BTW, “rock dropping” = a spike of metal, a probe core with a battery, an antenna and a single-use deorbiting thruster. Just a passive lump.
They’d be nearly impossible to detect before they reentered.
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they were described as a type of Barge in the book werent they? loaded with mined ore
i wonder if those kinetic “rods from god” weapons are real or the stuff of darpa fantasy
fascist “corporations” were weird.
Yet, we competed with the Soviets to dominate space, and now we’re handing over space programs to private corporations. I can easily see a corporate defined space program, because we literally can’t do anything through the public sphere (which is still nationally defined) because it’s now deemed “evil” by libertarians and the right wing, who dominate global politics right now.
Even if the official position is that of a common heritage (which I agree with) that doesn’t mean that it will continue to be that, especially as corporations continue to dominate our lives.
I see a much more likely future in space to look like Dark Matter as opposed to Star Trek. I wish that weren’t the case, but given how much of the public sphere we’ve given up in the past couple of centuries, I can’t see it going any other way.
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Yep, pretty much. I have no reason to think otherwise.
Another great example of corporate domination of space exploration.
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I totally don’t follow. Are you suggesting that the normal supply/demand economic principals suddenly don’t apply once you’re in space, and somehow corporate interests will still continue to mine even after supply far outstrips demand? Because I can think of a number of commodities here on earth that are much much cheaper and easier to obtain than they used to be, but that doesn’t mean we use 10,000 times as much of it. Salt, for example. Sure, we use more than we might if it was really expensive, but right now it’s so cheap that there are mineral extraction companies around the world that pile up mountains of the stuff as a waste product from extracting the rarer minerals that they’re really after. Not everything needs to be used for something.
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Um yeah. We actually know more about what’s on the surface of the Moon more than we know about what’s on the bottom of the great lakes. That includes photos and video. Turns out, near 0 atmospheres pressure is easier to deal with than, like, dozens of atmospheres.
(Partly because nobody is expecting to find anything all that crazy down there)
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Didn’t the United States decline to join the Moon Treaty? That would seem to contradict your statement.
Martian Potato Famine
Please give generously.
I’d be OK with him claiming the sun if he went to live there.
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Tessier-Ashpool
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You can’t build habitats or robots, or more land out of salt. Or out of anything else that’s in great supply on earth.
The outlay for space mining has to be reacquired to generate profits, but that means mining mountains of metals and fuel, which is whats considered scarce on earth.
And it will be mined, because that value is too great to be ignored, even if it completely eliminates its own value as a commodity; that moment of being the richest, most powerful company ever is impossible for the corps to ignore. It’s what they’re made to be, after all.
I’m saying that it will be a flood of resources like humanity has never seen, and any associated currency will lose value so fast as to be ignored for easier to use systems. An energy economy, perhaps.
There are a bunch of corpses littering Mt. Everest and it’s only become more and more popular…
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There isn’t 55,000,000km (minimum!) of vacuum between the summit of Mt Everest and civilisation.
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SpaceX just launched their 18th Falcon 9 of 2017 this evening. We could see the rocket trails from our backyard. If anybody else was saying what Musk is saying about going to Mars, I would think that they were crazy. But when Elon Musk talks, and based on his record, I listen. He may not always get things done on schedule, but he has accomplished a great deal so far. And he is really serious about colonizing Mars.
I worry that when he launches his Tesla into space, it’ll go sailing through interplanetary space … with the left turn signal on.
If aliens get stuck behind it, after five minutes they’ll disintegrate the car, then come for us.
Mutually Assured Destruction didn’t end all war on Earth.
…How exactly are plentiful minerals supposed to make money obsolete? Unless they have asteroids made of oil, steak, and nice houses in good school districts, I don’t think money is going anywhere.
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You just have to find the right asteroid.
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So basically, Outland, maybe with a side order of Total Recall’s last 20 min.
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