Conquering the LaGrange Points? 911
3laws_safe writes "For decades, people have dreamed about building colonies at the five LaGrange points, intersections in space where gravitational and centrifugal forces balance out to provide orbital stability. But now, the official magazine of the U.S. Space Command advocates seizing control of the LaGrange points before other nations do it. From the article: 'We face the need to control the chokepoints of the solar system.' Arthur C. Clarke, who depicted a LaGrange colony in his classic 1961 novel A Fall of Moondust, is not very happy about this. He argues we should not 'export national rivalries beyond the atmosphere.' Is he right? Or should we prepare for the fact that such rivalries are inevitable, even in space?"
Seize for military or commercical. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd do more for my kids's personal futures if Virgin Galactic (and I don't even know what country they're in) owned one of them than if any particular company's military base were put there.
Be prepared (Score:3, Insightful)
Do I entirely trust the US government to be altruistic? No, not really. But I'd rather them be in control than the Chinese, Indians, or Russians. If you had to pick - and you probably do - which would you go for? That's really the question here.
Re:Be prepared (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Be prepared (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Be prepared (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Be prepared (Score:3, Funny)
Mr President! we cannot afford a LaGrange point gap!
Finders keepers? Why not hands off? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, the same argument could be said for Antarctica -- if we don't turn it into a U.S. controlled territory, the Chinese will! Well, maybe if they were trying to monopolize access to Antarctica, we would care enough to do it first. In the meantime, many countries can conduct their own business on Antarctica and there are no problems.
Why treat space differently? Why would you, in anticipation of a conflict in the future, create one now? If you treat control of LaGrange as a binary choice -- either us or the Chinese have 100% control with no access at all for the other -- then you will bring that situation about. If you say that we will fight over LaGrange and thus we must claim it now and prevent the Chinese from doing so, then you only give them an incentive to take it for themselves, whether before or after we do.
I am fully aware that with history as our guide we can predict conflicts in space. Why assume that all such conflicts are unavoidable and that the only choice is preemptive action? History doesn't bear that out at all. History does say that when one side believes war is innevitable, then it is.
We don't have to go to war with China, over the LaGrange points or anything else. We don't. And only by believing that this is the case will it ever be possible.
So I say we treat it like Antarctica. Nobody claims it, nobody prevents others from accesing it, everybody benefits. If this model of peaceful coexistence breaks down, well hopefully we're not fools and are prepared. But let's not go creating conflicts where none exist yet, okay?
Re:Finders keepers? Why not hands off? (Score:3, Insightful)
Practically, the best thing the U.S. and China have going for them is their economic co-dependence. It is utterly stupid for the U.S. to hav
Re:Be prepared (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite the propaganda coming from the US since the 30's, not everyone feels that they have to own everything in order to be fulfilled or have a rich full life.
As they grew up with the ideas presented to them by a much more socialist propeganda machine, over the last 70 years, it only makes sence that now as leaders of countr
Re:Be prepared (Score:4, Interesting)
The real question here is how the hell do you defend a LaGrange point? They're known positions with no cover. The amount of money and energy required to build an installation at a LaGrange point is vastly more than it would take to overwhelm its defenses with numerous small impactors or beam weapons.
The idea that the LaGrange points represent some kind of interplanetary chokepoint is plainly being advanced by military officials who are used to operating at low velocities on a more or less two-dimensional surface. In space, the only position that matters is not being near the position you were in when the enemy targeted his fire. Big stationary fortresses don't even make sense on the ground any more; they never made sense in space.
Re:Be prepared (Score:3, Insightful)
" I'd much rather the US take control of them than China, who seems to be the only other power with something like the capability."
It depends on how you define "take control" and "capability". If it means putting an unmanned satellite in them then there are a bunch of nations that could do it.
If you mean put a permenent manned station there, the Russians are the ONLY nation with a proven track record of building and long term manning a space station. The Chinese are pretty much at the Mercury stage in t
Re:Be prepared (Score:3, Interesting)
Why dont you ever show me some respect ThreeE
You are the one who said Russian prostitutes need to turn more tricks to fund the Russian space program, in one sentance proving you are sexist, racist, petty, immature and have no credibility discussing the Russian space program because you have no respect for them. Having no respect for the Russians is dumb because they do some good work, and the do whole projects on what NASA wastes on a single shuttle launch. They could build Kliper on
US Enemies with Industrial Bases (Score:3, Interesting)
Dream on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't believe the hype (Score:5, Insightful)
Colonizing, or capturing, or whatever exactly the military wants to do with the LaGrange points is decades if not centuries away, and decades if not centuries away from being militarily significant. It is in no way feasable right now, given the ballooning US budget deficit. Our current national debt could not take the strain that the financial burden of such an endeavor would entail. This is nothing more than one soldier's wet dream.
Re:Don't believe the hype (Score:3, Insightful)
-money from the US is going to other countries. This often means that an american company could have sold the product, but instead a foreign company got the business. For example, everytime someone buys a toyota, ford and gm lost a potential customer.
