Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Friday, October 17, 2003

China in Space

James Rummel of Hell in a Handbasket posts that he's not all that worked up about China's recent orbiting a manned spacecraft. He writes:
So why hasn't an old space and technology enthusiast like me talking about it much?

Pretty much because I'm in waiting mode. What am I waiting for? I'm waiting for the Chinese to do something original, something that we didn't do more than 30 years ago.
I left him this comment:
Just my 2¢:

China has (at the moment) the only kind of government that can pursue an ambitious space program - a dictatorship. More precisely, a well funded dictatorship.

If you accept (as I do) that the future of mankind rests in getting our genome off this planet, then exploring and colonizing space is a high priority in and of itself. But it's expensive, and the free nations of the world have pretty much demonstrated that they're not willing to pony up the dough required to build an infrastructure capable of getting us off Earth in any permanent manner. (Or apparently in much of the way of a temporary manner, come to think of it.)

For the military, the high ground is best, and space is that high ground. Untold mineral wealth exists in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. There's literally unlimited acreage and power just within our solar system.

But the entry cost is high.

China can be the nation that gets there firstest with the mostest.

They may actually have that vision. They may have the necessary will. We're providing the money (Thanks, Walmart!) and we've already provided most of the technology. They've got the necessary scientific minds (take a look at the postgraduate Physics departments of most major universities here.)

Pardon me if the idea that space will be the domain of Red China a bit disturbing.

We should have had a lunar colony twenty years ago, and we should be exploring the asteroid belt now.

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