Conquering the LaGrange Points?

3laws_safe writes "For decades, people have dreamed about building colonies at the five LaGrange points, intersections in space where gravitational and centrifugal forces balance out to provide orbital stability. But now, the official magazine of the U.S. Space Command advocates seizing control of the LaGrange points before other nations do it. From the article: 'We face the need to control the chokepoints of the solar system.' Arthur C. Clarke, who depicted a LaGrange colony in his classic 1961 novel A Fall of Moondust, is not very happy about this. He argues we should not 'export national rivalries beyond the atmosphere.' Is he right? Or should we prepare for the fact that such rivalries are inevitable, even in space?"

Comments

yes

[stoolpigeon]

Or should we prepare for the fact that such rivalries are inevitable, even in space?

Re:Yes

[stoolpigeon]

they're equivalent to saying that we shouldn't even be having these rivalries here on the ground

Which is a point made a couple posts down in this thread. But we all know about wishes. And you are right. Rather than look at it as space vs. earth -- think about it as human beings engaged in group activities. Then you realize that conflict is not just likely, it is inevitable.

Not to mention the paper linked here is talking about space dominance to insure dominance on the ground.

Re:yes

[Biogenesis]

I predict that at first it will be a bit of a "first come first served" deal. Then later the US is sure to take, by force, all points not held by democratic countries.

Re:yes

[dillon_rinker]

History suggests otherwise. When ancient civilizations discovered other civilizations, did internal feuding stop? Consider the frist century of the USA: the Whiskey Rebellion and the Civil War come to mind. Or consider 19th-century Europe. Did the existence of external enemies cause all German-speaking peoples to unite? Not until late in the 19th century (and the result was the Holocaust uniting is not always good). Italy was similar. Or consider 20th century Africa. The existence of more militarily powerful civilizations outside of Africa in the 20th century had the effect of increasing the intensity and deadliness of war in Africa.

In short, you have a nice theory about human beings doesn't withstand scrutiny unless you believe that human beings will magically change and will no longer behave as they have throughout history.

Eventually, though...if you're willing to concede that it won't happen except on a multi-millenial timescale, then I'll buy it. Yes, eventually, the tendency for war may be bred out of human beings.

Re:Yes

[Sparohok]

Space colonization is going to be like any other form of colonization in history, only with less killing of the natives.

Humans From Earth
T-Bone Burnett

We come from a blue planet light-years away
Where everything multiplies at an amazing rate
We're out here in the universe buying real estate
Hope we haven't gotten here too late

chorus:
We're humans from earth
We're humans from earth
You have nothing at all to fear
I think we're gonna like it here

We're looking for a planet with atmosphere
Where the air is fresh and the water clear
With lots of sun like you have here
Three or four hundred days a year

chorus

Bought Manhatten for a string of beads
Brought along some gadgets for you to see
Heres a crazy little thing we call TV
Do you have electricity?

chorus

I know we may seem pretty strange to you
But we got know-how and a golden rule
We're here to see manifest destiny through
Ain't nothing we can't get used to

We're humans from earth
We're humans from earth

Re:Yes

[DrCode]

Conflict is inevitable, but war isn't.

Re:yes

[karstux]

"Humans in space are still humans just like the one on this blue ball."

Actually, I'm not too sure of that. Numerous astronauts report that the trip into space changes a man - and I think I can understand that, sort of.

It's a radical change of perspective. Viewed from down here, our earth seems rather huge, and if you try to get the "big picture", the only way to do so is via maps. Conveniently, all those maps come equipped with fat, red, obvious national borders, making it easy to divide the earth in "us" and "them".

From space, it's totally different. Not only will you suddenly have a very hard time pinpointing your hometown, let alone your country. Also, it becomes hard to think of the planet as "big" when you buzz around it in less than two hour's time (the orbital period of the ISS is ~90min) and when the atmosphere is just a sliver over the sphere's mass. Or when you watch the earth shrink to the size of a ping-pong ball when making the minutest of celestial excursions, for example to our moon.

I find it very understandable that humans will act less crazy and childish in such an environment, and it's this hope for the betterment of mankind which made me an enthusiast of manned space travel.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's going to be a chance for each country's "Way of Life" to be exported abroad and for each country to seize resources for themselves so that they can dominate their rivals close to home. The fact that it's in space instead of across the sea is irrelevant.

