Wealthy nations are carving up space and its riches — and leaving other countries behind

While this article does deal with issues about using space, it's main thrust is a combination of ethics and politics that I am afraid will quickly lead to the type of arguments that will get this thread locked.

This article is one of a genre of similar articles appearing in all sorts of media related to all sorts of issues. They all seem to me to be extremely naïve in their basic design. Their underlying tenant seems to be that all people should share equally in all good things. No consideration is made for the extremely unequal effort that is made to produce or obtain those good things. And no consideration is given to the fact that many groups of people do not get along, and will actually subjugate and even kill other groups, so arranging sharing between groups that threaten each other's existence is essentially the same problem as trying to achieve permanent world peace.

It is those conflicting issues that humans have not ever been able to resolve. Besides the flaws in economic systems like "communism" and "capitalism" that fail to suit everyone, there are also the flaws in human nature that drive some individuals to subvert whatever legal system for their own benefit, to the detriment of others.

So, those issues with the use of space are nothing new, and there really is no new thinking that will completely resolve them.

I suggest that the best we are going to be able to do it so try to minimize some of the bad practices we already know about, such as monopolizing, price gouging, totalitarianism, suppression of communication, etc,, etc.

But, even that is difficult. Consider the issue of limited slots for things like navigation system satellites. Clearly, we can't have separate constellations for each nation on the planet. But, considering the military benefits of controlling satellite navigation capability, we also cannot afford to let only one country run the only system allowed - that puts too much military advantage into one nation (or group) which we cannot guarantee will never abuse that power.

Similar points can be made about satellites that support global communication, etc.

The U.N. can make resolutions, and nations can make treaties, but, honestly, those are not enforceable when one nation decides to not agree and violates them, or maybe agrees and then violates them, maybe openly or maybe secretly.

And, then there is the economics of making the effort to actually launch and maintain the satellites and to go to other solar system objects to retrieve resources. If the benefits of those efforts are to be freely shared equally among everybody on the planet, without compensation, how are those efforts going to be funded in the first place? And, if there is financial compensation, how could that be made equally by wealthy and poor, alike?

The reality is and always has been that people who make efforts will benefit most from those efforts, and most people, but not all, will be willing to share some of their excess benefits with others whom they see as deserving of help, even if those others did not contribute to obtaining the benefits. We talk about these things in terms of profits, standard of living. taxes and charity. But, forcing those who make the efforts to share more than they are willing to share results in 2 things. One is a reduction in the willingness to make efforts to gain benefits, and the other is actual revolution against a controlling power (king, tyrant, or bureaucracy) that is perceived as taking so much that it damages the well being of those who are actually doing the work.

The interplay of all those issues and ideas is what we call "politics'.
 

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