Re: Japans Moon Ambitions - They're KIDDING, Right ?

From: Bama Brian (bamaNOTbrian_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 03/06/05 

Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 03:23:17 GMT

Joann Evans wrote:
> Bama Brian wrote:
>
>>Joann Evans wrote:
>>
>>>BlackWater wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 01:35:28 GMT, Joann Evans
>>>><bondage@frontiernet.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Bama Brian wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>Once they're
>>>>>>up there controlling the moon, as well as earth orbit, we had all better
>>>>>>start learning Japanese and Mandarin because they will become the true
>>>>>>world powers - and we won't be able to stop them.
>>>>>
>>>>> And what will the US be doing in the decades it will take to get to
>>>>>that point? We're lousy at being pro-active, but as the Russians know,
>>>>>once we see a threat, we can be *re*active very quickly....
>>>>
>>>> We won't be ABLE to 'react' ... because China won't
>>>> sell us the technology we'll need to compete with
>>>> them.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> So...you think we'll be utterly unable to do any kind of R&D by
>>>ourselves? Did we compete with the Soviets by buying Vostok launchers?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> You don't think we'll still be an INDUSTRIAL power
>>>> in 25 years or so, do you ? It's ALL gonna be
>>>> 'Made in China'.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Some would say condumer goods are halfway there....
>>>
>>> If you're right, why should anyone *bother* attacking us? What kind
>>>of threat would we be, if we are then nothing but a nation of hamburger
>>>flippers? What exactly would be gained? They might as well bomb Haiti.
>>>
>>> Oh, I'm sorry, Haiti can't build or launch those satcoms that seem
>>>so important as first-strike targest to you...
>>>
>>
>>You really don't understand the needs of a totalitarian ruler, do you,
>>Joann? Have you learned nothing from history?
>
>
>
> I'm quite comfortable with my knowledge of history.
>
> I'm quite uncomfortable with your lack of knowledge of technology.
>
> Or your implication that space development will happen in a vacuum.
> (pun intended) You quietly ignore potential developments in the next 25
> years in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, energy
> production, that can change your already astoundingly shaky scenario.
> (And that China and Japan have likely considered, even if you haven't.)

U.S. space development has been in a vaccuum for 20 years. We put men
on the moon back in 1969. The LAST lunar landing was in 1972. Since
then the U.S. government has been content with a giant, expensive truck
that does a job that any ballistic rocket could do cheaper.

So it's been 33 years since the last lunar landing. Do tell me what
we've accomplished in space technology since that time? Is NASA's
Aerospike engine living up to its promise? Do we yet have that
suborbital passenger liner that can go from NY to Tokyo in 3 hours?

Where are the orbital hotels from the SciFi books? Where are the
micro-gravity manufacturers?

If a big rock should come just a little too close, where are the big
boosters that can be bolted to it, to deflect its orbit?

>>Look, there are somewhere around 1.2 billion Chinese. With all the
>>restraints in the world, their population keeps growing. There is at
>>least one tasty prize just across the water from China, such as
>>Australia with only 18 million people and a vast open interior that
>>could be developed with enough hands. (Hint: OZ, NZ, and Tasmania are
>>awfully nice places to live with lots and lots of Lenbesraum)
>
>
>
> And the Aussies will quiely sit still for all this, too?

Heh! What choice would they have?
>
> Are you really under the impression that China will risk war in order
> to export people to a mostly hot, dry outback?

Australia has a vast coastline. Nuclear desalinization of seawater, and
build those cities any size.
>
> Or that even the cheapest possible Lunar transportation
> infrastructure can move a signifigant number of Chinese to the Moon? Or
> even Antarctica? (And to live in, and do what, once there?)

Don't have to. Put a big base on the moon. Call it a colony. Ship up
the equipment for lunar mass drivers. Put "solar power" mirrors into
orbit. Put manned satellites into orbit, complete with orbit-to-surface
rockets.

Do a preemptive strike on the U.S.'s ICBM sites, if any, and the boomer
subs.

Deliver an ultimatimum to Washington.

Sit back and be king of the world.

>>Now if I were a ruthless totalitarian ruler with a good technology who
>>needed Lebensraum, I'd be looking at three places: Antarctica, Luna,
>
>
>
> True, there's hardly anyone to resist you in those places...
>
>
>
>>and Australia.
>
>
>
> But not that one.

1.2 billion Chinese, with 2.5 million in their army vs. 18 million
Australians with an army of 52,000 total, including army, navy and air
force.

Even the U..S has only 1.2 million in uniform now. Do tell me why the
Chinese NEED a cadre of 2.5 million with no war and no enemy in sight?

ng term and technology-wise, how would I acquire any
>>or all of them over a fifty year period? First, start by peacefully
>>bleeding the economic strength off my biggest possible enemy and making
>>it dependent on me...
>
>
>
> As other nations, purely for their own reasons, also try to
> out-compete their neighbors, and acheive their own favorable balance of
> trade?

Other nations aren't China. Or Japan, for that matter.
>
> You could make similar claims about India (save for the fact that
> they're currently a democracy). Where will they presumably be expanding
> to, during this time?

They won't be allowed to. And India presently has no real manufacturing
presence in the world.

>>Keep in mind that a government that knowingly aids and abets in killing
>>female infants at birth, and kills convicted prisoners with a shot to
>>the head in order to harvest and sell their organs for cash is not
>>likely to share your peaceful mindset.
>
>
>
> I worry as much about what people *can* do, as much as what they
> *want* to do.
>
> My so-called 'peaceful mindset' comes from the fact that too many
> other potentially disruptive things will happen in too many other
> places, for this scenario to come off like clockwork.
>
>
>
>> Or you might ask all the
>>villagers who were displaced by the Yangtse Valley Dam project what they
>>think of their "peaceful" government.
>
>
>
> If those villagers had a known nuclear capability, things might've
> been rather different.

I don't think so. Remember, the Chinese also have a nuclear capability
of unknown size - and if they follow up with their plans for a lunar
base, guess where they might think it advisable to keep those nukes?

The Chinese are not allowed dissent, as we know it here in the U.S.
Remember Tianemen Square? The dissenters did not long survive after the
publicity died down. So if the Chinese government wants to build NERVA
type rockets, their population won't be allowed to complain about it -
and we may likely never hear about it. Totalitarian governments can do
many, many things with their populations that we would not believe. 

-- 
Cheers,
Bama Brian
Libertarian

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