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US Space Firms Tell Washington: China Will Take Over the Moon if You're Not Careful (yahoo.com)
The US space industry is prodding the US government into refreshing its outdated laws on commercial activity beyond earth: scare it with talk of Chinese galactic domination. A report adds: At a Senate hearing on the space industry this week, companies that build rockets and space habitats and manufacture electronic goods in space spoke about a standard laundry list of complaints, from regulatory burdens to fears of subsidized competitors. But their message was wrapped in patriotic concerns about China's growing capacity for space action. These companies are eager for the US government to allow and invest in commercial activities in orbit and around the moon. Many think the laws governing action in space, and particularly the UN Space Treaty, need refreshing for an age when private companies are close to matching the space capacity of sovereign nations. The last major change was a law on asteroid mining passed in 2015.
"companies that build rockets and space habitats and manufacture electronic goods in space"
Who is doing all of this manufacturing in space. I feel like I just woke up in the future. This is great!!
So, the laws do get updated, and far more regularly than most drug laws. What's the problem?
Nothing like a bit of it!
There's one way to get Trumps attention.
Put it in terms of China.
Trump, if we don't fund science, China will be #1 in RD
Trump, if we don't fund NASA, China will own the Moon!
They'll need to battle it out with the space nazi's that occupied the dark side of the moon post WW2. I say we let them clean them out before we start worrying about a base.
When it was the Russians. Worth a try.
It is there to be used to the benefit of all, no one can "own" it.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
We cannot let Red China control all the green cheese! http://uncoveror.com/moon.htm
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
We must not allow a pork gap.
There is no economic reason for anything.
Considering that the US legislature has done everything they can to impede progress in space exploration, I don't think they deserve any say about the future of space exploration. China isn't great but at least they are investing in science instead of sticking their heads in the sand and saying global warming is a hoax.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Seriously guys, this isn't hard to understand.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Everyone knows the Moon is a hoax concocted by the Chinese. Let them have it.
You mean important things like using multi-million dollar cruise missiles to strike a barely protected airstrip?
Riiiiiiight
Haven't you seen the documentary called Iron Sky?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
you allow avarice and greed dictate national policy.
will never allow the Chinese to take over the Moon.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
I don't care what motivation we have, if it takes sparking our president's over-prickly ego, or threatening ever-insecure America generally with the idea that someone else will get there first.
I truly don't care the excuse: just fucking go back to space already.
-Styopa
You mean like investing $535 million dollars in a failed solar company like Solyndra. Good job Barak Hussein. Double thumbs up!
We must not allow a pork gap.
too late lol
I thought we were going to extract all the resources using permanently based recyclable clones.
Trump ran against foreign wars and won. Plenty of people on the right opposed the bombing.
Trump, if we don't fund science, China will be #1 in RD
How is it not a problem if a repressive government gets ahead of the west in R&D? Do you like more, or less repressive government and the wrongful imprisonment of dissenters?
Trump, if we don't fund NASA, China will own the Moon!
Again, would you like a militarily aggressive force controlling the moon? That seems like a pretty valid concern for real, not just "a way to get Trump interested". In fact it's why Trump is already pretty interested in continuing NASA's work and why NASA didn't face any major budget cuts, in fact they increased planetary science spending, which is what you would hope from any rational president. We are all better off if a number of nations have operations on the moon, so we should figure out how to get more U.S. presence back on our nearest neighbor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
it is send us more money! Regarding asteroid laws, Moon Treaty, etc. first gotta have capability to have Moon travel routinely. Right now it is really hard just to get there, "GAO: NASA Human Space Exploration: Delay Likely for First Exploration Mission" http://spaceref.com/news/views...
mfwright@batnet.com
There is no economic case for space exploration.
If this is true then we have nothing to worry about when space is exploited by China, and Silicon Valley billionaires will have no interest in it.
Let's see, china's moon exploration program is called CLEP.
Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right on the moon!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "C"
And that stands for CLEP,
That rhymes with "K"
And that stands for KLEP,
That's stealing the moon!
