Defiance?

Mamdani has to be scaring the heck out of them.

“The stupidest public lie ever told by a secretary of defense.”

In 1968, a month before humans first left Earth orbit on Apollo 8, the Science article “Power from the sun: Its Future” by Peter E. Glaser, was published. Six years later and a little over a year after the last Saturn V launch, the September issue of physics today published “Colonies in space” by Gerard K. O’Neill.

A 1969 memo from White House Urban Affairs Director Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried to impress the office of U.S. President Nixon with the projected severity of the greenhouse effect.[59] However, action was not taken, even after a 20 December 1971 initiative from the Office of Science and Technology, “Determine the Climate Change Caused by Man and Nature”.[65] In the initiative, Nixon’s science advisors recommended an international network for monitoring climate trends and human impact on it.[66]

These two magazine articles and the recognition of climate change may be discussed, centuries from now, as the great missed opportunity of the twentieth century to avoid the nightmare that was to come.

We have now, with the end of American liberal democracy, completely lost track of the threats to civilization and humankind. I dreamed about genocide this morning. About half-way through Nexus by Harari…and it is giving me bad dreams.

Response to comment on The Space Review and likely not to be posted: “I would submit that maximizing corporate profits, just as in the 60’s and 70’s, is not to be found in any type of human expansion off-world. Corporate profit is to be found in telecommunications/defense satellites in Earth orbit… and the unsustainable field of dreams market being foisted upon civilization are LEO low latency megaconstellations.

Ice on the Moon is a tremendous aid to space colonization and thus a distraction from corporate profit-making. Just as Space Solar Power is not a popular topic among fossil fuel proponents, being “hung up on lunar water” is not going to make anyone any money. Human Space Flight and space colonization is hard money while LEO Golden Dome megaconstellations are in comparison the easiest money to be had.

It is sad just how many folks do not understand this.”

“It is interesting that AI and robots in space are the epitome of NewSpace ideology and yet Human Space Flight is continually used as the marketing prop for pouring tax dollars into these corporations. Corporations that have no intention of doing anything except making as much money as they can while ignoring what does not. And HSF does NOT provide any ROI.

As I have maintained for 15 years, NewSpace is a scam. Space exploration is winding down. Oligarchy is the new paradigm. The only return to a path that will result in humankind expanding off-world is to be found in a restoration of liberal democracy and progressive taxation of the rich. As with everything now, EVERYTHING reduces to the rich evading taxes and regulation. In an oligarchy there is no exploration, no science except science that make oligarchs richer.”

“Musk hates patents. Like most oligarchs now trying to rule the world he wants to be able to do anything that will make him richer without any restrictions.”

“Patents are not forever and were never meant simply to provide a “return to shareholders.” They were designed to allow the owner of the intellectual property to sell it for a certain amount of time for a reasonable profit. The goal being to incentivize research and development and advance technology for the greater public good. If you want to understand how this originally worked “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention” by Rosen, will explain it to you.”

“To provide a western standard of living for 10 billion people, to meet all transportation and other needs, would require approximately 100,000 nuclear reactors of the size presently being constructed. More than a quarter million metric tons of highly radioactive waste sits in storage near nuclear power plants and weapons production facilities worldwide, with over 90,000 metric tons in the US alone. There are 93 commercial nuclear reactors in the US. It is interesting to speculate on schemes for reusing nuclear waste but the reality is that it will slowly accumulate no matter how efficiently it is handled and will stay radioactive for…thousands of years. That will not work.

Space Solar Power rectennae fields are essentially metal mesh assemblies. You can grow crops underneath them. No waste. No Chernobyl, no Fukushima. Except for the rockets to transport tooling and workers the lunar industrial activity in space will have little effect on Earth. That will work.”

“A good overview of lunar industrialization can be found in the 2016 paper,
Making it on the Moon: Bootstrapping Lunar Industry, by Dave Dietzler:

To drive any effort to industrialize the Moon there must be an economic engine. This is the elephant in the room. There is only one possible project that can accomplish lunar industrialization. The prerequisite for this project must be….a critical need. There must be a need, a requirement, and an end goal that solves an unavoidable problem that must be addressed. An imperative that trumps the profit motive.

The historical examples are World War 2 and the fight against fascism and the following cold war against communism. The 21st century imperative is to solve Climate Change. Only the danger of civilization spiraling into a massive environmental crisis has the same priority. Climate Change is the unavoidable problem.

The only real solution to Climate Change is to, literally, stop industrial activity that burns fossil fuels and creates greenhouse gases. This is the equivalent of going to war against the axis and preventing the spread of communism. To end energy production would be to purge the planet of most of it’s human population through starvation. The critical need is to end energy production and not destroy most of the people on Earth.

There is only one project that trumps the profit motive while providing an economic engine powerful enough to solve Climate Change by ending energy production on Earth.

Lunar production of Space Solar Power components. The forces arrayed that have an agenda to stop any such project are obvious and represent the profit motive: Fossil fuel interests, the defense industry (which would lose much of their budget) and oligarchs who only entertain schemes that promise to enrich and expand their personal empires. Only a state sponsored energy project as envisioned by Gerard K. O’Neill can expand humankind off-world and at the same time solve the greatest threat to civilization.”

“Typical that you do not understand the difference between electrical energy and fossil fuels used for transportation- essentially all aircraft, shipping, and most freight trains- and heating, as well as generating that other 90 percent of “the worlds electricity.” Not only that….most of the world does not have your standard of living and each person living in squalor has a tiny carbon footprint. You are obviously fine with that but most of humankind would rather see all of humankind have the best life possible. A minority side with social Darwinism and letting useless eaters die in the gutter.

If you had looked at any industrial plans for the Moon, such as the one I cited in another comment, you would understand that once the Moon has factories it will need almost nothing from Earth. Which is why it is the only real solution; industrial activity on Earth, whether manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, or building tens of thousands of immense commercial reactor complexes, produce tremendous amounts of greenhouse gases. Relocating the energy industry to the Moon ends this feedback loop. It is not likely that hydrogen burning Super Heavy Lift Vehicles that only reenter upper stage engine modules and not entire stages will seriously damage the atmosphere. As for a single solar power satellite putting out as much as a nuclear reactor and thus the same number will be required….that is nonsense. Space Solar Power Satellites and terrestrial nuclear power plants have nothing in common. No Chernobyls, no Fukushimas, no nuclear weapon materials being produced, no nuclear waste, etc. And finally your characterizing Space Solar as massive environmental destruction is…. Orwellian.

In the past my rebuttals to such toxic naysaying for some reason have often not been posted, giving those anti-space-solar-power-people the last word and that is depressing. I hope this time it will go different.”