The SpaceNews forum was always my “home” in regard to expressing my views on space exploration and colonization. Even though I was repeatedly banned, I always returned home. Now, along with the many other forums that have disappeared, it is gone. What is left is The Space Review…and in my view is not addressing the most important issues as often as it could and should.
Space Solar Power as the solution to Climate Change should be showcased with at least one article every week on The Space Review. I would be happy to try and provide that article but there are dozens of PhD’s involved in Space Solar Power research that would probably contribute.
Alien invasion movies, a museum, Taiwan satellites, etc., when the big issues are ignored. Those being nuclear propulsion (since chemicals are not taking humans anywhere Beyond Earth and Lunar Orbit), Human Space Flight (since the NewSpace profit motive is slowly but surely ending that), and Launch Vehicle technology (since the engines and vehicles are what take us into space) are what the articles should be about.
Sadly, the NewSpace “lobby” pushes a body of dogma where nothing except what the flagship company is doing or promotes is considered of any interest. Since that Ayn-Rand-in-space libertarian view has been regurgitated ad nauseum, we are left with nothing of interest.
“At the end of the day, the America Party will only split votes from one party, the Republican Party. This will cause Democrats to win and destroy the country.”
America already ended on election night. Passing the big ugly is just more proof of that. What will come next, if autocracy is defeated, will be something different. The singular fundamental change will be the end of oligarchy by doing exactly what the author advocates: getting rid of billionaires.
Musk could have gone from zero to hero and been a central figure in the history of our species. Like many others, he failed, and nothing is going to change most of the planet’s disgust at this point after the “Roman salutes” and cutting off aid to starving children. His concept of the megaconstellation is, in an uncanny mirror of his denouncing Space Solar Power, “the stupidest thing ever.” His hobby rocket landing back the first stage, only made possible by the engineers working for him, will be his only real success and claim to any good… and not nearly enough to redeem him.
NewSpace, the worst thing that ever happened to space exploration and colonization, must somehow now be undone.
I would advocate for a “New Deal.” Not only a “New Green Deal”, but a “New Green Space Deal.” The end of burning fossil fuel by the end of the century and a permanent solution to Climate Change. Factories on the Moon.
“The only concrete proposal he provides is to get rid of billionaires—or, rather, their billions, suggesting that an individual’s net worth be capped at $500 million: “there’s no reason we as a society have to put up with the continued existence of billionaires,” who he argues help “fringe philosophies” thrive.”
I have to absolutely and without reservation agree with that one concrete proposal. The recent parade of mega-yachts into Venice, and the incredible damage Musk has done, which I foresaw 15 years ago, is evidence enough to convince me.
I am not a “communist”, I am a New Deal Democrat. One of those people who understand that democracy is essentially about keeping billionaires from happening. Just as in ancient Greece, the citizens of Athens and other city-states, collectively chose (voted) that oligarchs were no longer going to run their price-fixing schemes and incidentally impoverish many citizens into selling themselves into slavery (that was how debts were settled). Oligarchs gamble with their vast holdings and crash markets, start wars, pass laws to make themselves immune to prosecution and eventually make themselves demi-gods. The inevitable result as wealth concentrates upward to fewer and fewer being a very few own everything and everyone.
The fundamental truth of democracy is that nobody owns anything or possess any wealth unless the rest of us let them. The fundamental question of democracy is how much WE allow the individual to keep as a safeguard against them destroying democracy. Thus, the ultra-rich have only one agenda: to evade the taxation and regulation (laws) that limit their accumulation of wealth. We have been brainwashed for over a century by the media with propaganda making democracy into theft from ”the best people.” The problem being no day of work by a single person can be worth hundreds of thousands of days of work by another person. That is the idea of all created equal that billionaires will not tolerate being entertained. The idea that “The world turned upside down” at Yorktown was that no more kings, oligarchs, or dictators, would make a people into slaves, subjects, serfs, wage slaves or whatever term signifying the end of freedom. Freedom is not greed.
That a citizen can only be allowed to have so much wealth, which equates to power, to safeguard the rest of the citizenry, is as valid as the idea that humankind must leave Earth and expand into the cosmos if we are to survive.
