tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post3805243794651687067..comments2024-03-27T03:00:27.024-04:00Comments on Facts & other stubborn things: Scurvy and solar radiationEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12259004160963531720noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-73460982087050415002013-01-18T20:29:17.328-05:002013-01-18T20:29:17.328-05:00I think the issue is that The People Who Run Thing...I think the issue is that The People Who Run Things (businessmen, bankers, bureaucrats, bloggers, etc.) view manned space flight as having absolutely no benefits and many extraordinary costs. <br /><br />An example: A successful lunar colony, one which is self supporting, requires some sort of local industry, implying some sort of usage of local materials and some sort of economy. I/e/, mines, manufacturing, and markets. This doesn't fit well with the Outer Space Treaty or the Moon Treaty of the 1960s, but we're stuck with them because third world nations in the United Nations have long standing memories of their natural resources being exploited by Yankees and European capitalists and what to make that impossible in outer space. And the US goes along with this because it needs the votes of 3rd world nations in the UN to get approval of its foreign policy -- oddly enough, wars in the 1960s and wars in the 2000's. <br /><br />Short version: the US State Department will NEVER support a US moon colony. It's possible, without too much imagination, to conceive of reasons why OMB and people overseeing the Defense Department would oppose expanding into space. Maybe a hundred years from now, maybe a thousand, some other country or some other sort of political entity will have more success.<br />mike shupphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08383379836883992742noreply@blogger.com