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99.999% of all man-made objects in space (and all of their benefits you enjoy every day) are there because of capitalism...
by Alupis 3y ago
99.999% of all man-made objects in space (and all of their benefits you enjoy every day) are there because of capitalism...
- diggan 3y agoI'd say despite capitalism, but lets just agree to disagree :)
- dotnet00 3y agoThen you don't know anything about the history of space exploration, or are so deluded by your ideology that you are intentionally blind to it.
- diggan 3y agoOr, I just happen to have a different opinion from you, and a different conclusion? It's not impossible you know
- Alupis 3y agoWell, your opinion is not grounded in reality. Nearly every item in space that is man-made was put there for commercial purposes. The space race may have started out with government/exploration, but it was vastly propelled by commercial interests seeking to deliver services around the planet.
- soperj 3y agoThat sounds made up. Sputnik wasn't because of capitalism, and capitalism didn't put a man on the moon.
- edgyquant 3y agoSputnik was one satellite decades ago. Most things in space are commercial satellites at this point so the OP is correct
- soperj 3y ago99.999%. Doubt it. edit: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/05/The_increasing_number_of_space_objects_by_type https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/05/The_increa... Rounding up to 30000 objects in orbit (not even in space), that would mean 0.3 objects weren't made by capitalism. 1 object put up by government invalidates OP.
- Alupis 3y agoStarlink has a little over 5,000 satellites in orbit currently, with expansion planned up to 42,000 in the future. At the end of 2022, there was only 6,718 active satellites[1] in space - total. The amount of government objects (from any country, of any kind, station, spy satellite, probe, rover, etc) is dwarfed by commercial interests. This just illustrates the sheer volume of commercial objects in space... In fact, here's a list of all publicly acknowledged satellites launched by the USAF since 1984[2]. It shows 331 in total, counting inactive satellites. [1] https://blog.ucsusa.org/syoung/how-many-satellites-are-in-space-the-spike-in-numbers-continues/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/syoung/how-many-satellites-are-in-sp... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites
- Swenrekcah 3y agoIt is impossible to know however, if large economies under different systems than capitalism would not have made for instance satellite phones a priority 40 years ago rather than landlines and cell towers. Capitalism didn’t because it was more expensive but a central planner might well have because they thought it was cooler. So it’s kind of unreasonable to be adamant that only because of capitalism we have stuff in space.
- Alupis 3y agoWhich centrally planned economy can/could afford to operate a constellation for phones? The initial Iridium constellation is estimated at around $5 Billion in 1998 money (~$9 Billion today), and it nearly killed the company in the process. That was just initial constellation expenses - monthly subscriptions are still cost prohibitive for majority of the population/general use, and ongoing maintenance is very expensive. The point is - it's not only cheaper to do land-based communications, but it's more reliable. There doesn't seem to be any reality where a centrally planned economy would take this sort of project on just for funsies...
- dotancohen 3y agoI don't know if you are referring to communications satellites, but only with the advent of Starlink have comms birds outnumbered reconnaissance birds.