-You are right that a large deficit means less people working. But people not working is often a bad thing for an economy.
-A trade deficit means we are dependant on another nation f
Re:Dream on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe (Score:3, Funny)
yes (Score:5, Funny)
swore I'd never do this...*flagellates self* (Score:4, Funny)
Dimensions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dimensions (Score:3, Informative)
If you are slightly off in any direction, you'd 'fall' further in that direction, it is more like the top of a mountain than like the bottom of a valley.
In practice, any craft or station placed on such a point would need thrusters to stay in place, unpowered it would drift (due to solar wind, particle impact, air leaks and what not) and start 'falling'.
I guess the region where you can reason
Re:Dimensions (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dimensions (Score:3, Informative)
It's usually called a tether not a motor, and it pushes againsts the earth's magnetic field to generate lift.
Not a huge amount of lift, but more than enough to maintain or even increase a low earth orbit.
Here's a link - http://www.tethers.com/EDTethers.html [tethers.com]
-- Should you believe authority without question?
Re:Dimensions (Score:5, Informative)
L3 is unstable on a timescale of 150 years. That is, it's pretty stable for satellites, just not for planetary bodies. Of course, it also happens to be a friggin' useless orbit, as it never has line of sight visibility with Earth.
L4 and L5 are stable, so long as the mass of the larger object is greater than 24.96 times the mass of the smaller object. (Yes, it's really that odd number: it's actually 25*((1+sqrt(1-4/625))/2) ).
L4 and L5 are actually strange. They don't act like classical stability points, like most people think. If you push something away from L4/L5, it doesn't come back to L4/L5. It does, however, begin to orbit L4/L5, and those orbits are stable.
L1 is occupied (Score:3, Informative)
As well as L2 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:L1 is occupied (Score:4, Informative)
Just because there's one thing there doesn't mean there can't be others. Plus, the ones we're mentioning here are just the solar Lagrange points. The lunar Lagrange points are all unoccupied (as far as I know...). The lunar L1/L2 are terrific places for a cheap, easy to build space elevator.
Re:Dimensions (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dimensions (Score:3, Informative)
It's a little too technical. Though it is interesting that they don't have the timescales - I might add those. It's also interesting that one of the pages Wiki links to screws up days and years (http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/cornish/l
Re:Dimensions (Score:3, Informative)
The L4 & L5 points are 60 degrees plus and minus along the moons orbit around the sun. Due to the perturbations caused by the sun and other objects, the precise points are not stable. However, they forces on an object there would be fairly regular, so that it would fall in a kidney shaped orbit on the order of 80,000 miles long around the point.
Peaceful use of Space just a temporary phase... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Peaceful use of Space just a temporary phase... (Score:5, Interesting)
But forgetting about natural resources - the big difference is that Antartica isn't a security threat - space is - its the ultimate high ground. An engine attached to a boulder makes it into a space to surface bombardment system. You don't need nukes or lasers to threaten from above - just being up there is threat enough...
But who knows? Maybe we'll suprise ourselves, and the ISS and McMurdo stations will be the models of our future (well - maybe not the ISS).
Attention, US Americans: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think most American citizens are fine people. It's time for you citizens to wrest control back from the evil scum who run your country.
If you do not, the inevitable outcome will be further degradation of your personal safety. You can not afford to let this happen.
Actually - already satellites there... (Score:4, Interesting)
The WMAP page also explains that the L1 and L2 points aren't as stable as the article implies...
Other L points! Re:Actually -. (Score:3, Insightful)
The moon L1 point is useful for something else - you can build a space elevator from the moon, past the L1 point and with a big weight on the earth side of the L1 point as a counterbalance to the cable itself. This is needed since the moon is tidally locked to earth, which means there's no luna-stable orbit around the moon.
Rumor spreadin' round... (Score:3, Funny)
Rumor spreadin' round, Colorado town,
'Bout that chokepoint at Lagrange,
(Burt knows what I'm talkin' about)
Just let me know - if you wanna go,
To that station on the range
(Branson gotta hotel fulla nice girls there)
A-hmm, how, how, ho--*CLANG*owww!
"Gawddamn, Billy, ah know our guitars look fuzzier in zero-G, an' ah know we can grow us beards longer without trippin' on 'em alla time like back on Earth, but howinnahell's we s'posed to play guitar like this?"
"Hey Dusty, get the beard outa yer guitar while I sing a verse of Home on LaGrange [wikipedia.org]!"
(screeching of guitars and shifting of gears as Billy breaks into the next track and Frank figures out how to use drums in zero-G...)
Clean slate, O2
Past low-earth orbit's where I'm goin' to,
Space suit, peroxide,
Got Allen's funding and my reason why,
They're buyin' tickets just as fast as they can,
'Cause every geek's crazy 'bout an L-5 man...
Top coat, top hat,
An overfunded NASA's budget fat.
