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There is no significant advance in tech regarding colonization, mining, and manufacturing in space without significant dual uses. If “that could be a weapon!” i

There is no significant advance in tech regarding colonization, mining, and manufacturing in space without significant dual uses. If “that could be a weapon!” is the end of it, then we’re stuck on this rock until we all die. It’s all pretty moot, since dropping rocks on a country won stop a proportional nuclear response.

ben_w 8y ago
Nuclear responses aren’t possible if the rocks were dropped by unknown attackers who hacked or invaded the launch site, if the target isn’t a nuclear nation or in a defence treaty with one, or even if the attackers are the legitimate owners deciding to do a Sea Of Tranquillity Tea Party in a fight for independence because the nukes can’t easily get up there and are surprisingly rubbish in space anyway.
- cfadvan 8y ago
  What makes you think that it would be possible to invade a Moon base, or hack it anonymously? We’ve gone past sci-fi here and into fantasy.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    First line of the story, “…The first trillionaire will be made in space”. At that scale, do you think it isn’t worth privately funding some mercenaries and your own BFR clone (or even Saturn V if the BFR isn’t copyable for whatever reason) for an incredibly hostile takeover of any infrastructure placed on the moon? And that’s Earth launch where it would be obvious who was behind it. If the same wealth leads to significant numbers of people going up, they don’t need anything like that kind of propulsion to do what has happened a thousand times before on land and sea, in the general area of strikes, secession, and mutiny. As for hacking being possible, that’s just the observation that basically everything is hackable. Even things that were given as examples of clueless parents fretting over nothing when I was a teen, such as making JPEG files execute when opened, turned out possible due to exploitable bugs.
    - cfadvan 8y ago
      The issue isn’t just “is it possible” given your formulation, it’s “is it possible to do anonymously?”
      - ben_w 8y ago
        Ah, I see. Well, almost. Plausible deniability is good enough for direct launch from the ground, but answering your question would require me to know a lot of (I hope) classified information about the national security of multiple nations. So I don’t know. However, my main focus was supposed to be other people who are “legitimately” in space, because of the aforementioned trillion dollars, and of hacking. Because both hacking and mutiny/secession haves happened lots already, even in situations where one might expect them not to.

ben_w 8y ago

Nuclear responses aren’t possible if the rocks were dropped by unknown attackers who hacked or invaded the launch site, if the target isn’t a nuclear nation or in a defence treaty with one, or even if the attackers are the legitimate owners deciding to do a Sea Of Tranquillity Tea Party in a fight for independence because the nukes can’t easily get up there and are surprisingly rubbish in space anyway.

cfadvan 8y ago
What makes you think that it would be possible to invade a Moon base, or hack it anonymously? We’ve gone past sci-fi here and into fantasy.
- ben_w 8y ago
  First line of the story, “…The first trillionaire will be made in space”. At that scale, do you think it isn’t worth privately funding some mercenaries and your own BFR clone (or even Saturn V if the BFR isn’t copyable for whatever reason) for an incredibly hostile takeover of any infrastructure placed on the moon? And that’s Earth launch where it would be obvious who was behind it. If the same wealth leads to significant numbers of people going up, they don’t need anything like that kind of propulsion to do what has happened a thousand times before on land and sea, in the general area of strikes, secession, and mutiny. As for hacking being possible, that’s just the observation that basically everything is hackable. Even things that were given as examples of clueless parents fretting over nothing when I was a teen, such as making JPEG files execute when opened, turned out possible due to exploitable bugs.
  - cfadvan 8y ago
    The issue isn’t just “is it possible” given your formulation, it’s “is it possible to do anonymously?”
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Ah, I see. Well, almost. Plausible deniability is good enough for direct launch from the ground, but answering your question would require me to know a lot of (I hope) classified information about the national security of multiple nations. So I don’t know. However, my main focus was supposed to be other people who are “legitimately” in space, because of the aforementioned trillion dollars, and of hacking. Because both hacking and mutiny/secession haves happened lots already, even in situations where one might expect them not to.