where are they now' article on the politicians that pushed the original Star Wars scam.

 

I have no problems with space exploration or colonization by America. Whenever it happens. I think the president made the speech to give us a shared vision, something beyond ourselves, that we can look to for inspiration...And that is always a good thing.

Practically speaking, I don't think Mars or a moonbase will be happening anytime soon. I've been reading up on the subject, and the barriers to such travel is huge. We may have the propulsion systems to make it happen, but the toll on humans physically may be too much right now. Astronauts going to Mars in a spaceship will be bombarded by radiation from all sides (rather than being partially shielded by a planetary body) by cosmic and solar rays. Mars lacks the magnetic field we have to effectively block these rays making it even more difficult to support human life.

And finally, without a way to simulate Earth type gravity, any astronauts we send to Mars may be too weak to do anything once they get there. Zero/Low gravity wreaks havoc on the body and bone structure. Until a viable solution is created, we ain't goin nowhere...Nohow.

So relax world...Although ruling the stars is America's destiny, it won't happen in our lifetime!

 

Basically it's the same thing as the Europeans did in their days of glory. The English, French, Dutch, Spaniards, and Portugese sailed across the seas in search for new lands. Whenever they discovered an unknown island, they planted their flag there, and claimed the land for their king, emperor, or whatever.

Those days are gone, and there's a new method of exploring the unknown. America is now the exploring nation, and of course now they claim whatever they find outthere as their own. Just like the Europeans did centuries ago. So you see, nothing has changed, except the explorers are no longer Europeans.

Big deal.

 

Well, certainly we don't gain property rights because we can see something. Otherwise I'd own my neighbors new Harley Sportster.

This is a philosophical question. With space, we actually have the hypothetical state of nature that everyone from Hobbes to Locke was talking about. According to Locke's theory of private ownership (which has huge problems) you gain ownership over a piece of property by making use of it (assuming someone else wasn't there first). So, you walk along, find a nice piece of land with nobody on it, you farm it, it's yours.

This theory has in a lot of ways been the way things have worked. Land ownership was arrived at by beating someone up and taking it or by just happening across an unoccupied piece of land and working it.

We talk about this as children with phrases like, 'first come, first serve', 'finders keepers', etc.

Now, under this theory the implication is apparent. Nobody is on the moon. If the US goes up there and starts working the land....

I'm not saying I support this theory of property. It's just one that sprang to mind. And I do think some of the views expressed here correspond to this theory of property ownnership.

If you have another theory of property ownership, float it. The philosophical question though precedes any geo-poltical question in many ways.

Edit - Me needs check grammar.

[ January 23, 2004, 00:27: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

*mutters to self about greedy American bastards*

Actually, I'm in agreement with dmc and the position put forward by Laches, and for basically the same reasons, so I won't bother repeating them. If the U.S. (or anyone else) has spent the time and money to get to, and "harvest" the moon, then so be it. However, I don't think any one nation should be able to claim the whole moon as theirs, but rather just that portion that they are working on. So if the U.S. has a 100 square km area it has established a base on, and say China comes along 10 years later and wants to establish a similar operation on the other side of the moon, that should be O.K. Which means that eventually the issue of borders would have to be addressed.

Of course, what "should be" and what "will be" are not necessarily the same thing.

Edit: Tal posted while I was typing. I think what I've said also addresses his question.

 

I don't think it's much different than when the explorers claimed the Americas for their respective European Power. If we can get to the moon, and find something useful there to benefit ourselves (and mankind...and maybe Splunge ) I don't think we should need to put it up to a vote with the international community. I'm also hoping we'd share it with everyone else...But you know how greedy we Americans are...

Now for something completely different. How weird will it look a hundred years from now to look up at the Moon and see the twinkle of lights from cities and buildings on the surface...Just imagining it is exciting...As long as Coca Cola doesn't put a huge "Drink Coke" ad that can be read from Earth!

 

Hey! The USA can't have all of the moon, because I own an acre of it.

At least that's what it says on the certificate I got from some dodgy website that claims it has the exclusive rights to sell lunar property.

I'd better get up there now and fence it off before some claimjumper comes along and steals it.

 

WooHoo!
Although, if it benefits mankind, then it benefits me. Unless you're implying that I'm not...HEY!

Anyway, I agree that a vote isn't warranted. Although an agreement on what other nations might be entitled to if they ever get there might be needed eventually.

And yeah, the lights could be pretty cool. It could also be weird seeing the moon being eaten bit by bit through mining operations. Although that might take a tad longer.

 

I wonder what mining the Moon would do to tides and such? I mean, technically, but mining the planet, it's losing mass...And the Moon affects tides and such on our planet...I wonder what the effect would be...

 

It'll be just like that show "Space: 1999" when some idiot managed to blow the moon out of Earth's orbit and it became like a wandering space station seeking out new life and new civilizations (er, or was that Star Trek).

Hang on, 1999 was 5 years ago!

 

Sir, I hope you are kidding. The amount of mass needed to be removed before we would even begin noticing a change would be staggering. It'd be like completely removing all of california, can't really be done.

 

Thanks, dmc! And, given that, right now, it's -36 Celcius (-33 F), I'm not really thinking about my tan.

shhh! Don't let the San Andreas Fault hear you say that; it might take it as a challenge.

 

The mass of the Moon is 7.349*10^22 kg. To change its gravitational effect considerably, it needs to lose significant mass compared to its entire mass.
It would take very very long to mine so much matter using the current (or near-future) technology.

 

I cannot see the strategic or tactical advantage to a space based missle defense system. Granted, I am not a military man...but analyze the logic...

The only real defense it would offer would be against ballistic missles...and then only when they were in the orbital stage of their flight. Couldn't the same physical effect be applied while they were in their declination phase? In fact, I would say it is impossible to track an orbital missle as radar-resistent technology is twenty years old or so. You could however track the missle with heat seeking missles as its plunge through the atmosphere would generate a nice amount of friction.

But more importantly...are ballistic missles really going to be the vehicle by which nukes are delivered? I don't think so. What looks good on the game Fallout may not actually be reality. Birds are *not* going to pass in the sky falling to the Earth's eventual oblivion. It is more likely for terroristic or aerially deployed strikes being the means by which nukes are again used.