Black tiles, white knight,
Lookin' sharp, ready for flight,
They're buyin' tickets just as fast as they can,
'Cause every geek's crazy 'bout an L-5 man...
Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
By 1996, 41 nations, representing more than 80 per cent of the earth's population, had signed the treaty. Of these, 27 nations were full voting members of the treaty organisation.
Provisions of the treaty can be changed only by unanimous agreement of the voting members.
The treaty also bans any military operations, use of nuclear weapons, or disposal of radioactive waste in Antarctica; encourages the free exchange of information from scientific research conducted there; and forbids nations from making any new territorial claims on the continent.
It, however, made no ruling on existing territorial claims.
Why isn't this a viable model for control of the LaGrange points? Seems like there is a lot less resources to exploit in the LaGrange points than in the antarctic... hell, there aren't even any penguins living in the LaGrange points!
Face it. (Score:4, Insightful)
We need competition.
If there was one thing that drives space exploration its competition, not your starry-eyed dreams of free society, or the wonder to know and explore. There is a reason it was called the "Space Race". For the better part of 35 years we have done mostly nothing in our national space initative, sure we have mars rovers, comet impacting probes, and other devices we have yet to fully understand. But where have WE gone?
We have sat in the comfort of earth and lower earth orbit for more than 35 years. We have sat here because space has turned from something to have national pride for, to something that really only makes the news with its failures.
Everyone wants to find fault with NASA, the Administration, some scape goat, (And I will not argue with their faults), but no one wants to see the real reason why we are stuck at home.
We have no competition. None. No country to upstage us for a long time. There are people who remember why we went to space, and those people wrote this article. Competition is coming though, and we will be hard pressed to catch up, because that is what we will have to do, Catch up.
Yes we are technologically superior, and probably will be for the forseeable future, but if you can believe, space is not captured by technology, it is captured by the human spirit, the will, the drive that is in all of us, but we have somehow learned to ignore this with our endless safety and budget meetings. Space has been turned into routine.
Competition will come from China, yes, everyone would like to call them at least somewhat backwards, but that is a dangerous interpratation.
They are not backwards, but merely held back. Their genetic and social expansion has been curtailed by a government for the better part of thousands of years. Im not just talking about their recent communist regime. They will find their drive one day, and when they do, they will not be stopped. The fatal flaw that our space program has suffered, the degeneration into routine, will not be a factor for a population long held back.
We as a nation must see this, we must see this coming competition, and thrive on it as we always have. LaGrange Points, Mars, Asteriod Belt, these are places humans can learn to use for our benifit, they are above and beyond critical to our long term survival, and competition will get us there, one way or another.
This sounds familiar... (Score:3, Interesting)
What about all the British, French, Spanish, Dutch colonies in the Americas? They are all happy independent nations now (for the most part) that fought wars, not necessarily with each other, but against their home nations for independence.
What in the name of God or science makes you think space is going to be any different?
Think about who would move to a space colony: a pot-smoker wanting to get away from unjust laws on his lifestyle, a Falun Dafa group seeking asylum from persecution, and a libertarian trying to get away from taxes.
Nations can do their best to try to expand into state out of fear of other nations doing so first, but it's going to be the colonists that end up fighting the wars for these nations, and eventually, wars of independence a few generations later.
Maybe not every colonist would take up arms, but my assumption is that even of the ones that don't, they will most likely achieve independence anyway (Canada), so why would the US want to be the first?
Because it's not a body (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/BH766.html [islandone.org]
http://www.spacelawstation.com/international.html [spacelawstation.com]
I always thought that outer space would at least prevent people from contesting territory, since area, particularly off of the major planets, seemed so vast relative to the cost of putting things up there. I figured scarcity wouldn't be a problem and the territorial boundaries that nations are based on might be partially undermined.
I figured space would be libertarian.
I guess this just re-emphasizes that even in space there are scarce resources which people are going to end up fighting over, and which will necessitate extending national power into outer space, in order to enforce any claims on territoriality.
Re:Because it's not a body (Score:4, Insightful)
[...] which will necessitate extending national power into outer space, in order to enforce any claims on territoriality.
It is also worth noting, that it is extremely hard to enforce anything in space. Any space station (at a Lagrange point or anywhere else) can be knocked off with a minimum amount of effort and energy by a determined nation anyway. Space is such a hard environment that everything but cooperation would result in inevitable casualties.
We didn't fight the sovjets in space (nor did they fight us there) even when the Cold War reached its hottest phase. A physical confrontation in space would be just plain ridiculous...
... though we can't ignore human nature either.
C'mon, spell it right (Score:5, Informative)
It's not capitalized oddly. It's just spelled Lagrange. As in, Joseph Louis Lagrange.
apparently, there is already a whorehouse there. (Score:3, Informative)
Rumour spreadin' a-'round in that texas town
'bout that shack outside la grange
And you know what I'm talkin' about.
Just let me know if you wanna go
To that home out on the range.
They gotta lotta nice girls.
Have mercy.
A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw.
A haw, haw, haw.