“Space, of course, was never going to be the only solution to all our problems, but the idea that it is useless is equally flawed. Most of the space industry has avoided those false extremes,-“
“Well….the fundamental problem has always been, in my view, our finite lifespan, and I have long held that an individual indefinite lifespan is the only way we will survive collectively as a species. There is some connection with space as the most likely method of travel to other stars will be to freeze people (without cellular damage) for centuries long voyages. Anyone frozen and embarking on a “slow boat” may be awakened mid-journey by a “fast boat” and be given a course of treatment to reverse any age-related effects. Alternately, we may very well continue to worship Mammon and destroy the environment…and go extinct.
Setting aside Terror Management Theory, I have found myself believing that Space is, in fact, a solution to almost all threats to our species. I do not see it as a false extreme. Name most any problem (beside death) and Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision of space colonization usually makes it go away.
The problem is that Musk and some other techbro’s are now a worse threat to humankind than nuclear war or a meteor or comet impact. In fact, Golden Dome and AI, along with the abomination that are megaconstellations, is the most likely path to nuclear Armageddon. Becker is correct in identifying the Silicon Valley accelerationist ideology as a threat that must be addressed before spending energy on space colonization.”
“Futurists very often completely miss the mark while a very few, like Jules Verne, get nearer to the bullseye. Gerard K. O’Neill and NOT Elon Musk was the Jules Verne of space colonization. O’Neill hit the mark with all the critical elements like an economic engine (Space Solar Power) an imperative (Climate Change which O’Neill mentioned) and habitats instead of Mars or other natural bodies as second homes due to the requirement for 1G. An immense state-sponsored program to use lunar resources as the key. Musk and NewSpace went in essentially the opposite direction and, as I have stated hundreds of times, is the worst thing that has ever happened to space exploration and colonization.”
“On the contrary the pendulum is soon to swing back, and it is not going to stop in the middle. We the People ended the oligarchy of the gilded age once before and then after the inevitable boom and bust of the great depression a 90 percent tax rate came into effect for several decades. History rhymes and it seems quite likely the billionaire class is about to be taxed and regulated into oblivion.
45 billion for alligator Alcatraz prisons and trillions more in debt while essentially ending taxation for oligarchs is the writing on the wall. Most of those who decided not to vote for a black woman will be actively voting to end the party of the rich from now on.”
“What “group” did the Panama Canal? The Hoover Dam? The federal highway system? The Rural Electrification Act? What group has funded basic science in the university system for the last century? What group directed the Apollo program and landed humans on the Moon? The Ayn-Rand-in-space-libertarian NewSpace crowd have nothing but satellites and oligarchy in their future. Only an immense state-sponsored energy project is going to guarantee our species survival. Entrepreneurs are likely to end us.
Billionaire hobbyists have shown us their wonderfully bizarre ability to lead humankind in the wrong direction. Presently their Roman salutes are pointing us down the road to autocracy and fascism. People like Gerard K. O’Neill have shown us the best path to a bright future. The Silicon Valley tech Bro accelerationists have shown us how to self-destruct.”
The very worst analogies are to be found applied to space. The novelty of paying to float in a radiation bath and vomit while looking out a window to earn fake astro-not wings is going to wear off. Once you get going in space no propellants are consumed and no refueling stops are needed. As for the 747….commercial air travel has always been subsidized by the government. It is classic corporate welfare.
“One of the few applicable comparisons is the Kennedy speech about setting sail on a new sea. We will have to take a small ocean of water with us as cosmic ray shielding for human missions to the outer solar system. A fact that NewSpace supporters instantly react to with wailing and gnashing of teeth when it is mentioned. There is no cheap.”
The largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the history of America. Millions living precariously from paycheck to paycheck with any medical emergency a bankruptcy.
“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.”
For 15 years I have been commenting on internet forums critical of NewSpace and promoting Space Solar Power. Musk fanboy cyberthugs have so hijacked all forums and I have finally become so infamous and hated that there is literally no place left for me to comment. It seems it is finally over for Gary Church.
BaBannedfromspacenewsjust nowMessage ActionsI will assume “PENDING APPROVAL” means I am effectively banned from this “community.” It seems no one is allowed to criticize Musk and Starship/Starlink/Starshield, or promote Space Solar Power, on any public space forum. I would bet good money all the web hosts are terrorized into silencing the critics. So much for free speech absolutism.reply 0 0shareComment by Bannedfromspacenews.
