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If we had the ability to transport large numbers of people to the moon and set up civilisation, we'd probably also have the ability to bring a minable carbon-ri

by mkl 5y ago

If we had the ability to transport large numbers of people to the moon and set up civilisation, we'd probably also have the ability to bring a minable carbon-rich comet or two into lunar orbit or smash them into the surface.

BurningFrog 5y ago
If you have that ability, you can also smash a comet into any city on Earth.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Yea so we’ll have to just not do that
  - stevespang 5y ago
    No worries, the "dictatorships for life" in China and Russia will figure a way to weaponize comets and meteorites . . .
- jerf 5y ago
  There is no way around that. If you sit down and seriously wargame what a space civilization looks like, in real space with no Star Trek shields, you get some interesting results. One of the results that is really hard to avoid is that if there is a large-scale space civilization around, using the entire solar system... planets aren't really militarily defensible. Without some sort of technology like shields or something that don't seem plausible, they're just sitting ducks. Following along from there, that tends to mean that the planet-bound are going to try to be very highly controlling of the space civilization for as long as possible. They'll be torn between the high levels of wealth the space civilization is sending back down, which will rapidly become completely necessary to sustain their life style, and the fact that every ship in space is a deadly weapon. If you can get to the asteroid belt in a reasonable period of time, you can accelerate from there at a rate that is going to be uninterceptable by the time it gets to Earth. There's a reason why there's a lot of sci-fi about the space settlers fighting Earth for independence. It's not a terribly difficult analysis to see that as a highly likely outcome. I've only sketched it here. (As another for-instance... it becomes highly advantageous for Earth to do everything in its power to make darned sure those space colonies can't survive independently, up to and including full intelligence penetration to kill any research attempt to come up with alternate sources for hydrocarbons or nitrogen or complex manufacturing. But the economics and politics inexorably push towards doing more stuff in space for those in space, because it's a lot cheaper than the shipping costs, and as the space-bound get more wealthy and more numerous, eventually they can start smuggling equipment and find places to extract these resources even so....)
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    I expect asteroid exploration to be heavily restricted, since anyone who can move an asteroid also has more destructive power than a nuclear bomb.

by mkl 5y ago

BurningFrog 5y ago

If you have that ability, you can also smash a comet into any city on Earth.

ericmay 5y ago
Yea so we’ll have to just not do that
- stevespang 5y ago
  No worries, the "dictatorships for life" in China and Russia will figure a way to weaponize comets and meteorites . . .
jerf 5y ago
There is no way around that. If you sit down and seriously wargame what a space civilization looks like, in real space with no Star Trek shields, you get some interesting results. One of the results that is really hard to avoid is that if there is a large-scale space civilization around, using the entire solar system... planets aren't really militarily defensible. Without some sort of technology like shields or something that don't seem plausible, they're just sitting ducks. Following along from there, that tends to mean that the planet-bound are going to try to be very highly controlling of the space civilization for as long as possible. They'll be torn between the high levels of wealth the space civilization is sending back down, which will rapidly become completely necessary to sustain their life style, and the fact that every ship in space is a deadly weapon. If you can get to the asteroid belt in a reasonable period of time, you can accelerate from there at a rate that is going to be uninterceptable by the time it gets to Earth. There's a reason why there's a lot of sci-fi about the space settlers fighting Earth for independence. It's not a terribly difficult analysis to see that as a highly likely outcome. I've only sketched it here. (As another for-instance... it becomes highly advantageous for Earth to do everything in its power to make darned sure those space colonies can't survive independently, up to and including full intelligence penetration to kill any research attempt to come up with alternate sources for hydrocarbons or nitrogen or complex manufacturing. But the economics and politics inexorably push towards doing more stuff in space for those in space, because it's a lot cheaper than the shipping costs, and as the space-bound get more wealthy and more numerous, eventually they can start smuggling equipment and find places to extract these resources even so....)
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  I expect asteroid exploration to be heavily restricted, since anyone who can move an asteroid also has more destructive power than a nuclear bomb.