Well, I hear it's fine if you got the time
And the ten to get yourself in.
A hmm, hmm.
And I hear it's tight most ev'ry night,
But now I might be mistaken.
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.
Have mercy.
- billy gibbons, dusty hill & frank beard
Rumsfeld Doctrine on space (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_11/Krepon.asp
As a conservative ... (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting Quote That Seems Appropriate (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the Big Picture through the perceptive eyes of foreign policy analyst Chalmers Johnson, who notes in his book, Sorrows of Empire, that conquerors of all eras have built encampments and forts in subject provinces, but there is something unique about the Americans:
"What is most fascinating and curious about the developing American form of empire, however, is that, in its modern phase, it is solely an empire of bases, not of territories, and these bases now encircle the earth in a way that, despite centuries-old dreams of global domination, would previously have been inconceivable."
Aside from the interest groups that benefit economically from a policy of militarism and perpetual war, and such factors as securing oil and other resources, Johnson sees
"Something else at work, which I believe is the post-Cold War discovery of our immense power, rationalized by the self-glorifying conclusion that because we have it we deserve to have it. The only truly common elements in the totality of America's foreign bases are imperialism and militarism-an impulse on the part of our elites to dominate other peoples largely because we have the power to do so, followed by the strategic reasoning that, in order to defend these newly acquired outposts and control the regions they are in, we must expand the areas under our control with still more bases. To maintain its empire, the Pentagon must constantly invent new reasons for keeping in our hands as many bases as possible long after the wars and crises that led to their creation have evaporated."
So now these same assholes want to dominate the entire world from the LaGrange Points.
Clarke is absolutely right (Score:4, Interesting)
To prepare for national and military rivalry that does not yet exist out there, except for friendly competition, is to create those rivalries.
Here I was, hoping that maybe space exploration will be one thing that will finally bring us together in peace, for all humankind... Sometimes I think people *want* conflicts and rivalry. If the USA decides to take over and claim certain parts of the solar system, that's just going to make people lose whatever little respect they had for that nation.
Instead, why not set a good example, by bringing together all nations to some conference where you agree not to bring archaic national rivalry into space?
No military presence in space, please! We've had lots of it on this planet, and let me tell you, it's not bringing a whole lot of joy.
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Space colonization is going to be like any other form of colonization in history, only with less killing of the natives. It's going to be a chance for each country's "Way of Life" to be exported abroad and for each country to seize resources for themselves so that they can dominate their rivals close to home. The fact that it's in space instead of across the sea is irrelevant.
This is history. Prepare to repeat it.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is a point made a couple posts down in this thread. But we all know about wishes. And you are right. Rather than look at it as space vs. earth -- think about it as human beings engaged in group activities. Then you realize that conflict is not just likely, it is inevitable.
Not to mention the paper linked here is talking about space dominance to insure dominance on the ground.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
No it's not, asshole.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, it is asshole (Score:3, Insightful)
For evidence see all of human history.
People are the problem.Re:Yes (Score:3, Funny)
(no, I don't know there are other ways to get hom besides automobile)
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
150 years ago, the people had access to most of the same arms as the military, not even remotely so today. This makes revolutions practically unthinkable. So if something happens, it would have to be a coup d'etat, assuming the bureaucrats are still sufficiently vulnerable for that to work and enough people get sufficiently fed up with votes making things right or any sort of measurable difference.
A democracy should put the people's rights first but election funding ensures that politicians/parties have to sell out before they can enter the game.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Revolutions need not be violent. They can happen by civil disobedience.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, over 200 years ago, young Napolean Bonaparte defeated a crowd in Paris by using canons. His forces were severely outnumbered and both sides had guns, but only he had canons and liked to use them (being an artillery officer)...
(NRA, anyone?)
Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004? Entirely peaceful, though... "Sell out" to whom? To machines? Any sell out is to people, and the fact, that people will wield more influence than others was always an accepted attribute of Democracy.An optimist might even add, that a good Democracy will try to ensure, that better people have more influence. How exactly this better is defined is what differenciates different regimes.
Finally, wondering even further off-topic, ensuring the "people's rights" is trivial -- the majority can still take its rights. What a Democracy should most concern itself with, is the rights of the individual, however unpopular she/he may be umong the people...
Re:Yes (Score:3, Funny)
especially when slashdot will dupe the article in a day or two
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Aha! See, while it's easy to feel like we shouldn't be having such petty conflicts, what you've hit on is the magic of it. We'll have a lot of different strategies going outward. A lot of different motivators. It's evolution in action, keeping us viable into the stars.
On the surface, it's seems unfortunate. But in the long run it will mean we survive.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Can you provide any evidence to support that assertion? At the heart of this "story" is rivalry. Inevitably, rivalry will be the very reason our species manages to get beyond this planet.
Space colonization is going to be like any other form of colonization in history, only with less killing of the natives.
You're not thinking long term here. The great great great grandchild of Hyatt will probably figure some sparsely populated rock would be a nice place to terra-form into a resort. Shortly thereafter we'll have mass graves, bombings and all the rest. "Sparsely" will probably be measured in tens of millions.