Yes, well, if you thought the American Revolution was a bloody war, just wait until our space Colonies get tired of the lack of representation and flaming death falls from the sky? Or do you think that we'll get two new senators and a share of representatives per colony? (Hint: America is one of the most under-represented forms of representative government in the world. To bring us up to the average number of capita per representative (or is that fraction-of-a-representative per capita?), we'd have to double the size of the House of Representatives. We can't even keep up with our own population growth, how do you expect us to represent space colonies that aren't even on the planet?!)

Prepare to repeat history, indeed.

Re:Yes

[stoolpigeon]

very good. threw me for a second (I can be slow) but I appreciate your humor. Give me something to smile about on the commute home.

Re:yes

[cowboy76Spain]

Get ready for a redefinition of "democratic countries" to fit the US needs, then... : "The US forces, along with their democratic Chinese allies have gained control of G1 over the tyrannical forces of the UK"...

Re:Yes

[mpthompson]

They especially did not want to pay the monies owed to Britain for finally dispatching the one true threat in North America to all of the colonies, that being the French, during the Seven Years War/French & Indian War.

The mistake made by the British government was to impose socially unpopular taxes (sugar, stamp, tea, etc...) on the colonist to raise money which undercut the authority of the colonial legislatures. They then sent corrupt (from the colonist point of view) tax collectors to enforce the taxes further undermining local governance. The issue wasn't so much as 'why' the taxes needed to be levied, but rather the 'how'. If the British government instead had relied on the colonial legislatures levy their own local taxes for continued protection of the British army and help pay off the war debt the revolutionary war would potentially have been avoided.

By most measurements, the 13 colonies had the highest standard of living in the world at the time and truly did prosper under protection of the British crown. However, the failure of the British to understand the sensitivities of the colonists planted the seeds of discontentment and revolution.

A lesson that may be appropriate as people on Earth attempt to govern colonies in space.

Re:yes

[Rorschach1]

Sailing across the ocean changes a man. Spending a year in a foreign country changes a man. Having children changes a man.

Lots of experiences change us. But look back at the last three thousand years of human history, and you'll see that despite it all, people are still driven by the same basic needs and desires, have the same faults and flaws.

Don't think for a minute that the view out a window, however breathtaking, is going to fundamentally change the nature of the human race.

Re:Yes

[InvalidError]

To have a war, you need two armies. The USA and most countries only have one federally-owned/funded/operated army.

150 years ago, the people had access to most of the same arms as the military, not even remotely so today. This makes revolutions practically unthinkable. So if something happens, it would have to be a coup d'etat, assuming the bureaucrats are still sufficiently vulnerable for that to work and enough people get sufficiently fed up with votes making things right or any sort of measurable difference.

A democracy should put the people's rights first but election funding ensures that politicians/parties have to sell out before they can enter the game.

Re:Yes

[xSauronx]

thats all very interesting...but i was taught, as you mentioned, something very different in school. now, ive since realized that i got taught alot of bullshit in school....and as such, to be skeptical.

and since im skeptical and youre claiming facts that you say none of us learned in our general education, could you cite some sources so at least *I* could look them up and know the truth?

thanks.

Re:Yes

[learn fast]

Sons of Liberty (who would be classified as terrorists today)

They threw tea overboard. This isn't terrorism, this is somewhere between performance art and anti-globalization protestor. I sincerely wish Hamas and Al Qaeda were throwing tea into harbors rather than blowing people up.

Re:Yes

[lawpoop]

Remember that modern states depend on people living their day-to-day lives, not protesting in the streets. It might be difficult to have an armed rebellion these days, but governments are regularly overthrown and leaders are ousted in Central and South America by street protests that shut down cities (and yes, sometimes by military coups).

Revolutions need not be violent. They can happen by civil disobedience.

Re:Yes

[mi]

150 years ago, the people had access to most of the same arms as the military, not even remotely so today.

FARC? Nepalese Maoists? Granted, both have foreign helpers, but this was also true in the past.

On the other hand, over 200 years ago, young Napolean Bonaparte defeated a crowd in Paris by using canons. His forces were severely outnumbered and both sides had guns, but only he had canons and liked to use them (being an artillery officer)...

(NRA, anyone?)

This makes revolutions practically unthinkable.

Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004? Entirely peaceful, though...

A democracy should put the people's rights first but election funding ensures that politicians/parties have to sell out before they can enter the game.

"Sell out" to whom? To machines? Any sell out is to people, and the fact, that people will wield more influence than others was always an accepted attribute of Democracy.

An optimist might even add, that a good Democracy will try to ensure, that better people have more influence. How exactly this better is defined is what differenciates different regimes.

Finally, wondering even further off-topic, ensuring the "people's rights" is trivial -- the majority can still take its rights. What a Democracy should most concern itself with, is the rights of the individual, however unpopular she/he may be umong the people...

