Unfortunately the forum is full of people who look for any possible way to try to derail any topic to their hatred of Jews and Israel.
Using the ethnic cleansing of West Bank as an example of the confusion of defense and offense doesn't mean I don't like Jews - or even Israel. It doesn't make sense to excuse what Israel is doing in West Bank on the grounds that it's ridiculous to hate Jews. It doesn't make sense to excuse what the US did in Libya on the grounds that we like Americans.
It went to space weapons - defense only. I argued that telling the difference between defensive and offensive weapons is a dark art.
Even with that extreme extension, you don't even mention Israel's weapons, but instead just call the Israeli military a bunch of murderers killing people for the joy of sadistic murder - nothing about their weapons. At least you will join me in praising President Trump finally allowing our military to destroy ISIS, ending their terrorizing, raping, torturing, murdering innocent civilians and children - as year after year Americans came home in body bags too - right?
Trump didn't do anything differently vs. ISIS. They were headed down already, and the US was not the major reason. As for Israel, my point is that we don't have a clear distinction on what is offense and what is defense.
I ascribe to the policy of "NO WEAPONS IN SPACE." Let space be our next Antarctica--a war-free zone, forever. Keep our conflicts on Earth while we work toward learning living in permanent peace with each other.
Space travel Interstellar space travel will continue being an impossibility using fuel driven spacecraft forever. However, there are other options. Transdimensional travel can and will open interstellar travel to humans eventually, but to access that mode of travel, we must first raise our own level of consciousness far above its present state. No intelligence can ever travel interstellar distances trapped only in our 4 dimensional physical reality. We have to become aware of and functional in higher planes of reality by raising our global consciousness. It's complicated, but possible. Doing so, eliminates our internal drive to become "better than others, or masters of others, or desirous of what others have." We must become one with ourselves and with all other forms of consciousness before this works. I recommend the YouTube videos of Dr Steven Greer for beginners.
I agree with you 100%. I think it will be hard to keep governments (like ours) on the correct side of that line. But, it's important to be aware of this and to give it effort. Besides it being hard for political reasons, it can even be hard to identify what is an unacceptable technology. For example, low earth orbit is rather dense with crap that falls off spacecraft. There are many thousands of objects being tracked. It could be important to have a defense against them. Also, we may find it important to have a device that can deal with an asteroid that could be found to be a threat. And, almost anything in space could become a lethal weapon if its reentry could be aimed.
Initially, I think It's a case of advancing propulsion so we can transport rovers and people to the outer planets in our own solar system within a much shorter time frame; say, days as opposed to years. There needs to be a base on the moon in which to planet hop to Mars etc.. Mining planets for materials to create fuel is currently not feasible, unless, we have a form of propulsion that uses a certain material in such a way. Think out of box, say an engine that runs on silica, methane, iron etc.. that's found on most planets. I believe one factor that restricts development is that our minds are conditioned around the internal combustion engine, jet engines and rocket fuel engines. So trying to develop a totally different propulsion system, it's like the older technology drags the thought process. Say for example, if you could produce a propulsion system that forms/uses silica in a way that when sodium light is shone through it it creates force/propulsion (that was a wacky combination but just for illustrative purposes). Why one fuel idea? Why not a process that another process uses for a third to use to finally create propulsion? Anyhow, enough of the wacko stuff for today.
Side comment. We need people to think out of the box and challenge, even if at first ideas sound daft. I remember at school being taught Bohr's model of the atom. I was told electrons orbits the nucellus. So I told my science teacher that there had to more particles in the atom because if the atom is made of coffee, water and sugar; I'm not gonna get different materials, hardnesses, colours etc.. if I change the ratio of those. He told me not to be stupid. Quantum mechanics has shown there to be laptons, quarks, hadrons etc.. So I was right. I wish I could develop a time machine and go back and slap him then I might have gone into science. Think when I have time lying in the bath or sat on the loo, I need to take that time to develop a spacecraft engine.
I agree Trump is more motivated by having bragging rights to something, but I suspect it might be more about Trump and his cronies at Raytheon, etc. spending billion$ and creating more jobs...more bragging rights! Every $1 billion in government spending equals ~10,000 jobs. I do like the idea of the US being out front in space exploration or any science for that matter. However, because of astronomical (pun) funding required for these types of ventures, the US should partner with a few quality nations to share the costs. I'm guessing the Space Force is more about military dominance, and if it can happen on Trump's watch, he does not care about treaties, etc...
We can guess there will never be funding for certain ventures unless they are rooted in expanding our military capabilities...
Well it's also one of those things that if it's inevitable for humans then you sort of don't want to be last. Multiple nations can already shoot down satellites in orbit, the Chinese did it on purpose a couple years ago just to see if they could. Last thing you want is to be left at a huge disadvantage in the event of war when your enemy controls space and there is nothing you can do about it. The nations with the ability to deal with space assets are already skirting the line of legality in regards to operating in space. I understand the US being the leader of the free world and should lead by example but think of it this way. All powerful nations have nukes, nukes were probably the worst weapon ever created by humanity but the cats out of the bag now. The world would be better off if we got rid of those things. But who wants to go first....we sure as hell don't. Why? Because nobody trusts everybody else to follow suit. Space is the same way, we just don't trust each other. We can have all of the treaties we want to but if your "enemy" nations already have the capability to shoot down satellites in orbit then you probably want to make sure you can shoot theirs down too. But as I said Trumps Space Force proposal still isn't some conspiracy to build a bunch of TIE fighters lol. It's mainly just a proposal to concentrate military research on space faring technology and unify the space organizations that each branch has under one banner. A huge chunk of the US Air Force is already dedicated to space stuff. All this would do is separate them into their own branch and give them the little stuff that the Army and Navy operates in regards to space. Not a whole lot would change. Theoretically Trump could just direct more of the US Air Force's budget to the Air Force Space Command and achieve roughly the same result. The Air Force Space Command is already a real thing btw, it's just a branch of the Air Force. They have rockets and satellites and probably orbiting ion cannons that they don't tell anybody about.
