6 thoughts on “The Space Show”

  2. A good show.

    Regarding risks, how come we think it’s acceptable for the occassional family of four to die in a fiery crash on the way to a towel sale at Bed Bath and Beyond, but a trip to Mars has to be absolutely risk free?

    There’s have been less than two dozen astronauts and cosmonauts killed in spacecraft in the past 50 years, which is about one death every two years. Most towns have intersections with higher death tolls than that.

  3. In response to my question about homesteading in Antarctica, Rand responded that he didn’t think anyone would want to homestead there because – unlike space – it’s not somewhere you can go to get away from overbearing governments. If the motivation for treating space as a frontier is freedom from government, what is it about space which you think offers this attraction? Is it the legal prohibition of national sovereignty in the OST? Is it the current high cost of space access? Or something else entirely?

    1. Something else entirely, related to the square-cube law. Increasing the “surface” of the limits of human occupation – the boundary of the frontier – by a small amount increases the volume which must be policed by a large amount.

      1. Exactly Ed, which is why the next few decades provide a historic opportunity to shrug off government. We don’t want the government to establish bases which gives them jurisdiction and cover to continue to meddle with peoples lives.

        People need to grab this opportunity to make claims outside the jurisdiction of govts. The govt. is not going to spend money to police a few hundred settlers here and there. Once the precedent is firmly established nobody will be able to undermine it.

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