Napoleon understood this; the only motivation of man is self interest. When individuals believe that their self interest is best served by participating is some collective you get nations, wars, etc. Space isn't going to change this.
As for seizing resources; our space faring descendents will eventually decide they'd rather be independent and they'll have to fight for it. They'll eventually win, because they'll have the knowledge, resources and will.
One "day" someplace far, far away a human will be born, live a long life we fools can not even fathom, and die. It will have never even been aware of the existence of a "Bible", "Quran" or Arthur C. Clarke. The warmongers in the "U.S. Space Command" that contributed to making such a thing possible won't be credited for this.
Will there be churches on Mars?
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
I assume no such thing. Humans don't need anything as profound as astronomical distances or geologic time scales to forget. Cement is a good example; the West rediscovered cement by examining Roman structures. It had been forgotten for hundreds of years. People with the ability to read Egyptian hieroglyphs did not exist for more than 1300 years. That's a lot of human generations that had absolutely no means of understanding the written record of an entire civilization.
The universe places no upper-bound on our species. Consider the probabilities involved when hundreds of thousands of years pass. Imagine the possibilities of loss and regression that could occur when pockets of humans are separated by tens or hundreds of light years. Aside from the radio emissions we've recently broadcast into the universe, today, one large rock is all that would be necessary to obliterate nearly all evidence that we exist.
Seems like an illogical position for you to take.
Given enough time and space in which to invent new tragedies and triumphs, it seems to me that the only "logical position" is to assume that eventually some of our progeny will not remember from whence they came. To fill in the gaps they, like us, will invent a history. Occasionally a Rosetta stone will appear and they will stand in awe as they consider what has been lost.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
Learn your history. The British Parliament offered seats to the Colonies. The radicals, members of the Sons of Liberty (who would be classified as terrorists today) put pressure on the colonial assemblies to reject the offer because the Sons of Liberty from the outset wanted independence. They especially did not want to pay the monies owed to Britain for finally dispatching the one true threat in North America to all of the colonies, that being the French, during the Seven Years War/French & Indian War.
Some other misnomers taught to us through our *great* K-12 educational system about the American Revolution.
*Quartering of soldiers. Did not happen. The Loyalist families volunteered to house some of the soldiers. The majority of the soldiers were housed in Inns. The British made the colonial legislatures pay the innkeepers for the soldiers staying. The Legislatures and some of the members did not appreciate this. But people were not forced to take soldiers into their homes as we are inaccurately taught in schools.
*Standing army a tyranny. The British soldiers stayed in the North American colonies to not only keep the peace between the colonials and the Native Americans, but also to keep the French from trying to regain Canada or assault the North American colonies. Some colonial morons, some of which became our "Founding Fathers" declared that such a move was to stomp on their liberty and curtail democracy, which was not the case at all. The British troops were also there because the colonial militias proved to be completely ineffective in the 7 Years War. The brunt of the fighting was left to the British Army.
*Tea tax. The stupidest thing of all the American Revolutionary history. The British East India Company was going bankrupt and essentially controlled India. The British needed a means to pay for it, as well as repaying the huge debt run up beating the French and protecting the North American Colonies during the 7 Years War. So they gave a monopoly to the East India Company to sell tea in the Colonies. This pissed off the smugglers, who violated British trade laws (as well as Naval laws) by importing inferior Dutch tea. The tea was then handled by wholesalers, distributors, and stores. The East India Monopoly threatened to destroy this black market trade, whose headquarters was in, ta da, Boston. Only select merchants would sell the East India tea. So what happened? Smugglers, merchants, and wholesalers protested, *disguised* themselves as "Indians," and dumped the British tea into Boston Harbor. This led to the closing of Boston Harbor by the British. Even Ben Franklin at the time thought it was fair for Boston to pay up for the damage before the harbor was re-opened.
*Trial-by-peers. The problems of Boston continued escalating. Even a British Naval vessel was burnt by colonial radicals. Since trial-by-jury - a standard Right of Englishmen - meant a "trial by peers," the British were unsuccessful in getting a conviction against smugglers, because the jury was made up of smugglers. So the British decided to send the smugglers to London for conviction. Of course, the radicals were pissed off by this trampling of their liberty.
*George Washington. We think of him as a great general, but he proved otherwise in the earlier 7 Years War, which started when his hat was shot off his head while riding horseback. The general could not speak French, which is required of a leading officer in the British Army at the time because you had to sometimes negotiate with the blood enemy (the French). The British told Washington to also listen to his Native American allies, and Washington hated the Native Americans. So Washington did not listen to his allies, did not abandon a fort during the winter, and got trapped inside of it because of the mud. The French c
Re:Yes (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
The mistake made by the British government was to impose socially unpopular taxes (sugar, stamp, tea, etc...) on the colonist to raise money which undercut the authority of the colonial legislatures. They then sent corrupt (from the colonist point of view) tax collectors to enforce the taxes further undermining local governance. The issue wasn't so much as 'why' the taxes needed to be levied, but rather the 'how'. If the British government instead had relied on the colonial legislatures levy their own local taxes for continued protection of the British army and help pay off the war debt the revolutionary war would potentially have been avoided.