We've surely got trouble!
I say something like this and I get scoffed at as a paranoiac, but then here comes space industry leaders saying the same thing. You going to call them paranoid, too? Or are you all paid shills for China? Based on Chinas' history of behavior can you really rule out the possibility that they'd set up shop on the Moon and tell everyone else to bugger off?
... It will be fantastic. Believe me.
There is no economic case for leaving England.
and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astromen.
Will you be among them?
They are not just complaining about lack of funding, but also about the UN Outer Space Treaty, which tries to make the Universe into a Marxist-Leninist Paradise. The US should have never signed the treaty, and should withdraw. It is becoming clear that the future development in space will be by private enterprise.
Banning weapons in outer space is for the benefit of humanity. Given the reality that even a small debris field from war would prevent orbital use for a century, it is valid.
Just build a wall... on the Moon.
We can worry about that when we've accomplished the important things: filling our country with brown people and transgender bathrooms.
What is a transgender bathroom?
I'm imagining a women's room with urinals or a men's room with a fainting couch.
Uh, did you post the long link?
The treaty is about 'not putting weapons of mass destruction' into space.
How is that a marxist leninist paradise?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Except that there demonstrably was. Please describe an economic case for a radiation-blasted vacuum with nothing in it.
I'm quoting you: "...repressive government and the wrongful imprisonment of dissenters".
As I seem to have to continually remind people on Slashdot, Hillary is not president.
Who exactly has Trump imprisoned wrongfully? Or are you saying it is wrong to imprison people who set cars on fire and loot shops? I know many on the left bellive this to be true but I had hoped that rot had not spread to the more rational denizens of Slashdot.
It's just their sheeple, drink the Kool-Aid given to them and think the other is more evil.
While that is indeed true of many Statists, it's not really true of the other more libertarian side of that equation - which only makes sense as the larger a government gets, the more unfeeling and cruel it becomes... so you can imagine what happens in essentially a world-wide government.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You all seem to be making fun of this, but look at the territorial grabs that are taking place. Shoals and tiny islands that are very far from China and very close to other countries are being claimed, settled and developed by China. They don't give a shit about treaties, pacts or international laws. They take what they want.
"Banning weapons in outer space is for the benefit of humanity. "
I remember that book. It's not a weapon, it's a communication laser.
"Except that there demonstrably was. Please describe an economic case for a radiation-blasted vacuum with nothing in it."
Just google "Science that can't be done on Earth" like we did.
It's Bigly Sad that Trump won't admit China already has a Lunar Base.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I've been to the Moon, and the people there have the technology to keep the Chinese, or anyone, for that matter, from taking over.
There are other aspects of the Treaty that give radicals the impression that the OST is to create a marxist leninist paradise in space.
Specifically the parts about resources that may be mined and the 'ownership' of celestial bodies such as the moon and mars.
Just removing those clauses though just creates the opposite problem, because there are very few countries that can mount a space program that is complete, either from a state or a private perspective.
Either way, China is just as bound by the OST as the US is.
I do find it odd though that these people are complaining about state subsidies, but at the same time are demanding that the US government spend more money.
Because overall marxists are looking for a future paradise of no conflict and harmony. On the other hand capitalist are stuck in their views of domination and competition.
Can't you see how much our space tech has been repressed? How much more time does a superpower need to colonize the moon?
And 100 years from now history will show: that China collapsed under the weight of their ambitious lunar colonization plans that all failed when the money ran out, while the USA collapsed under the weight of their bloated military.
And what is the economic case for this? And reading propaganda about space from Space Nutters is not very enlightening. We've been promised space-based manufacturing since the 1960s. And every time our technology got better and we simply don't need space.
Face it, it's over.
Because overall marxists are looking for a future paradise of no conflict and harmony.
Ah yes, those halcyon days of East Germany in the '60s-'70s. Good times.
