Anarchy In Space

[Yarrow]

From the Autonomous Astronauts:

In the latest step toward the militarization of space the DoD is putting a router into space for military communication up there.

Before they get theirs up there (they are planning on launch in 2009) we need to Raise the black flag high! For only ~$5000 we could put a micro-satellite in space. If anarchists on each continent commits to a satellite we begin an infrastructure for our earth-and-space bound friends to begin communicating without ties to land, sea, state or ATT.

The Ultimate Open Source Project indeed.

[ambi]

got any links on microsatellites?

[Zazaban]

This is a brilliant idea. The states of the world have been procrastinating for about fifty years now, it's time somebody's done something.

I've always felt that the state has a fairly unquestioned monopoly of space exploration, something I find rather unsettling. After all, humanity's future lies in space, whoever gets there first will seed the minds of whole planets. And it's an unsettling thought to have The US, Russia or China be our ambassadors to other civilizations if the need arises. Besides, they're doing a really crap job of it anyway. (It was totally feasible to have been able to get to Saturn by '67, but the funding dried up.) If anarchists are able to get a presence in space before the state, it will a historic moment. And for so cheap! It would be insane not to do this!

[Yarrow]

i guess you guys have heard of helium 3.

link

[ambi]

would you have to do anything special to a PC to get it to operate in space?

they come pretty small and lightweight these days. model rocketry is pretty near the point you could lob something small into low orbit along with a solar panel and a little broadcasting dish...it might be a little harder to get into geosynchronous orbit; i think you have to reach ~40km altitude for that to work...

not that it would matter too much, but how illegal would lobbing a little PC into orbit be?

[|Y|]

ambi, CubeStats come to mind. I know someone incidently who is building one (all the big schools are doing it these days). They're affordable but hardly able to do much unfortunately. CubeSats are essentially subsidized by schools and other organizations, which is why they're fairly cost effective (I think Yarrow left out a digit in his number, though!). Getting into orbit is not as easy as it sounds, because you have to reach near escape velocity (it's not a matter of height but of speed). 25k mph is nothing to laugh at, and getting any piece of matter up to that speed is quite difficult. I do not believe (though I could very well be wrong) that any civilian has made a rocket reach orbit (actual orbit, not that pathetic 100 km 'definition' of space), and only a few corporations have achieved the goal.

There's one thing I should point out though, that fits well here at least with regards to anarchy. Iain Banks made the intelligent if not intuitive observation that space does not facilitate trade or markets so much self-sufficiency and high technology.

A case in point is that if you could do He3 fusion, then you'd be able to do pB11 fusion (which incidentally produces He3). B11 (Boron) being comparatively common in the universe compared to He3. And having a much lower aneutronic profile (produces much less neutrons than He3), which helps the fusion reactor last a lot longer (neutrons are bad for, erm, matter stablity).

You can think of any example of 'trade' or 'exchange' in space and I can show how it just ... doesn't work. Surviving in an environment like space requires, absolutely requires, technologies that mitigate scarcity as much as possible, so that you don't die because someone cuts off the air because you can't pay for it (an old argument I had on ASC was about this very idea!).

[Crustanarchy]

Hell yeah dude let's do this. I'd like some information before giving up my decorated paper but I'm pumped!

[(BulimicMind)notloggedin]

Let's get the ball rolling on a version of Bob Zubrin's Mars Direct plan. He wrote the book on getting to mars (The Case For Mars) in 1996 and envisioned it being put into practice by 2008. So much for that timeline. Space; lacking hierarchies, corporations, chiefs, murderers, thieves, and bosses, is an anarchy in every sense of the word. I for one am for making certain it stays that way.

[Zazaban]

I was thinking, since we're going to start a town in Northern B.C., do you think we could launch satellites there? If we have a few micro/nano satellites and some conviction we could probably have a space program outdoing NASA!

[ambi]

heh, i think that might be your first run-in with the greater state. militaries might get a little touchy about people playing launchy launchy.

still, if you could send up an array of micro satellites for communications, broadcast, etc. that would be very cool...

another thought that crossed my mind. there are some hella old satellites up there. they must use access codes to control them, and those access codes are probably encrypted - but the encryption must be pretty weak at this point. must be possible to hack...?

[Zazaban]

heh, i think that might be your first run-in with the greater state. militaries might get a little touchy about people playing launchy launchy.

Other organizations are able to start private space programs, why not us?

[Zazaban]

bump

[|Y|]

Whoops, didn't see this. Where the island is located is pretty bad for launching stuff, closer to the equater you get "free" delta-v, as you move away from the equator, the cost goes up. I'm not quite sure by how much, though, but it's significant enough for launch platforms to be specifically built as far south (toward the equator) as possible.

Canada and the US wouldn't like it, though. The US might try shooting them down (though Star Wars is a miserable failure; you'd still get invaded afterwards if you succeed and they don't shoot it down). Probably better off putting up a launch platform in international waters, imo.

[|Y|]

If we wanted a space program and we didn't want the states to interfere, starting with launch platforms in the oceans would be great (international waters, call it Anarchoville, whatever).

I would suggest using nuclear thermal rockets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket

It sounds bad, but it's not that bad. You can get most of the resources you need from seawater, with the right seperation technologies. This type of system is "politically impossible" in the states, because they tend to have huge political squabbles about such irrelevancies (nuclear rockets are just as safe as any other high powered space able rocket; ie, it takes a shitload of energy to get to space, so no vehicle is inherently "safe").

So you'd instantly have Mars/Venus colonization along with completely obliterating the US/China/India space programs.

[Zazaban]

So you'd instantly have Mars/Venus colonization along with completely obliterating the US/China/India space programs.

We should draw up a plan (I'm aware most people here don't like that sort of thing so much, but with space travel it's a bit of a must.)