By most measurements, the 13 colonies had the highest standard of living in the world at the time and truly did prosper under protection of the British crown. However, the failure of the British to understand the sensitivities of the colonists planted the seeds of discontentment and revolution.
A lesson that may be appropriate as people on Earth attempt to govern colonies in space.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Funny)
Next you're going to tell me that "Father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree" story was all made up.
'Scuse me while I wipe my tears from laughing so hard.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Interesting)
And while I could take time to respond to most, if not all, of your assertions, I think it is only necessary to respond to one:
Ben Franklin. Great guy. He was the North American Colonies agent in London. Dealt with the King. Was liked by the Court. He even had his son made the Royal Governor of New Jersey. The Court thought he was an honest representative, but the man changed sides. When his son refused to change sides, Franklin had his own son locked up in prison. After the war, Franklin's son moved to England. They never spoke again. Franklin left his son out of his will.
When a "great guy" who is "liked by the court" and considered to be an "honest representative" decides to "change sides" and believes so strongly in that decision that he refuses to ever talk to his son again, perhaps you should ask yourself why? If the English were such great people given the total shaft by a bunch of smuggling, radical colinists, why would such an honest and respected man "change sides?"
I suspect the truth is somewhere between the two extremes, but "your" extreme is certainly no closer to the truth than the one taught in K-12.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
and since im skeptical and youre claiming facts that you say none of us learned in our general education, could you cite some sources so at least *I* could look them up and know the truth?
thanks.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
They threw tea overboard. This isn't terrorism, this is somewhere between performance art and anti-globalization protestor. I sincerely wish Hamas and Al Qaeda were throwing tea into harbors rather than blowing people up.
Re:Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
When and to whom?
I can't find confimation of this anywhere. You don't see a trace of parlimentary reform in Britain until 1832.
Get a clue yourself. (Score:4, Insightful)
First, your assertions do nothing to salvage the original claim that these countries somehow attacked America.
America tried to defend South Vietnam against North Vietnam.
When did they join the Union?
America successfully defended Kuwait against Iraq in the Gulf War. The current Iraq war is supposedly due to violations of the treaty ending the Gulf War.
The key word here here being "supposedly", yet even if it were true, which it is not, it was not an attack on America, and the WMD claims were lies by the Bush administration that were nearly as transparent at the time as they were now. The US was far more responsible than Iraq for kicking out weapons inspectors by infiltrating them with spies, which was never part of the deal, telling them they had to leave because the US was going to attack again, and forbidding them from ever reentering to resecure the real weapons sites that they had secured much more effectively than the Americans did (demonstrating that that was never the real intent of the American aggression). As incompetent as the UN was, it was not nearly as incompetent or vicious towards civilians as American operations there are today and Kofi Annan correctly judged the war as an unfounded, illegal war by the US.
I'm not a big fan of the current conflict, BTW. As an aside, claiming any dictator has the right to rule a country by force, which is what you did by talking about Iraq's sovereignty, is a strange belief.
Claiming that Sadaam had a right to rule by force was what the US administrations did repeatedly when Sadaam was still weak enough that he might have been overthown, but the US loved him because he was so good at slaughtering Iranians and we were helping him keep power and even target his chemical attacks.
If he had been universally opposed, he would have easily been overthrown and there would not be such a large opposing the US rule. Now, the US is the one ruling by force, responsible for at least a hundred thousand deaths and much more maiming, etc. You cannot impose democracy at the barrel of a gun. Taking sides in civil wars is silly. Disarming and declaring war on one army which basically had terrorism under control just to train a whole other set of army troops for the other side and hand victory to the Iranians is silly and has nothing to do with Democracy. Sadaam was our dictator, just as Bin Laden was our man in Afghanistan and most of the new, improved trained police there are just another dimension for another civil religious war and they are turning loose the same type of death squads that Sadaam had, initiated by American action which has not generally advanced rights at all, as many now-oppressed groups will readily tell you.
Bush is also a dictator over those who oppose his illegal immoral actions taken in the name of America. Just because the political process allows him to take power in an election where there were no credible alternatives does not mean he and his party should have absolute power to lie, cheat, steal, etc. as they do, without fear of any responsibility. Iran is also a democracy, which Bush ironically finds to be illegitimate for similar reasons. There is not as much a difference as you would like to pretend.
