Space Exploration... Requires Socialism or Communism?

I believe it does, even though I am a firm believer in capitalism and as much freedom for a person that is possible.

However, think of Battlestar Galactica or other type science fiction shows/movies. In order to travel the universe in a huge ship, everyone is going to have to do their job, no room for error. No thugs allowed, no greed allowed, nothing but work.

Now when the end of the planet is near and we need to get as many humans as possible on board the ship, the whole planet is going to have to work together. Supplies and materials should cost nothing. The planet needs to work together and just take whatever materials are neccessary. Now we have to add one world order to socialism to get this mission moving.

Also, as a side note... Wouldn't it be easier to build the large ship in space. Maybe just rocket out a few pieces at a time and have it assembled in space. That way we don't have to get this huge ship to get past the Earth's atmosphere and gravitational pull.

So, here it is...

1) No costs for materials and supplies, world needs to work together to strip whatever parts are neccessary.

2) Communism/socialism. Everyone has a job. Everyone is allotted food, clothing, housing, etc. No room for error, greed in any way must be dealt with in a strict manner.

3) One world order (I shiver at this thought). But think about it. The only way to get this done would be to work as a planet, to save the human race in case of any huge disaster or even just to explore the universe.

4) Build the ship in space. It's going to be huge. Only way to get it out there. Is this possible?

I am only posting this as a brainstorming. These are things I have thought of since I was a boy. Kind of funny, it's been on my mind for years and I've never told anyone. God bless the internet.

Anyways, anyone have anything to add, or just wanna call me crazy?

1. Spread fear and terror and holy war and asteroid doom like never before and make the earth an unattractive place to live, as if it is going to blow in 2012 or something.

2. Get a core group of investors behind a massive money-making scheme to build a fleet to save quailfied people through the colonization of a previously unknown space sector found to be reasonably similar to our own .

3. Sell the rights to the 144,000 seats and all suspended animation and on-board entertainment facilities, including George W Bush great speech reruns.

4. Build in a self-destruct by apparent accident button.

5. Repeat from Step 1, with new improved spaceships with added fibre. Maybe throw in a friendly looking robot with flailing arms as part of the tour experience.



Nothing crazy in any of that, but there's $$$ to be made. Go to it.

I don't think that building huge spaceships and battle cruisers would take a NWO or dictorial gov't. Just look at the space race the US had with Russia in the 50s and 60s, the feat of landing on the moon by the end of the 60s seemed impossible, but we did it!

Now we are far more technologically advanced, and if we really tried to, we could probably build a big spacecruiser. But no one cares anymore that we've conquered a small part of the stars, no one thinks "dang, we've landed on the moon, that's awesome!"

Remember, the commercial space "industry" is just beginning. Once people have access to personal space flight, then humanity can truly leave earth. It'll be interesting because all the old grudges and wars will lose their spectators and constituents, so to speak. You'll know this has passed when Palestinians establish "New Palestiania" on one of Saturn's moons and, say, the Apache's stake out a couple of asteroids for mobile casino worlds.

Originally posted by ktprktpr
mobile casino worlds.

*unabashedly and shamelessly steals idea for Capitalist Pigs In Space *

I patented that s*(# first

I demand royalities from all white men!

So you guys view intergalactic travel more of a commercial aspect than a federation? Hmmm, interesting. Now I have two views of space...

Totally, because governments have had their run and since they require full control of the mission, they can't send out a lot of people. if you consider it from a migration perspective, it becomes harder and harder control people as they live further and further away from you. Additionally, it would be an nightmare to control a massive amount of people; you'd need some kind of sub-government to maintain 'cultural cohesion' over the light years. it just can't happen.

When people leave Earth they're going to be leaving a lot of institutions behind. Hence, no institutions (like the gov't) would send them out, willingly, in the first place. Thankfully, gov't are supposed to work for the people, so they can't stop them from taking part in some kind of mass exodus.

OK, so if Bush and Company leave the planet, what then? Do we revert to total anarchy when all the important rich powerful people leave the planet? Or do we become a more peaceful people? Or do they leave some power figures behind to keep the power going on the planet.

This is all hypothetical of course...

it depends If Bush and Co. left the planet, i suppose a new president would be elected. Maybe Israel would be attacked, a world wide depression kicks in while we all readjust to the absence of the Bush doctrine. I don't know.

Communism doesn't work, it didnt work on earth and it wont in space either. Communism is a "dream" where everyone works together for the bettering of mankind. Sorry, that will never happen, too many special interests and greed. Besides in free markets technology develops faster anyway. Even later in the space age there will still be limited resources to be allocated to unending human wants. Basic economics tells you socialism by itself is doomed to failure. A mixed economic base would be more feasible.