Re:Yes

[TopSpin]

Why do you assume that humans will stop recording and being interested in history?

I assume no such thing. Humans don't need anything as profound as astronomical distances or geologic time scales to forget. Cement is a good example; the West rediscovered cement by examining Roman structures. It had been forgotten for hundreds of years. People with the ability to read Egyptian hieroglyphs did not exist for more than 1300 years. That's a lot of human generations that had absolutely no means of understanding the written record of an entire civilization.

The universe places no upper-bound on our species. Consider the probabilities involved when hundreds of thousands of years pass. Imagine the possibilities of loss and regression that could occur when pockets of humans are separated by tens or hundreds of light years. Aside from the radio emissions we've recently broadcast into the universe, today, one large rock is all that would be necessary to obliterate nearly all evidence that we exist.

Seems like an illogical position for you to take.

Given enough time and space in which to invent new tragedies and triumphs, it seems to me that the only "logical position" is to assume that eventually some of our progeny will not remember from whence they came. To fill in the gaps they, like us, will invent a history. Occasionally a Rosetta stone will appear and they will stand in awe as they consider what has been lost.

Re:Yes

[Charles W Griswold]

I agree with everything you say about people, except for the inevitablity of war. Within the U.S, we certainly have conflicts, violence, and power-hungry people... but there hasn't been a war between the states for 150 years. Britain and France fought for hundreds of years, and I'm sure they still have conflicts; but what are the chances that they'll have another war, knowing that both sides would lose?

No, there hasn't been a civil war within the U.S. for the last 150 years. Nevertheless there has, for the last 150 years, and for most (if not all) of recorded history been war somewhere in the world. Quite often, these wars involved nations that think of themselves as being "civilised". The U.S. itself has been involved in armed conflict (war) for entirely too much of it's history.

Going by humanity's track record so far, I believe that war is inevitable unless something drastic happens to the entire human race. Nothing short of a total transformation of human nature will eliminate war.

Re:Yes

[stephenbooth]

Maybe someone should pitch that to Dubbya and imply that the "Evildoers" (tm) are planning to do just that. Within minutes NASA would have more money that they could possibly spend and a mandate to get back into space.

Stephen

Re:Yes

[Froobly]

Except for the fact that most advanced weaponry couldn't be used on one's own people without severe political consequences. If a rebellion had a single compound out in the middle of nowhere, it would be trivial for the government to suppress it. But that's not how it is. We all live together, and if you use highly destructive weapons (not WMDs, even a simple one-ton bomb would be enough) in an urban setting, you risk killing lots of innocents in the process.

It's bad enough in Iraq, where a good percentage of Americans don't even care if civilians are killed. Imagine doing it at home! A bunch of people spread out across a state in groups of 12 or so, armed with Columbine-style weaponry, could be a real problem for the government, and draw it out into an uphill battle with people growing rapidly more sympathetic to their cause as the government inadvertantly kills more and more innocents.

Make no mistake, even in the nuclear age, violent upheaval is still possible.

Be prepared

[nenya]

It's gonna be finders keepers with the LaGrange points. Those who wish to get them should get while the getting is good. I'd much rather the US take control of them than China, who seems to be the only other power with something like the capability.
Do I entirely trust the US government to be altruistic? No, not really. But I'd rather them be in control than the Chinese, Indians, or Russians. If you had to pick - and you probably do - which would you go for? That's really the question here.

Re:Be prepared

[xactuary]

It's gonna be finders keepers...

Then we must be prepared to give America back to the indians.

Re:Be prepared

[howman]

What you are failing to see is that none of the other countries you mentioned give a shit about LaGrange points, let alone will sink their countries curency just to posses something.
Despite the propaganda coming from the US since the 30's, not everyone feels that they have to own everything in order to be fulfilled or have a rich full life.
As they grew up with the ideas presented to them by a much more socialist propeganda machine, over the last 70 years, it only makes sence that now as leaders of countries outside of the NH and EU, their values and ideologies of need and value would remain ouside the influence of modern corporate bullshit.
So tell you what, you go ahead and grab those LaGrange Points for yourselves, and when your national debt runs so high that a dollar is worth less than a Pesso and your military has to sell parts just to buy gasoline to drive your president around, I will go to the Live 28 concert with Sir Bob and Sir Bono to feed the starving Americans.

Re:Be prepared

[demachina]

" I'd much rather the US take control of them than China, who seems to be the only other power with something like the capability."

It depends on how you define "take control" and "capability". If it means putting an unmanned satellite in them then there are a bunch of nations that could do it.

