BarneyPiccolo

Monster.

You are missing my point. I agree with you, space bases are going to be pretty sparse for a while, but the Sociopathic Oligarchs don't see it that way. They are picturing Dubai, Vegas, etc., and they have nobody around them to question that vision.

They'll have trade with Earth, and other bases, probably forever. No country is an island, all of them have to have trade with each other. No country on Earth is entirely self-sustaining, and bases on the Moon or Mars will be no different. Goods will be expensive, but that's okay, they can afford it, so gouge the shit out of them. Who cares if a Big Mac is $1000, they can afford it.

How do you think a self-sustaining colony starts? When they thought of a Space Station, they didn't look at a Mercury capsule and say, "Well, that's impossible, just look at that thing, it's way too small."

They're taking baby steps now, but those steps are going in the direction of permanent bases on the Moon and Mars. I didn't say that it would be successful, or even safe, just that these psychos are arrogant enough to think they can pull it off. I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that it can't be done by these Virtuosic Incompetents.

And you are delusional if you think these Sociopathic Oligarchs don't think they can establish a luxury compound off-world for the wealthy to escape the increasing horrors of Earth. It will be a giant resort, a spa, without all the melanin and empty pockets. They're thinking of Dubai in space.

That's how they see it, and they can't wait to create it. You don't think Trump would love to have the Trump Dome on Mars? You don't think Kushner will be stepping off the first shuttle, and opening up a Real Estate Development office? The problem isn't just that they are delusional, but while these people may have a lot of money, they have proven time and again that they just aren't very smart. Trump likes to remind us of that every day.

It's not even that they aren't smart, but they have an amazing ability to delude themselves into thinking that every idea is genius, and they have the money to indulge even their stupidest concepts, so why would they deny the world the benefit of their unsurpassed genius? When confident delusion is combined with unearned arrogance and unlimited money, the result is probably going to be pretty awful.

So they'll build their bases, and theyll fail, hopefully dramatically and catastrophically, and set back space settlement for a century or so, until we can fix our society, and be the kind of civilization that should be spreading into space.

I hate to break it to you, but MASA's goal is to establish a permanent base on the moon. Space X's public plans have ALWAYS been to get to Mars, and establish a permanent base there. This isn't science fiction, these are business plans, and they are already well underway.

The NASA moon base is planned to start before the end of the decade, so they aren't waiting very long. Judging by past NASA projects, it will take far longer that that, but it is out of the planning stages, and well on its way. They have astronauts up there in space right now.

And Space X is making progress, although they are concentrating more on their satellite deployments, because that will create a massive revenue stream that will fund everything beyond. But you can bet that if Musk sees us getting close to landing on the moon, he'll re-prioritize his focus on Mars.

The future space races won't be just among nations, it will be against Sociopathic Oligarchs, too, with entirely different motivations. And those Sociopathic Oligarchs cheat, so expect some dirty tricks.

There are no rules in space, anything goes.

Oh, yeah, totally true. Republicans are emotionally and maturely stunted humans, and are often mistaken for children.

I love Space, but rather than assist Sociopathic Oligarchs in engineering their Panic/ Escape Rockets, perhaps we should concentrate on the very serious real and growing problems in our country, and the world, like climate change, health care, homelessness, poverty, infrastructure, etc. we've neglected these things for so long that they are starting get desperate, and yet we're cheering as we spend billions to send people to space for no really good reason, other than national pride.

I don't feel a lot of national pride right now, which has been unusual for me, who came from a military family, and was born in a converted barracks. I don't recognize America right now, and waving flags and cheering on a MAGA bandaid that's supposed to make me forget about EVERYTHING else they are doing to our country, looks phony and ugly to me. I don't see anything happening in America that's worth cheering for. That includes space travel, which has been a lifelong love since the Gemini program.

MAGA has even ruined Space for me.

NASA may still purport to be science-based, but right now, NASA is MAGA, so they are contributing to the knowledge base for "Space Wealth Exploration."

ALL other American space programs have nothing to do with science, they are simply engineering projects to create successful escape pods from whatever is coming - climate meltdown, revolution, nuclear conflagration, etc.

No, they don't get to trash this planet, then go to a new one, and trash that. If anything, make them stay here and choke on their destroyed atmosphere, while we escape.

Valid, but as a kid, I wasn't thinking about it that way. As an adult, I am.

I just read where Musk has applied to add a network of one million satellites. The current plant for satellites between Space X and others means that 1 in 15 visible objects in the night sky will be satellites.

That's for a total of 60,000 satellites. Musk wants to add one million more. That will mean that there will only be one actual, natural star in every 8-10 visible objects in the night sky. Almost all we will see will be Musk's space junk..

The simple enjoyment of the night sky will be taken from every human now, or who will ever exist in the future. The night sky will be destroyed forever, just so the already richest guy in human history can get even richer. It's more important to indulge him for the cosmic blink of time he exists on this planet, than allow billions of unborn people to ever contemplate the wonders of the universe.

That makes me think that perhaps we should impose a moratorium on space travel for about 50 years, and spend those resources to save our own planet, which needs it in so many ways - climate, infrastructure, society, etc. All those massive issues need to have the best brains and biggest budgets applied to them for a while.

We should fix our own problems before exporting them into the universe.

I'm not anti-intellectual, I was a true space kid, watching every mission after 1965. I was a Apollo 11 super fan. I built models of the Apollo 11 and the Lunar Lander. I kept a subscription to national Geographic for decades because they had such great space photos. I should be loving this.

But it's pretty obvious that all modern space exploration is mostly about giving future trillionaires an option to get off the planet when we inevitably turn on them.

Years ago, I took a nearly identical package to a lawyer, who asked if they had been a bad employer, anything actionable, but they'd been great, I was going to miss it badly.

He said it was a pretty standard agreement, better than most get, so if there wasn't a chance that I would want to sue in the future, it was best to just accept it, and move on.