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Ion-Propulsion Craft Reaches The Moon
Rollie Hawk writes "It ain't warp speed, but it's exciting new technology at work! The European Space Agency put an ion-propelled rocket into lunar orbit today. While not much horsepower is generated, this method of propulsion could be ideal for travel in near-weightless space as it does not require any combustion to occur."
Yes, but Apollo 8 didn't accelerate all the way, and couldn't accelerate all the way from here to halfway to Alpha Centauri. You'd get there a lot faster on ion drive.
Of course there's no army to back this up. But if you built a base on the moon and claim anything inside plus 5 km around the perimeter your own property, it *should* be yours.
It's as simple as that: if you made new land habitable, it should be yours. Maybe I'm a little romantic here, but making some land habitable comes first, then it becomes your property, then you defend it against possible intruders.
As long as there is enough land left on the moon, there will be no conflicts, if the people involved have the slightest hint of moral obligatons left. What they may or may not have anymore, considering this will be 20 years from now at a minimum.
In general, humans all alone on a vast amount of land, totally devoid of people, in a situation of need and struggle, they tend to build friendly relationships instead of murdering each other for a piece of land. Supply and demand. If there's enough resources, land in this case, left, people don't value that land high enough to commit crimes against their moral standards. Example: Australia. Even outlaws built a society, because they couldn't survive otherwise.
Sooner or later, people will fight their wars in space, of course. But not as long as there's millions of square kilometres left for anyone to take.