If you mean put a permenent manned station there, the Russians are the ONLY nation with a proven track record of building and long term manning a space station. The Chinese are pretty much at the Mercury stage in their space progream, they can barely get one or 2 people in orbit. The U.S. has been grounded for 2 1/2 years and the ISS would have been abandoned were it not for the Russians. The Russians built Mir and the core of the ISS. The U.S. hasn't managed to build a space station since Skylab, and then it was only manned for 90 days at a time. Though in 10 or 20 years who knows.

That said I doubt ANYONE outside the U.S. military would be insane enough to squander the vast sums needed to put military outposts at all the Lagrange points. I guess the U.S. has developed a collective mental illness that they can almost justify squandering hundreds of billions of dollars on in the name of "security" and "national defense", at a time their current account deficit indicates the U.S. is borrowing $800-900 billion dollars a year and the biggest threat to the "national security" is eventual financial collapse if they stay on the current course. You really can't borrow a trillion dollars year after year and think you wont eventually have to face the reaper.

"But I'd rather them be in control than the Chinese, Indians, or Russians"

If you are worried about the Chinese or Indians you should be more concerned about the fact that they are going to destroy the U.S. with economic competition long before we need to worry about putting weapons at LaGrange points or fighting a war with them. While the U.S. is squandering vast sums siezing control of the Lagrange points, the Chinese are going to sieze control of all the things that matter:

- All the worlds manufacturing capacity
- All the worlds high tech capacity
- All the worlds oil they can lay their hands on

Leading to the Chinese having all the jobs and all the wealth. Once the U.S. is bankrupt and unemployed I guess there is comfort in knowing we have tin cans at the Lagrange points.

Only approach I can see the U.S. angling for is borrowing and spending its way to bankrupty and then using its vast military superiority to take back all the wealth from the rest of the world. Its not exactly a free market approach though ;)

The people in Space Command are long range thinkers bordering on psychotic. They need to think of stuff like this to justify their existence and their budgets. It must be tough for them to be the only armed force that for the most part can't even get to their battlefield because the worlds manned launch capability is so weak that they can't really do the "Starfighter" thing.

Space command does need to worry about protecting all the GPS, comm and spy satellite assets they are so dependent on. Anything beyond that is mostly fantasy, instanity or propaganda. Maybe they are trying to sucker China and Russia in to squandering hundreds of billions on a race to the LaGrange points while they kick back and laugh.

Not having read the article but the only use Space command could make of the lagrange points or a moon base it put big beam weapons there. They are to far away to be useful for anything else, other than maybe "last strike" nuclear weapons. You aren't going to spend the vast energy and money needed to get conventional weapons to them and back. They are to far away to be much good for spying. I for one shudder at the idea of spending hundreds of billions of dollars putting beam weapons in space, or that the U.S. could or should have the capacity to instantly vaporize people from space.

All in all this is just another case of the wacko'

Yes

[Valdrax]

While Clark sentiments are noble, they're equivalent to saying that we shouldn't even be having these rivalries here on the ground. He is correct, but wishing does not make reality so.

Space colonization is going to be like any other form of colonization in history, only with less killing of the natives. It's going to be a chance for each country's "Way of Life" to be exported abroad and for each country to seize resources for themselves so that they can dominate their rivals close to home. The fact that it's in space instead of across the sea is irrelevant.

This is history. Prepare to repeat it.

France

[jaguar717]

Look at it this way, it can start out as an irrelevant US military base and then flourish commercially, or France can get there first, claim it in the name of the EU, and establish a massive bureaucracy with a 60% tax on everything passing through. I'd rather have a quasi-Free Market gov't grab it first.

Dream on...

[14erCleaner]

You don't need a stable solar orbit when you can't even get to low-earth orbit reliably. Let's see how tomorrow's shuttle launch goes, then go back to dreaming about the military domination of the solar system later. Or maybe we can just the the &%$#* international space station finished, ferchrissake...

Re:Dream on...

[Tanmi-Daiow]

You can hardly compare low-earth orbit to stable solar orbit. The environment between the two are completely different. It is harder to get to low-earth because the atmosphere (yes, there still is atmosphere up there) causes insane amounts of friction. Friction, more often than not, causes damage, making low-earth a comparatively high-maintenance venture. Where, if you look at extra-orbital space flight records. They are quite good. We rarely have problems with getting out of the atmosphere and such related activities. I think it's perfectly acceptable and monetarily feasible to puruse this rather than low-earth orbit operations.