The treaty is required especially on the basis of preventing nuclear weapons use in space. Just before the treaty the US tested nuclear weapons in space and they did less than ground bursts. Watch the video. In terms of economic development, the treaty only enforces property rights based on the nation launching and using vehicles in space. Both for assets and liability. The real risk is that private space companies in effect can privatize the gains while socializing the risk of destroying billions of dollars of equipment launched by other nations.
Because overall marxists are looking for a future paradise of no conflict and harmony. On the other hand capitalist are stuck in their views of domination and competition.
Marxist governments have killed more of their own citizens in the 20th century than died in ww1 and ww2 combined. Some "harmony". Although I suppose one could view dead people as pretty darned harmonious, particularly if one has strong sociopathic tendencies to begin with. Like "Uncle Joe" Stalin made the Ukraine "harmonious".
1. those laws were passed so that companies in any nation, whether they surpassed local government capability, could not commercialise space. that's the point of the law, its purpose, not a bug that needs fixing.
2. the patriotic angle is both misleading and stupid as well as self-serving....if china's capacity and potential capacity for activity in space is so great, it will greatly outpace whatever a few US companies can do. the no-commercial-activity law restricts the chinese more than anyone - restrictions like that have an effect that is directly proportional to capability.
a successful repeal (unlikely) of the international laws would see china surge ahead of everyone else in space commercialisation, including american companies.
3. fucking corporations already own most of the fucking earth. we can't let them own space too, no matter how much they bleat and whine that they want to.
China has at least one HUGE advantage over the US: 3-4 times the number of taxpayers. As China becomes increasingly wealthy, it'll be easier for China to raise the funds for ambitious space-exploration projects.
If China prioritizes Moon-colonization over travel to Mars, it means only one thing: its leaders aren't confident that they can get to Mars with current technology & survive long enough to plant a flag.
The moon isn't a "stepping stone" to anything... even after you launch a rocket from the moon, you're STILL almost as deep inside Earth's gravity well as you'd have been after launching from Earth.
A colony on the moon itself is about as valuable as a house built (off-grid) in the Nevada desert 100 miles from Las Vegas... yeah, you could technically do it, and the land itself would probably be "almost free"... but the construction cost & ongoing supply costs would eat you alive, to the point where you could have paid less for a mansion in Henderson than you'd have ended up spending for a shack (with trucked-in water & electricity from a generator) in the desert.
The treaty is required especially on the basis of preventing nuclear weapons use in space.
No.
*A* treaty is required, *this* one can be replaced/renegotiated. Isn't that what civilized nations do when circumstances change, renegotiate or replace a dated treaty with a new, more comprehensive one that accounts for current realities?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
...while the USA collapsed under the weight of their bloated military.
Show a little gratitude, will ya?
Without that US "bloated military" your shithole would have to cough up the money for an actual effective modern military out of your tiny GDP, and your gravy train of free protection would be gone. Where will the money for all the government entitlements and social programs be, then? Sitting in missile silos and aircraft hangars, most likely.
Or you could learn to speak either Chinese or Russian, depending.
You want to waste money on all that? There is a functional and effective treaty already. Don't trash past achievements just to make yourself feel accomplished when you repeat them in exactly the same way.
You want to waste money on all that?
What, do they write treaties on gold-pressed latinum now?
Compare costs of a typical treaty negotiation meeting to a just a single strike of ~50 Tomahawk cruise missiles at ~$325M each.
Diplomacy is ^always^ the cheaper option.
Now compare that same ballpark figure of the costs of negotiating a new treaty to the cost of effectively being cut out of the economic, technical, and scientific benefits of space exploration/exploitation.
Diplomacy is far and away the better option.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It seems to me that we haven't really gotten past the moon yet. How about establishing a base or two there, build some stable science, refueling, and manufacturing capabilities there, and THEN start worrying about the trip to Mars.
Yes and no. We have nothing to worry about China commercially exploiting space. We do have reason to worry about China militarily exploiting space. But that's almost exclusively LEO and China already has the tech for that. So, "take over the moon" is complete bullshit.
