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The language of nasa is starting to ramp up. When they fire Boeing and rent SpaceX rockets we’ll know things are getting serious. I also think this is a great
by aunty_helen 3y ago
The language of nasa is starting to ramp up. When they fire Boeing and rent SpaceX rockets we’ll know things are getting serious.
I also think this is a great example of cognitive dissonance we tech people display, “oh we’re going to the moon in the name of freedom to stop the Chinese claiming all the resources for themselves. That’s good. I like space travel.”
Reality is, we’re off to do the same thing we’ve always done, fight over control of resources. There’s hope in knowing that throughout its history, there’s one thing the US has done competently.
- techdmn 3y agoI sometimes like to remind myself that there are lots of things we do competently here in the U.S. Our medical system, for example, converts a public problem into private profit in a way that is unrivaled in the developed world.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoAnd prisons! We made incarcerating people into such a billion dollar business that we have more prisoners than the top 3 leading countries combined
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoYep. We still control: - Puerto Rico - U.S. Virgin Islands - Guam - Northern Mariana Islands - American Samoa - Baker Island - Howland Island - Jarvis Island - Johnston Atoll - Kingman Reef - Midway Atoll - Palmyra Atoll - Wake Island However, we also lost a bunch of territories between 1948 and 1982, particularly the Philippines and the Panama Canal. Can you imagine how much richer we'd be if we had developed the Philippines into a manufacturing hub right before China became one?
- bryanlarsen 3y agoImagine how much of a hypocrite we'd be if we taxed the Philippines without representation, or how different politics would be if 113M Filippinos voted in American elections...
- mdorazio 3y agoWhat resources, exactly? The moon is a shit place to go for basically anything. We’d be much better off trying for near earth asteroids. And no, a lunar base is not a good launching spot to get to other places in the solar system. You’re much better off with large orbital bases for that so you don’t have to waste reaction mass getting to and from the surface of a heavy body without atmosphere.
- belter 3y agoAccess to this water will mark the first Space based military confrontation between Earth nations. "How much water is on the Moon?": "...Based on remote observations by radar instruments aboard Chandrayaan-1 and LRO, the lunar poles have over 600 billion kilograms of water ice. That’s enough to fill at least 240,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools..." - https://www.planetary.org/articles/water-on-the-moon-guide https://www.planetary.org/articles/water-on-the-moon-guide