Re: Star wars

The Low Golden Willow (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Sun, 30 Mar 1997 16:57:04 -0800 (PST)

On Mar 30, 4:17pm, Sean Morgan wrote:
} Guru George <gurugeorge@sugarland.idiscover.co.uk> wrote:
}
} >Since I believe that only societies that discover capitalism will be
} >able to develop the requisite technology, I doubt that we will find many
} >star-roving socialist/fascist collectives - the only ones we do find
} >will be ones that stole the technology from the capitalist ones, just
} >like here on earth.
}
} GG, your email address is in the UK, so it is odd that you need reminding
} that it was fascists who made the big advances in rocketry in the middle of
} this century.
}
} The collectivist aspect of the United States has a much better developed
} space program than any private industry initiative.

Perhaps this is because we are not economically ready for a space
program. Government can certainly accelerate development in some areas,
but at what cost elsewhere? The Soviets launched the first satellite;
perhaps because doing so was too expensive for anyone private to do for
fun, and business couldn't see the profit.

Spaceflight is still bloody expensive, although avoiding any form of
nuclear motor wouldn't help. Lucian[1] yearned for the moon and stars as
we do -- perhaps the sad fact is that we are not yet rich enough to
leave.

Hmmph. If any private initiative had been able to go to the Moon, would
it have let the effort sputter out the way Apollo did?

[1] I think he was the ancient fantasist.

Merry part,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix

... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that
consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune
of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to
listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"