Dimensions

[paiute]

Discussions assume that the LP is a tiny patch of ground that can be taken and defended. Really, how large a volume of space does the usable portion of the LP occupy?

Re:Dimensions

[Anonymous Coward]

That is only the case for L1, 2, and 3. L4 and L5 are stable, they are like being in a valley. You can park something there forever.

Peaceful use of Space just a temporary phase...

[dtolman]

Even if the conflicts in space are just the diplomatic/political kind (ie - we built a base here first - this section of Mars/Moon/Space is ours), and not the military kind - they are inevitable. The only reason they haven't happened is because there is no reason to claim territory in space - yet. But once it starts, every nation that can will start planting flags... its not a matter of if - its when.

this guy is absolutely right

[user317]

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.

Thank you.

Attention, US Americans:

[FFFish]

It's stupid shit like this that makes other nations despise you.

I think most American citizens are fine people. It's time for you citizens to wrest control back from the evil scum who run your country.

If you do not, the inevitable outcome will be further degradation of your personal safety. You can not afford to let this happen.

Re:Attention, US Americans:

[bogjobber]

Please mod the parent down. I don't know how this possibly got modded insightful. It is pure anti-Americanism with absolutely no logical or rational point. If the US government puts a space station in a LG point the inevitable outcome will be the further degradation of our personal safety? How could that possibly pass as a rational thought in anybody's mind, especially as it is a single sentence with absolutely nothing to back it up? That is just a senseless threat. Constructive criticism is one thing, this is just ridiculous.

Re:Attention, US Americans:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's stupid shit like this that makes other nations despise you.

So, other nations despise me because some guy in the military said some crazy shit? That seems like a pretty dumb reason to despise me. Most people in other nations don't even know me.

Analogy

[Locke2005]

While we're at it, let's grab military control of Antarctica too, 'cause this shit about "sharing" as called for in the Antarctic Treaty just ain't workin' out!

By 1996, 41 nations, representing more than 80 per cent of the earth's population, had signed the treaty. Of these, 27 nations were full voting members of the treaty organisation.

Provisions of the treaty can be changed only by unanimous agreement of the voting members.

The treaty also bans any military operations, use of nuclear weapons, or disposal of radioactive waste in Antarctica; encourages the free exchange of information from scientific research conducted there; and forbids nations from making any new territorial claims on the continent.

It, however, made no ruling on existing territorial claims.

Why isn't this a viable model for control of the LaGrange points? Seems like there is a lot less resources to exploit in the LaGrange points than in the antarctic... hell, there aren't even any penguins living in the LaGrange points!

Face it.

[hobotron]

We need competition.

If there was one thing that drives space exploration its competition, not your starry-eyed dreams of free society, or the wonder to know and explore. There is a reason it was called the "Space Race". For the better part of 35 years we have done mostly nothing in our national space initative, sure we have mars rovers, comet impacting probes, and other devices we have yet to fully understand. But where have WE gone?

We have sat in the comfort of earth and lower earth orbit for more than 35 years. We have sat here because space has turned from something to have national pride for, to something that really only makes the news with its failures.

Everyone wants to find fault with NASA, the Administration, some scape goat, (And I will not argue with their faults), but no one wants to see the real reason why we are stuck at home.

We have no competition. None. No country to upstage us for a long time. There are people who remember why we went to space, and those people wrote this article. Competition is coming though, and we will be hard pressed to catch up, because that is what we will have to do, Catch up.

Yes we are technologically superior, and probably will be for the forseeable future, but if you can believe, space is not captured by technology, it is captured by the human spirit, the will, the drive that is in all of us, but we have somehow learned to ignore this with our endless safety and budget meetings. Space has been turned into routine.

Competition will come from China, yes, everyone would like to call them at least somewhat backwards, but that is a dangerous interpratation.

They are not backwards, but merely held back. Their genetic and social expansion has been curtailed by a government for the better part of thousands of years. Im not just talking about their recent communist regime. They will find their drive one day, and when they do, they will not be stopped. The fatal flaw that our space program has suffered, the degeneration into routine, will not be a factor for a population long held back.

We as a nation must see this, we must see this coming competition, and thrive on it as we always have. LaGrange Points, Mars, Asteriod Belt, these are places humans can learn to use for our benifit, they are above and beyond critical to our long term survival, and competition will get us there, one way or another.

Don't believe the hype

[L-Train8]

Because one general in an obscure military journal tossed out the idea doesn't mean that the US supports this position, is working towards achieving this goal, or really much else.