Re:For God's sake!! (Score:3, Insightful)
So why did we prop up this dictator back in the 80's, and help him gas the Kurds which we now claim is somehow bad? If he's a horrible dictator, why did we install him there? It's the exact same thing that happened in their neighbor Iran: they had a nice, stable democracy, so we overthrew it and installed the Shah. The place
Sorry, you again are making a relative judgement (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not from India. I just have met and talked extensively with people from many corners of the globe, including Iraq, Pakistan, and India. I am born and raised in the USA as were my ancestors for many generations. The actions in the middle east have not prevented terrorism by any stretch (and now a majority even of Americans believe they have increased the risk, not reduced it). By every reasonable analysis, they have greatly increased the risk of terrorism, lost us all sympathy of most of the world,
Re:Do you think they were good? (Score:5, Insightful)
Believe it or not, this sort of attitude from the rich countries of the West ("we look after our interest, and what happens to some poor bastards far away is just noise") is one of the things which breed terrorists and hatred towards Western civilization. I'm not a Pakistani, so I didn't take your post emotionally. Were I one, I'd probably like to spit in your face for your arrogance and stupidity.
If you think that 'homeland' will be kept free from fear for ever by using such tactics (pushing troubles abroad, to some Smellistans or Fuckraqs), you're just soo wrong and invite a repeat of 9/11.
Re:Global demilitarization (Score:4, Funny)
Jenna or Barbara?
Re:Depends what you mean by natives (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rivalries are good (Score:5, Informative)
The lagrange points are basically 60degrees in front of and behind the smaller object in it's orbit, between the two objets, just past the small one, and on the other side of the big object from the small one.
Check the first link in the blurb, it'll take you to the L5 societies homepage where you can get a MUCH better explanation along with pictures.
It's also possible to have more than one occupant at a lagrange point, as the 'point' is more like a area. While this point is a tiny space compared to the two bigger objects, it can be fairly large compared to a man made structure. Though the farther from the centre of the Lagrange point you are the more use of correctional thrusting you'll need.
Contrary to common conception lagrange points aren't like magical peg holes that you 'lock' to when you get there, what they really are are places where if you stop there the various forces from the two larger bodies will ballance out such that you won't need to do anything to stay there. but this is the ideal, with perfect spheres and NO other gravitational souces, no solar wind, etc. So you'll always need tiny corrections from time to time, the L points just reduce this to the smallest amount, so by being willing to deal with slightly more correction you can park very near there. Again the L5 society has better info most likely, and if not google for it, I'm sure some-one has expounded with more accuracy and eloquence than I have mustered.
Mycroft
Which rivalries, commercial or military. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems it'd be best for the US if WalMart owned one of the lagrange points, just like WalMart owns much of manufacturing in China and Exxon owns much of the oil in the mideast. If it's siezed as a military base it'll just sit there with lots of cost and little benefit to anyone; but if it's purchased as a commercial facility, it'll be a tax on everyone going into space. To rephrase the distinction in more concrete terms; China is WalMart's biggest ally, but China is also the US military's largest competitor for space domination.
I agree that the US corporations should race to control commercially the Lagrange points (as we do buying up oil in the mideast); but I think it'd be stupid if we decided to occupy them at great cost to ourselves (as we do to certain countries in the mideast).
The ultimate TAX HEAVEN.... (Score:3, Funny)
You are welcome to come and collect !
Here are my coordinates
Lagrange Point N.3
You cannot miss it, it's just beind the mine field, to the left of the laser battery.
Best Regards....
Re:yes (Score:5, Funny)
Long Answer:
Look, if we keep fighting for first posts (see above) in a website, where we gain nothing but make such morons of ourselves, what moral authority do we have to stop the nations from fighting for the LaGrange points? "-1, greedy"?
Short Answer:
Yes, such rivalries are inevitable.
Re:yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I'm not too sure of that. Numerous astronauts report that the trip into space changes a man - and I think I can understand that, sort of.
It's a radical change of perspective. Viewed from down here, our earth seems rather huge, and if you try to get the "big picture", the only way to do so is via maps. Conveniently, all those maps come equipped with fat, red, obvious national borders, making it easy to divide the earth in "us" and "them".
From space, it's totally different. Not only will you suddenly have a very hard time pinpointing your hometown, let alone your country. Also, it becomes hard to think of the planet as "big" when you buzz around it in less than two hour's time (the orbital period of the ISS is ~90min) and when the atmosphere is just a sliver over the sphere's mass. Or when you watch the earth shrink to the size of a ping-pong ball when making the minutest of celestial excursions, for example to our moon.
I find it very understandable that humans will act less crazy and childish in such an environment, and it's this hope for the betterment of mankind which made me an enthusiast of manned space travel.
Re:yes (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally think human beings are born pretty nasty and all in all stay that way. I think the folks sent to space thus far haven't been really representative of the group as a whole. And this whole article revolved around needing
Re:yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of experiences change us. But look back at the last three thousand years of human history, and you'll see that despite it all, people are still driven by the same basic needs and desires, have the same faults and flaws.
Don't think for a minute that the view out a window, however breathtaking, is going to fundamentally change the nature of the human race.
