2020-05-25 - re: Space Travel (a response)
------------------------------------------

tfurrows wonders aloud over at the zaibatsu[1]

> The phrase "privatization of space travel" caught my attention. I
> guess i never really thought of space travel as a uniquely public
> thing.  It makes  me wonder,  are  there people  who would  limit
> humanity's access to space?

I  posted  already on  this,  using  Gill Scott-Heron's  incredible
"Whitey  on the  Moon" to  establish my  feelings. Scott-Heron  was
writing from the perspective of the poor and downtrodden, at a time
when the  United States spent  5% of GDP  putting white men  on the
moon,  even  as poverty  and  the  collapse of  social  protections
accelerated in the country as a  whole. When looking at the present
situation regarding  space exploration,  we need to  understand the
concerns  raised  in the  poem,  and  update  them to  our  present
existence.

There can  be no question  but that the world  we live in  today is
different to the world of the  early 1970s. Yes, the average person
lives a better life now than then, but the level of the improvement
in  existence is  wildly skewed  and  unequal. Even  in the  United
States,  just six  people  own  50% of  *all*  wealth. Equality  of
opportunity in our present world has vanished. We are, more so than
any other  "developed" society  since the  mid-1500s, a  society of
rigid caste structures,  where birth is the  primary determinant of
wealth.

What challenges,  beyond inequality, do  we face today?  Aside from
the current  deadly virus, the  challenge is clear: Climate.  It is
the one challenge which all of  humanity faces - the deliberate and
determined destruction of the tenuous  ribbon of life on this rocky
planet. Who  benefits from  this destruction?  The same  people who
populate the rich lists. Who  pays for this destruction? The people
who don't profit.

What then  are the sole  people with the  ability and the  means to
face the incredible and urgent challenge  to do? Are they to assist
in the development of new ways of living? Are they to (simply) just
pay their  fair share of  the costs of  remaking society to  a more
fair and just system?

No. They're making rocket ships.

What are they making rocket ships for?

To  develop a  bolt-hole in  the  sky, and  to destroy  one of  the
collective resources of mankind - the heavens.

Whether that bolt  hole is on Mars,  on the Moon or  just in orbit,
the titans of  Kleptocracy intend to own that escape  valve, and to
keep  it  for  themselves.  Elon  Musk, the  risible  scion  of  an
Apartheid-Era potentate, said the quiet part loud one day in one of
his interminable twitter rants.

When asked how much a trip to mars would cost, Musk opined[2]:

"Needs  to be  such that  anyone can  go if  they want,  with loans
available  for those  who don’t  have money"  and when  asked how
these loans could be repaid:

"Yes. There will be a lot of jobs on Mars!"

The  same kleptocrat  and  future suzerain  of  Hellas Planitia  is
currently  involved in  destroying  the night  sky. His  "Starlink"
constellation  has  set  back ground-based  telescopy  by  decades,
long-term exposures of the most distant objects have been ruined by
his  swarms  of highly  reflective  bots.  Musk  is but  the  first
potential sky-wrecker, given that his fellow billionaire Bezos will
be launching his own constellation in coming months.

There is no value for the great mass of humanity in these projects,
no science for  the masses, no improvement of  the human condition.
This is all  about the über-wealthy and their  own private profit,
their own private future. Each rocket which leaves the earth causes
unknown  damage  to  the  stratosphere,  an  area  of  the  tenuous
atmosphere of our planet we know almost nothing about.

To circle back to Gill  Scott-Heron, it is beyond any comprehension
that the privatization of space is taking place in the midst of the
very real crises which are ongoing  here, on this Earth, every day.
If humans are to voyage into  space, then it should only occur when
such  excursions are  the  common heritage  of  humanity, when  the
benefits  of this  are  shared among  all, when  the  costs can  be
shouldered equally between all.

Otherwise, its just more "Whitey on the Moon"

[1]: gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/~tfurrows/phlog/2020-05-22_reSpaceTravel.txt
[2]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1217991853615677440