Colonizing, or capturing, or whatever exactly the military wants to do with the LaGrange points is decades if not centuries away, and decades if not centuries away from being militarily significant. It is in no way feasable right now, given the ballooning US budget deficit. Our current national debt could not take the strain that the financial burden of such an endeavor would entail. This is nothing more than one soldier's wet dream.

Re:Don't believe the hype

[rm999]

A little off topic, but I can think of a few things wrong with a trade deficit:

-money from the US is going to other countries. This often means that an american company could have sold the product, but instead a foreign company got the business. For example, everytime someone buys a toyota, ford and gm lost a potential customer.
-You are right that a large deficit means less people working. But people not working is often a bad thing for an economy.
-A trade deficit means we are dependant on another nation for something. Relationships among nations are not always stable. For example, if we went to war with china tomorrow, walmart would suddenly be screwed because they would not be able to import like 75% of their inventory.

Re:For the unaware

[Ponder]

Hmm No. If you read the pdf they seem to be refering to the Earth-Moon Lagrange points. The Earth-Sun ones would be rather too distant to provide much of a base for weapons or refueling form moon missions.

If I've learned anything...

[vicgolgo13]

I like to think of it as how movies and video games taught me.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Civilization taught me that the first into space will be the only civilization that lives and even then we will inevitably fight amongst ourselves for supremacy of land and space. And regardless of what country we come from, there will be an intellectual divide that separates each faction of thought, whether it be a hive mind, militaristic, eco-friendly, or religion based mindset.

The Terminator Movie Series taught me that mankind is destined to destroy itself.

And Highlander taught me that there can be only one.

So ultimately, no matter where we go, we will want to be the first to claim our stake, and if there is a dispute, we will battle it out until all others are ultimately destroyed for that is our destiny until there is only one left.

Democratic countries?

[katharsis83]

What does a country being democratic have to do with it?

I seem to recall the US removing several democratically elected heads of state in South/Central America just because they saw them as threats to US economic/polic interests...

Let's also not forget the Iranian coup, (from Wikipedia):

"By the 20th century Iranians were longing for a change and thus followed the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905/1911. In 1953 Iran's prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who had been elected to parliament in 1923 and again in 1944 and who had been prime minister since 1951, was removed from power in a complex plot orchestrated by British and US intelligence agencies ("Operation Ajax").

Many scholars suspect that this ouster was motivated by British-US opposition to Mossadeq's attempt to nationalize Iran's oil. Following Mossadeq's fall, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Iran's monarch) grew increasingly dictatorial... His autocratic rule, including systematic torture and other human rights violations, led to the Iranian revolution and overthrow of his regime in 1979."

Re:Democratic countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that the USA is not a democracy - it is a Republic.

Re:Because it's not a body

[cpghost]

[...] which will necessitate extending national power into outer space, in order to enforce any claims on territoriality.

It is also worth noting, that it is extremely hard to enforce anything in space. Any space station (at a Lagrange point or anywhere else) can be knocked off with a minimum amount of effort and energy by a determined nation anyway. Space is such a hard environment that everything but cooperation would result in inevitable casualties.

We didn't fight the sovjets in space (nor did they fight us there) even when the Cold War reached its hottest phase. A physical confrontation in space would be just plain ridiculous...

... though we can't ignore human nature either.

Great. First Iraq, now space.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's next? The Earth's core? Saturn's rings? When are we going to stop trying to lay claim to everything???

Finders keepers? Why not hands off?

[Chris Burke]

Who says anyone must hold absolute control of the LaGrange points?

I mean, the same argument could be said for Antarctica -- if we don't turn it into a U.S. controlled territory, the Chinese will! Well, maybe if they were trying to monopolize access to Antarctica, we would care enough to do it first. In the meantime, many countries can conduct their own business on Antarctica and there are no problems.

Why treat space differently? Why would you, in anticipation of a conflict in the future, create one now? If you treat control of LaGrange as a binary choice -- either us or the Chinese have 100% control with no access at all for the other -- then you will bring that situation about. If you say that we will fight over LaGrange and thus we must claim it now and prevent the Chinese from doing so, then you only give them an incentive to take it for themselves, whether before or after we do.

I am fully aware that with history as our guide we can predict conflicts in space. Why assume that all such conflicts are unavoidable and that the only choice is preemptive action? History doesn't bear that out at all. History does say that when one side believes war is innevitable, then it is.

We don't have to go to war with China, over the LaGrange points or anything else. We don't. And only by believing that this is the case will it ever be possible.

So I say we treat it like Antarctica. Nobody claims it, nobody prevents others from accesing it, everybody benefits. If this model of peaceful coexistence breaks down, well hopefully we're not fools and are prepared. But let's not go creating conflicts where none exist yet, okay?