BaBannedfromspacenews13 hrs agoMessage ActionsPending approvalLunar manufactured space solar power satellites relocating the energy industry off-world is the solution to climate change. This is the only path to expanding humankind off-world, the only possible economic engine, as envisioned by the true prophet of space colonization, Gerard K. O’Neill. Musk is essentially the anti-christ.Comment by Bannedfromspacenews.
BaBannedfromspacenews14 hrs agoMessage ActionsPending approvalI now definitely have sock puppet stalkers from SpaceNews replying to my comments. The Musk fan club has patrolled these forums for years making sure any critics of NewSpace are harassed into silence.
SpaceNews, The Space Review, Ars Technica, have repeatedly banned me, and the many others that finally just quit posting any comments from anyone because of the Musk fanboys….
Donald Trump’s calls for “peace” between Iran and Israel lasted for a long weekend.
The president seemingly bought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s explanation for his country’s “preemptive” strike on nuclear sites and population centers, crowing on Truth Social on Monday that the attack was a result of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life,” he said. “Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again!”
The president closed his message with a frightening warning.
“Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” he wrote.
The rant seemed to be prompted by criticism from Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host has been loudly pressuring MAGA conservatives to wash their hands of the Israel-Iran conflict. During a stop by the podcast of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Carlson worried that Trump would bring about the “end of the American empire.”
“I’m really afraid that my country’s gonna be further weakened by this,” he said.
Trump made fun of Carlson’s ouster from Fox News in response, saying “let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen.”
“Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” he added on social media.
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By Gary Church
The fundamental idea of democracy is not that hard to understand. It has been so morphed and convoluted that now most Americans actually do not understand the fundamental idea. Those whose life goal is to become as rich as possible have always been the enemies of democracy since a foundational feature of democracy is to limit individual wealth. And propagandizing out of existence this foundational feature has been a foundational goal of the rich…. which they have largely accomplished.
In order to keep this propaganda coup valid there is a need to maintain a state of constant invented crisis. And this has now reached the point where it is endangering civilization.
One way to understand democracy is to imagine a group of people thriving in a harsh environment. This is the first object lesson: A group will thrive but not an individual. Setting aside the fact an individual cannot reproduce, even in their lifetime they will sooner than later die due to even a minor illness or injury without others to help them. These others-that-help are the collective, the “Demos” in democracy.
The second object lesson: The individual may own property and have authority but never all property and all authority. An individual attempting to, for example, take all the food when there is very little, will be overpowered by the collective. An individual threatening violence if another does not, for example, obey an inappropriate order, will be overpowered by the collective. This is the power to rule, the “Kratos” in democracy.
The third object lesson: The members of a collective are all equal in regard to their freedom to choose and their obligation to obey rules that prevent their choices from harming others. The individual always has this “right choice” or right to, for example, self-defense. The individual is also always required to refrain and decline to harm others who do not pose a threat to their safety or the safety of the collective.
Wealth concentrates upward to fewer and fewer until inevitably a very few own everything and everyone. Though imperfect and difficult, the best way to stay free is a “Limitarian Democracy” that actively regulates the wealth and power of oligarchs. The central fact of democracy is this; the only reason anyone owns anything is because the rest of us let them. The central question is this; how much wealth a democracy can allow the individual to keep without self-destructing.
Felons should not be allowed to serve in public office.
We need to start repeating endlessly, “there will be a reckoning.”
Reagan started the cancer that finally ended America, and his first act was to break the air traffic controller strike and those fired were not allowed to ever hold a civil service position again. Trumpism is anti-democracy…people who have been radicalized and are voting, using democracy, to END democracy. I would suggest if you voted for Trump once, you do not get to vote in the next election. If you voted for Trump twice, you do not get to vote in the next two elections, and if you voted for Trump three times, you never get to vote again. This kind of limitarian process is likely the only hope for a New America that restores democracy. Limiting wealth, limiting autocratic power, limiting harm.
Definitely take SpaceX and Starlink away from the control of Musk. He is a threat to national security.
Best definition I have ever heard of the Biden Administration.
Musk appears to be backing down at last report, but Trump will take that as the opportunity of what lifespan he has left for fame as the strongman that ruined the richest man on Earth. He will never stop till Musk has fled to another country.
Ice on the Moon 