Maybe just maybe...there are no trans dimensional ways to travel. There may be no such thing as wormholes. Light years away may be light years away. Then the only way to navigate...if even this would work...would be a warp drive. If we could use gravity to bring planets closer together we could travel in real time. Then the time problem would be solved.
If or when powerful lasers can be stationed in space, he/she who controls this will control the world. I don't personally lose any sleep over Rocket Man having a few nukes but I'm guessing I would feel different knowing a foreign power has space weapons that can take me out in just seconds...
That's basically the point. Yes there are treaties in space but what exactly is anybody going to do about it if the treaty is broken by somebody? As you said, whoever controls space controls the world. If the next Chinese "satellite" launch turns out to be a huge laser cannon then the world is pretty much screwed. An extreme analogy I know but that's sort of the point. Every nation on Earth with any sort of power is always looking for an advantage over the rest of the world. It's sad but it's reality. It's one of those "you better do it first before somebody you don't like figures out how to do it" sort of things. There is already a joint nation effort for a global defense network in space to protect the Earth from asteroids and whatnot. If one day the Russians or something decide to turn their laser gun satellites around and blow up everybody elses stuff then what are we supposed to do? Or if the US decides to do that then what do they do? Humans are highly intelligent beings but one thing we are pretty damn good at is killing each other. We always look for more efficient ways to do it. Plus everything is about counter balance. We built planes so we built ways to shoot planes down. We built faster jet planes so we created SAM's. If somebody figures out how to shoot down stuff in orbit then we have to figure out how to shoot stuff down in orbit too. The arms race will never die. As I said, millennia ago we created bladed weapons, then we created armor to protect from them, we created bow and arrows and created better armor and silk and chain mail to stop them, we created airplanes and a way to shoot them down, we created nukes and a way to shoot ICBM's down, etc. We created space laser and a way to shoot them down, and one day we will create full blown space weapons and a way to destroy them as well. It's the way we humans are, we create death weapons. The last thing you want to do is be behind the power curve if somebody who doesn't particularly like you creates something like that before you do.
If a nation has plans to create and build and launch some form of space weapon, to be used against other nations, any treaty or agreements will be meaningless. We today have treaties and agreements about nuclear weapons but the US continues to strengthen it's nuclear arsenal while in parallel pissing and moaning about NK and Iran. Space weapons, or a space military, is solely about either maintaining global power or developing global power...
Yup and that's the point. I'm no hypocrite, I'm in the US military yet I still understand the hypocrisy of the only nation Earth to ever actually drop atomic weapons on somebody else, twice...Is the main nation doing everything it can to tell other people THEY shouldn't have nukes.... But that's sort of the way it just "is". If it wasn't the US it would be someone else. If we lost the Cold War then it would be Soviet Russia doing this, or China. The concept of world peace through actual peace is just fantasy, human beings are simply not programmed to achieve such a goal. There will ALWAYS be a group of people, or a nation, an empire, etc trying to maintain an advantage over everyone else. Astronomy and Astrophysics is my absolute favorite hobby and has been since I was 3 years old. As I said human beings are so intelligent yet we are also so stupid. I can only imagine what we as a species could accomplish, or even what the US alone could accomplish, if we swapped our Defense budget with our NASA budget. But we aren't going to do that, ever. The risks are simply too great. Sadly as I said before military hardware is a double edged sword when it comes to technological advances. We create death weapons yet while researching better ways to kill each other we also make some great technological advances. Rocketry, flight, GPS, etc. If/when humanity progresses it's "wars" to the cosmos is when we will see the greatest leap in space faring technology. I always joke about it but it's sadly true. You want to get humans back into space in a timely manner? Let the Chinese publish something saying they are planning a small manned spacecraft with weapons on it to "defend" against asteroids and actually begin making legitimate progress towards building it and launching it. You'd "magically" see the US figure out how to build a fully functional Battlestar Galactica and have it in orbit by the middle of the next decade. Competition drives progress, an arms race kicks it into high gear.
Wars generate national funding which can create new technology which can then benefit the private sector and society. In the 60's the worry was Russia putting a human in space before the USA...no matter how this turned out it was sort of benign. However, if/when a nation can place a space weapon in orbit it is no longer a benign scenario. And just as has happened with nuclear proliferation to create and maintain power, treaty or no treaty, I suspect there will be an eventual proliferation of space weaponry by every nation who can muster the technology and funding. I won't be around then but I won't be surprised if in my remaining years that someone detonates a nuclear weapon. Sadly this will probably accelerate the rush to space weaponry...
We have less missiles than in the Eisenhower era. We do have a healthy triad of naval esp subs, air and land based ICBMs. No other country can compete.
Yeah because weapons of yesterday are nothing compared to the warheads of today. In all reality a single Ohio Class Submarine could send the entire planet into a nuclear winter. We don't exactly need gigantic stockpiles of missiles anymore with the firepower that we have today. When you step back and think about it the amount of firepower that humanity has at it's disposal is terrifying. Humans have always slaughtered and conquered one another, from the Romans to the Mongols to the British Empire. But it wasn't until the last 5 decades or so that humanity has actually had the ability to destroy our entire planet if we wanted to. Thats why I am perfectly happy with my home nation being the most powerful on Earth. We are all stuck here on a single planet together, and in the age of mass destruction weapons I am glad that I live in the nation with the biggest guns.