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Is he right? Or should we prepare for the fact that such rivalries are inevitable, even in space?

I know it's habitual but the US needs to stop, think and ask some questions before shooting.

The US seems to love taking the initiative. So do so in a manner which involves the international community. Not in a way which creates further division.

This just seems like a good opportunity to do something right.

It is NOT a fact.

[Anonymous Coward]

" the fact that such rivalries are inevitable "

That is your opinion.
I believe that such rivalries can be prevented.
I have seen much progress already made by nations working together and sharing information. Even the Soviets have opened their space program. Your pessimistic attitude should not warp your logic so much that you think you can see into the future.

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world." -Buddha

Other L points! Re:Actually -.

[Rik van Riel]

The Lagrange points you mention are those of the sun/earth system. The article refers to the earth/moon Lagrange points...

The moon L1 point is useful for something else - you can build a space elevator from the moon, past the L1 point and with a big weight on the earth side of the L1 point as a counterbalance to the cable itself. This is needed since the moon is tidally locked to earth, which means there's no luna-stable orbit around the moon.

Ask the Vietnamese, the Iraqis,

[expro]

Ask the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the residents of Nagasaki, Hiroshima, etc. how much they benefitted from the American slaughter.

Get a clue yourself.

[expro]

First, your assertions do nothing to salvage the original claim that these countries somehow attacked America.

America tried to defend South Vietnam against North Vietnam.

When did they join the Union?

America successfully defended Kuwait against Iraq in the Gulf War. The current Iraq war is supposedly due to violations of the treaty ending the Gulf War.

The key word here here being "supposedly", yet even if it were true, which it is not, it was not an attack on America, and the WMD claims were lies by the Bush administration that were nearly as transparent at the time as they were now. The US was far more responsible than Iraq for kicking out weapons inspectors by infiltrating them with spies, which was never part of the deal, telling them they had to leave because the US was going to attack again, and forbidding them from ever reentering to resecure the real weapons sites that they had secured much more effectively than the Americans did (demonstrating that that was never the real intent of the American aggression). As incompetent as the UN was, it was not nearly as incompetent or vicious towards civilians as American operations there are today and Kofi Annan correctly judged the war as an unfounded, illegal war by the US.

I'm not a big fan of the current conflict, BTW. As an aside, claiming any dictator has the right to rule a country by force, which is what you did by talking about Iraq's sovereignty, is a strange belief.

Claiming that Sadaam had a right to rule by force was what the US administrations did repeatedly when Sadaam was still weak enough that he might have been overthown, but the US loved him because he was so good at slaughtering Iranians and we were helping him keep power and even target his chemical attacks.

If he had been universally opposed, he would have easily been overthrown and there would not be such a large opposing the US rule. Now, the US is the one ruling by force, responsible for at least a hundred thousand deaths and much more maiming, etc. You cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun. Taking sides in civil wars is silly. Disarming and declaring war on one army which basically had terrorism under control just to train a whole other set of army troops for the other side and hand victory to the Iranians is silly and has nothing to do with Democracy. Sadaam was our dictator, just as Bin Laden was our man in Afghanistan and most of the new, improved trained police there are just another dimension for another civil religious war and they are turning loose the same type of death squads that Sadaam had, initiated by American action which has not generally advanced rights at all, as many now-oppressed groups will readily tell you.

Bush is also a dictator over those who oppose his illegal immoral actions taken in the name of America. Just because the political process allows him to take power in an election where there were no credible alternatives does not mean he and his party should have absolute power to lie, cheat, steal, etc. as they do, without fear of any responsibility. Iran is also a democracy, which Bush ironically finds to be illegitimate for similar reasons. There is not as much a difference as you would like to pretend.

Re:Get a clue yourself.

[SolemnDwarf]

...declaring war on one army which basically had terrorism under control

lollercoaster

Now, the US is the one ruling by force, responsible for at least a hundred thousand deaths and much more maiming, etc.

I didn't realize it was the U.S. troops setting off those bombs at crowded intersections and recruiting lines. I should have known that the insurgents (read:terrorists) would never harm an innocent.

Claiming that Sadaam had a right to rule by force was what the US administrations did repeatedly when Sadaam was still weak enough that he might have been overthown, but the US loved him because he was so good at slaughtering Iranians and we were helping him keep power and even target his chemical attacks.

The first true statement you've made. Big mistake on the U.S.'s part. The "enemy of my enemy is my friend" tactic was not a good idea.

You cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun.