... Capitalist Pigs In Space *

ahahahahaha

This is totally off topic, but the "communism" you know of isn't what Karl Marx wrote about. That is, Soviet Communism, Chinese Communism, aren't really Marxist Communism. These kinds of communism are about totalitarian control.

Furthermore, have you taken a look at China lately? They're poised to take over the Western world in several ways. My points have been made.

Originally posted by CGBSpender
Communism doesn't work, it didnt work on earth and it wont in space either. Communism is a "dream" where everyone works together for the bettering of mankind. Sorry, that will never happen, too many special interests and greed. Besides in free markets technology develops faster anyway. Even later in the space age there will still be limited resources to be allocated to unending human wants. Basic economics tells you socialism by itself is doomed to failure. A mixed economic base would be more feasible.

Ahh, of course I do not mean complete communism. Such a thing is impossible. But it must be as close to it as possible, with perhaps elected officials even. Everyone has to have their job on the cruiser. Everyone must do their job perfectly. Everyone is allotted the proper amount of food, medicine, etc in order to survive on the cruiser.

As for one world order. I think capitalism will only get you so far. In order to create a cruiser large enough to house enough humans to maybe colonize another planet, we would have to use all resources available to creeate this cruiser and prepare it with food, water and other items needed for life.

And noone mentioned anything of building this cruiser in space. You see, we build this huge cruiser, large enough to have at least 100,000 people living in it. Families, so that colonization is possible. It would be too hard to get it out into space from the ground. So build it in space. Then you can have small ships that launch from it, such as you see in sci-fi shows. These smaller ships will do patrols and check out planets, looking for an inhabitable planet, then come back to the ship for refueling and such.

I think this is all possible once we get one secret underway. The best means of traveling through space at a quick speed. I'm sure the rest of the technology is possible. But, perhaps we don't need to travel quickly. If we families and other males and females that will possibly mate, then they can just live as a civilization within the ship. But then we need to figure out ways to have renewing food sources. Maybe farming and rasing animals for food within the ship. As for water, well there's ice on Mars correct? So these ships we use for patrols will collect water from the sources out there in space. Fuel, well, we use whatever is available in the vastness of space. What is it? Methane?

It's all possible, in my opinion. Then once the cruiser reaches an inhabitable planet, they would most likely have evolved in space life enough to be able to get back to Earth with the good news. And we can create inter, or even intragalactic travel.

Maybe within our own galaxy for now, until we master traveling beyond the speed of light. What's stopping us, besides wars over oil and who's god is best? We can fly, we can get into space, therefore we can fly through space.

the main reason we are not in sapce is that there is not enough profit in space travel yet. Mainly due to the costs of getting out of the gravity well. once something like a space elevator or anti-grav is developed for private use, then we will see a space boom.

I honestly don't think you need a specific governemtn to do it, but some make it easier then others, like a captialistic society.

A pure communist society will work best for space travel. A colony of people living in a huge space station needs no money, only the work and commitment of everyone on board for the survival of the colony. Communism is a bad word to most Americans because of the cold war, propaganda against it, the not so communist so called communist goverments of the past, ect....
If it werent for that it would be so obvious to everyone that it is needed for a space colony.

For a small space colony yes, but the larger it gets well the same problems will start to creep into the picture again.

Originally posted by jrod
A pure communist society will work best for space travel. A colony of people living in a huge space station needs no money, only the work and commitment of everyone on board for the survival of the colony. Communism is a bad word to most Americans because of the cold war, propaganda against it, the not so communist so called communist goverments of the past, ect....
If it werent for that it would be so obvious to everyone that it is needed for a space colony.

That's what I mean. There is no need for moving ahead or anything like that. Every job on the space station will be necessary. Just do your job and get your allotted food, etc.

[edit on 21-3-2005 by steggyD]

Trots in Space

www.forteantimes.com...

A related and relevant article.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Trots in Space

www.forteantimes.com...

A related and relevant article.

Interesting read. I don't know about the UFO part, but there are some good points by this guy, who most would call bizarre. I was thinking of making us UFO's, not having UFO's come to us.

Here's my take. Capitalism puts man against man. No matter how far we get into space travel, there will be different factions working against each other. They will keep resources from each other, horde scientists, and many other things that will only slow us down.

If we take the whole world's resources right now to work on this, then we can get it done quickly. Get all our scientists together working on the project and use resources without paying for it. It's for humanity, why work against each other?

Also, in capitalism, there is no need to go into space. Unless some company finds out that there are money trees in the next solar system over. Sure, we have ships that will soon take you right out into space, but that doesn't get us through space...

Forget all this petty capitalism. What's it for? You work, buy things that make you temporarily happy, then you die. What's the point? It's endless slavery that gets you nowhere, just moments of earthly happiness. I would be much happier with the idea that we are searching the galaxy and universe for more, maybe the answers to everything.