What reason do you have to believe that we are? — creativesoul

Uhh, Trump just made an executive order for Dick Force to plunder asteroids and the moon.

According to whom?

According to whom? — creativesoul

https://www.space.com/trump-moon-mining-space-resources-executive-order.html
https://www.foxnews.com/science/trump-signs-order-to-support-moon-mining-pulling-resources-from-asteroids

:chin:

First I heard of it...

That's the sort of priorities that a mind has when it's sole concern is profit.

That said, I agree with you. We ought not be doing shit like that.

Mind you, there's a lot of profit out there. I just pray to the spaghetti monster that we don't start claiming planets like Mars as our own.

Russia, China, and India will all have a grand mal seizure.

Written in 2007, now becoming a reality near you:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2007/08/23/223985/mining-the-moon/

At the 21st century’s start, few would have predicted that by 2007, a second race for the moon would be under way. Yet the signs are that this is now the case. Furthermore, in today’s moon race, unlike the one that took place between the United States and the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s, a full roster of 21st-century global powers, including China and India, are competing.

Even more surprising is that one reason for much of the interest appears to be plans to mine helium-3–purportedly an ideal fuel for fusion reactors but almost unavailable on Earth–from the moon’s surface. NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration has U.S. astronauts scheduled to be back on the moon in 2020 and permanently staffing a base there by 2024. While the U.S. space agency has neither announced nor denied any desire to mine helium-3, it has nevertheless placed advocates of mining He3 in influential positions. For its part, Russia claims that the aim of any lunar program of its own–for what it’s worth, the rocket corporation Energia recently started blustering, Soviet-style, that it will build a permanent moon base by 2015-2020–will be extracting He3.

The Chinese, too, apparently believe that helium-3 from the moon can enable fusion plants on Earth. This fall, the People’s Republic expects to orbit a satellite around the moon and then land an unmanned vehicle there in 2011.

Nor does India intend to be left out. (See “India’s Space Ambitions Soar.”) This past spring, its president, A.P.J. Kalam, and its prime minister, Manmohan Singh, made major speeches asserting that, besides constructing giant solar collectors in orbit and on the moon, the world’s largest democracy likewise intends to mine He3 from the lunar surface. India’s probe, Chandrayaan-1, will take off next year, and ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, is talking about sending Chandrayaan-2, a surface rover, in 2010 or 2011. Simultaneously, Japan and Germany are also making noises about launching their own moon missions at around that time, and talking up the possibility of mining He3 and bringing it back to fuel fusion-based nuclear reactors on Earth.

[...]

Mind you, there's a lot of profit out there. I just pray to the spaghetti monster that we don't start claiming planets like Mars as our own.

Russia, China, and India will have a seizure. — Shawn

Laying claim to celestial bodies is announcing that they are your personal property. No one owns the moon.

Everyone owns the moon.

We should all have seizure, if by that we mean that we should all take that as a serious affront to humanity, because that is exactly what it is.

That's a part of everyone's world that is worth preservation.

As it now stands...

There is no profit to be made by using the moon's resources unless the start up costs are covered. Anyone who expects some immediate return on investment will find themselves sorely disappointed.

I wonder what Frankfurt would call that?

Some of it is certainly bullshit.

NASA didn't want to do it with exorbitant launch costs, so guess who is going to be contracted to do launches. It starts with 'space' and ends with an X.

And, I think this is something Trump will be positively views as making America's hegemony last a long time.

China must be furious, as SpaceX can't share tech due to national security issues.

Most of it has been in the works for a while now. Newt Gingrich is having a party, last I heard. This is where Republicans deserve credit.

I'm struggling to understand why you would place so much confidence in the ideas your presenting here. Particularly, I'm very hesitant to agree with anything at this point in time.

You presented an article chock full of false predictions about what's going to be happening later.


You use that article to ground your own current belief that those things are happening?


Surely, you understand my concerns here?

Newt Gingrich is having a party, last I heard — Shawn

You friends with Newt?

Surely, you see understand my concerns here? — creativesoul

Not really. It's been Republican dream of returning to the Moon for a very long time. Now that there's a legal framework devised you can bet the barn that the economics presented by stupendously lowered costs of SpaceX rockets to make it a reality.

Not really, but I actually miss neocons instead of these Trump apparatchiks populating the government.

The evidence you're presenting does not warrant the conclusion you're drawing. The start up cost of moon mining would be astronomical(pun intended). The cost of freight would be as well. For water and a gas not readily available on earth...

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Anyone who agrees to convert anything necessary for public life to be subsequently dependent upon that gas ought be shot in the head and left for dead.

Where would the demand for such water and gas come from if not by force?

Do you realize how much space launch costs have decreased? Google it, and tell me that doesn't make mining as infeasible as it once was.

DOES AMERICA NEED OVERSIGHT?

Shawn, right now, if America were a human...it would need institutionalization.

As a human, we would be considered bat-shit crazy!

I gave up in the end. All I had was 'taxpayers' and 'efficiency'. Not enough.

Nah, ethics and morality are timeless. Just the kind of stuff that need to be included in it, the 'stitution. — Shawn

What is the source of ethics and morality? The US has always been more religious and less philosophical than Europe. Not that long ago illiteracy was common and the only thing many learned was from a preacher. That left people on the lower levels of moral thinking.

Kohlberg identified three distinct levels of moral reasoning: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. Each level has two sub-stages. People can only pass through these levels in the order listed. Each new stage replaces the reasoning typical of the earlier stage.
Kohlberg - Moral Development | Simply Psychology
https://www.simplypsychology.org › kohlberg — simplypsychohology

If we do not pay attention to what education has to do with moral thinking, we are going down the toilet. We had education for good moral judgment and those who had that education manifested a very different culture from the Wrestlemania culture we have today. Religion is the lowest level of moral thinking dependent on fear of punishment and rewards provided by a God or god-like figure (parents). In 1958 we replaced education for good moral judgment, with education for technology and left moral training to the church.

The 2012 Texas Republican Agenda was to keep education for higher-order thinking skills out of the schools, and that state strongly pushed for creationism being taught as a science equal to the theory of evolution. The Bible supports the notion that we can not be self-governing and must have authority above us and God gives us leaders and our prayers give this person the power of God. In this corner we have Jesus. In that corner we have Satan. And the crowd is worked into a frenzy.

These folks have no idea, our constitution is based on notions of human excellence and the power of knowledge. Please, do not stop with the words "ethics" and "morals". Those words are like flat balloons, without education and leaving moral training to the church is not a good idea.

As a human, we would be considered bat-shit crazy! — Frank Apisa

:worry:

One last article, pointing out that the USA is a developing nation...

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2020/apr/06/coronavirus-american-reaction-economy-covid-19