There's two parts to that. Those who live in Silicon Valley live in a bubble. It's obvious to see when you see VC who have bet on tons of start-ups that have no hope of making a profit. Part of that is pure speculation which leads to the point of the talk being about billionaires. Once you start having that sort of money, you can risk losing millions of dollars on many start-ups that have little chance of success to be the person who gets a 30% stake in the next Facebook or whatever.
It's little wonder that various Silicon Valley billionaires invested in private US space firms feathers might be ruffled by China doubling down on government sponsored space anything. It means their multi-million dollar investments have to compete against China spending possibly billions or more over decades. Even if nothing comes of any of it, the short-term investment is going to make their stock potentially worthless or drive business to China before anything starts.
Seriously, any discussion about owning the Moon is hyperbole bullshit. Any understanding of the distance involved would tell you why.
"Who exactly has Trump imprisoned wrongfully?"
From this side of history, the will of Session to stoke up the war on drug and particularly get more repressive against Marijuana, is definitively wrongful imprisonment in my book, even if it is not the legal definition.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
And what is the economic case for this? And reading propaganda about space from Space Nutters is not very enlightening. We've been promised space-based manufacturing since the 1960s. And every time our technology got better and we simply don't need space.
Face it, it's over.
Because no economic gain has ever been made from any research ever.
Sounds like mobster logic to me. Besides, only an American would see learning foreign languages as a bad thing.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
A better troll would have made a long and impassioned argument, with a few egregious generalisations thrown in. This is just lazy.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You think Stalin was Marxist? lol. That's actually quite funny. I'm not some kind of Marxist myself, but at least I don't feel the need to misrepresent stuff because my own ideas are so fucking weak they can't take real opposition.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Gratitude? lol. This guy thinks we should be grateful to him. Holy shit.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Except that there demonstrably was. Please describe an economic case for a radiation-blasted vacuum with nothing in it.
Planet Earth is in it. You dopey cunt.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
And what is the economic case for this? And reading propaganda about space from Space Nutters is not very enlightening. We've been promised space-based manufacturing since the 1960s. And every time our technology got better and we simply don't need space.
Face it, it's over.
I haven't seen you for ages, "Space Nutter" dickhead. How's it goin. Still getting mad about human activity in space? lol.
Still bizarrely capitalizing 'space nutter' as if it's a thing?
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Just insult him and move on. You won't change his 'mind'.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I tell you my fellow Americans,
If we do not head back to the moon and on to Mars and then the Moons of Jupiter and Saturn, The Chinese will and we soon will be speaking Chinese and the whole solar system will be run by Communists! You don't want that to happen do you? Do you??
You think white people are indigenous to north america? That's pretty stupid. Tell us some more stupid stuff that only uneducated racists know about.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
It's something that barely exists if it does at all, but it makes gamer-gate types get very... irate. Ethics in gaming journalism.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
China and the EU seem to be looking to teaming up for a moon base, so US and Russia will team up too or will US join China and EU?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
and N.Korea collapsed under the weight of their bloated leader.
thanks george
all we need is canada and mexico to join the moon mission and russia for real and you'd have the world BUT the usa
Need global laws that restrict the size and power of corporations.
Space Exploration/Exploitation needs to be good for ALL of us, not just corporate entities and their clients and croonies.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
other than the fact that an investment into space and the tech comes around 10 fold? Claiming that there is no reason to invest in space, would like somebody in 1991 saying that America should not invest into the internet and just let it go.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I remember, but can't find, a quote that came out in the late 50s or 60s, that went like this:
"What will we find on the Moon?"
"Russians!"
I thought it was Edward Teller, but I can't find any refs on the web to that. Of course it's entirely possible at my age, that I made it up...
And obviously that prediction failed badly.
If that's what space was, then there wouldn't be much of an economic case (satellites are pretty useful economically though). But I think you're forgetting about a) raw materials, from the moon, Mars, asteroid belt, etc., b) technologies developed for space exploration often can be repurposed to useful, economically beneficial use on Earth, c) tourism.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Ah yes, that old boogeyman. I can't believe how many people still care about a dead hashtag.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.