Sure you can! You just have to work on your aim a bit. You'll get the hang of it.

Yes, it is asshole

[CarrionBird]

Conflict and war are the natural state of humanity. Nobody has to be taught to hit or hit back or to hate. People do have to be taught how not to do those things, and that obviously does not work well.

For evidence see all of human history.

People are the problem.

Re:Yes, it is asshole

[evershade]

interestingly, the majority of the time the majority of people actually get along with each other and treat each other well enough that they can get on with their lives. those who don't, do it very loud and so violently that we notice it more. i once read about a study that claimed to prove that there had been more war over the last so many thousand years than there had been peace. of course the whole idea is bunk because war is localized and peace is the general state of things after coming to rest. they are not opposites as is so they are often misinterpreted. even when a war is going on the majority of space is taken up by peaceful people coexisting. it's just that war gets in the head to the point that someone living in a country that is at war in a foreign land, thinks of themselves as being at war. that is, the violence committed abroad lives in the minds of the people at home who are actually experiencing little to no violence. if you question this assertion, take stock of your day and estimate how much of it is actually taken up by you being violent to others or them being violent to you. the rest is just the stories we tell ourselves and others.

Re:Finders keepers? Why not hands off?

[Chris Burke]

Peace has been found between untrustworthy adversaries in the past. Your implication of naivete is misplaced. Treaties are made, and treaties are broken. The point is that at all times peace should be the goal, and abandoned only when peace is no longer feasible. Asserting that peace is impossible before it is tried and starting a war is the height of foolishness.

Practically, the best thing the U.S. and China have going for them is their economic co-dependence. It is utterly stupid for the U.S. to have outsourced its fundamental production capacity to China -- if war did break out, and China decided to stop shipping us steel, what would we make war machines with? Our Intellectual Property? Nevertheless, it becomes increasingly undesireable for the U.S. and China to escalate things. Of course this means we're forced to tolerate China's miserable human rights record (which unsurprisingly hasn't been difficult for our business sector). We may have little choice but to let Taiwan sink or swim on its own.

In the worst case, we've still got MAD. It sucks, but it works.

Re:Depends what you mean by natives

[Grishnakh]

Accidents never kill very many people in the grand scheme of things. A few space accidents will be totally insignificant compared to the wholesale slaughter that was done by colonizers in other eras.

Re:For God's sake!!

[Grishnakh]

You gotta look at where Iraq was when you say that. Yeah, Iraq isn't a paradise right now -- in fact it is a very dangerous place. But at least a dictator has been replaced by hope.

So why did we prop up this dictator back in the 80's, and help him gas the Kurds which we now claim is somehow bad? If he's a horrible dictator, why did we install him there? It's the exact same thing that happened in their neighbor Iran: they had a nice, stable democracy, so we overthrew it and installed the Shah. The place has been a mess ever since.

Sorry, you again are making a relative judgement

[expro]

I am not from India. I just have met and talked extensively with people from many corners of the globe, including Iraq, Pakistan, and India. I am born and raised in the USA as were my ancestors for many generations. The actions in the middle east have not prevented terrorism by any stretch (and now a majority even of Americans believe they have increased the risk, not reduced it). By every reasonable analysis, they have greatly increased the risk of terrorism, lost us all sympathy of most of the world, etc. It is far scarier to fly internationally now than following 9/11 because the world holds us accountable for much evil when we use to have their sympathy and good will. Now they will start treating us like we treat them.

Your references to Pakistan are just the same thing people said about Iraq when the US supported dictator Hussein or even Russia in the second world war. Did you know that Pakistan has greater population than Russia? You suddenly care about Iraq because the neocons suddenly care to make another war. No principles, just stumbling blindly from one war to another, creating lots of terrorists along the way by our own terrorizing actions, arming more and more militias to attack us later and making more populations hate us. Its is great for those who profit from war, but not for civilizations.

Re:Do you think they were good?

[RWerp]

Here's the deal -- I don't care about most of this. Bottom line is that Bush has kept the homeland free of terrorism for the past 4 years or so. What happens in Smellistan is just noise.

Believe it or not, this sort of attitude from the rich countries of the West ("we look after our interest, and what happens to some poor bastards far away is just noise") is one of the things which breed terrorists and hatred towards Western civilization. I'm not a Pakistani, so I didn't take your post emotionally. Were I one, I'd probably like to spit in your face for your arrogance and stupidity.

If you think that 'homeland' will be kept free from fear for ever by using such tactics (pushing troubles abroad, to some Smellistans or Fuckraqs), you're just soo wrong and invite a repeat of 9/11.