Re:yes (Score:3, Interesting)
So one can label these sub-groups whatever they want. It is my opinion that they will fight for control of one another and that as technology improves this will include fighting for what the linked pdf calls the 'high ground'
Many other nations don't displa
If I've learned anything... (Score:4, Insightful)
I like to think of it as how movies and video games taught me.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Civilization taught me that the first into space will be the only civilization that lives and even then we will inevitably fight amongst ourselves for supremacy of land and space. And regardless of what country we come from, there will be an intellectual divide that separates each faction of thought, whether it be a hive mind, militaristic, eco-friendly, or religion based mindset.
The Terminator Movie Series taught me that mankind is destined to destroy itself.
And Highlander taught me that there can be only one.
So ultimately, no matter where we go, we will want to be the first to claim our stake, and if there is a dispute, we will battle it out until all others are ultimately destroyed for that is our destiny until there is only one left.
Re:yes (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, you have a nice theory about human beings doesn't withstand scrutiny unless you believe that human beings will magically change and will no longer behave as they have throughout history.
Eventually, though...if you're willing to concede that it won't happen except on a multi-millenial timescale, then I'll buy it. Yes, eventually, the tendency for war may be bred out of human beings.
Re:yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, I sincerely hope I'm wrong. Feel free to tell me why I am.
Re:Only FIVE such points? (Score:5, Informative)
There are exactly and only five Lagrange points in any pair of orbiting bodies. Three are unstable and two are stable.
http://www.physics.montana.edu/faculty/cornish/la
Actually, 10, and they're not points (Score:3, Informative)
Also, while at any instant there are points that geometrically correspond to the Lagrange criteria, in practice a body near one of t
Democratic countries? (Score:5, Insightful)
I seem to recall the US removing several democratically elected heads of state in South/Central America just because they saw them as threats to US economic/polic interests...
Let's also not forget the Iranian coup, (from Wikipedia):
"By the 20th century Iranians were longing for a change and thus followed the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905/1911. In 1953 Iran's prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq, who had been elected to parliament in 1923 and again in 1944 and who had been prime minister since 1951, was removed from power in a complex plot orchestrated by British and US intelligence agencies ("Operation Ajax").
Many scholars suspect that this ouster was motivated by British-US opposition to Mossadeq's attempt to nationalize Iran's oil. Following Mossadeq's fall, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Iran's monarch) grew increasingly dictatorial... His autocratic rule, including systematic torture and other human rights violations, led to the Iranian revolution and overthrow of his regime in 1979."
Re:yes (Score:3, Informative)
PWI. Just say no, kids!
The Lagrange points are orbits, they just happen to be fixed in relation to the orbits of the other two bodies. L4 and L5 are also called "Trojan points" (Google is your friend). They are 60 degrees ahead and 60 degrees behind the Moon, in this case, and orbiting the earth at the same orbital radius and speed as the Moon. What effectively happens is, the gravitational pull of the Earth and the Moon are equal at that distance, so anything in orbit in either of those places never ca
Re:France (Score:5, Informative)
Re:France (Score:3, Funny)
"Freedom" fries, "freedom" toast, "freedom" points, "frogs" -- so much effort to avoid the word "French".
Well, don't be shy! Don't be hesitant! Go the whole way. Call the country "Freedom".
-- The price of eternal vigilance is a dollar a day and half an hour of your time.
Carefully choose a responsible newspaper. Support it, read it, write to it.
Re:France (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here.
-- The price of eternal vigilance is a dollar a day and half an hour of your time.
Carefully choose a responsible newspaper. Support it, read it, write to it.
Re:Not Enough Oil (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously, you're not thinking either. Where are we going to get enough hydrogen if all the consumers are using it up? It's not like there's huge reservoirs of H just lying around and falling from the sky.
Re:Chokepoints?? (Score:3, Informative)
Try studying orbital mechanics sometime, then repeat that for us.
You can't just fly around any direction you like in space. Your path is determined by the bodies of which you're orbiting. Chose one orbit and you'll get there faster, again at the cost of fuel. Chose another orbit and you'll get there slower but with more fuel. Chose the wrong orbit, and you won't get there at all.
When the predictions of "space can't be militarized"
Re:Chokepoints?? (Score:3, Informative)
This makes the Lagrange points ridiculously useful for future cargo transit through the Solar System. Transfers on the Interplanetary Superhighway cost almost no energy whatsoever. So you could easily imagine staging points at the Lagrange points of several major bodies, holding probes or cargo until a proper path opens up, and then sendin
Re:Chokepoints?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Especially when you realize that if you're transferring cargo, you're almost guaranteed to use the IPS transfers, it's pretty much a given that when humanity starts actively mining asteroids, we're going to need something at almost all of the Lagrange points - both the Earth/Moon and the Earth/Sun ones. Except the Earth/Sun L3. That one sucks.
In fact, by far the most intelligent thing is what was suggested a bit ago by Jerome Pearson. Two lunar space elevators. Since (lunar) L1/L2 are stationary points, and the Moon is rotationally locked, you can build elevators to them (and it'd only take Kevlar, not nanotubes). It's so ridiculously obvious, that I can't imagine that it won't happen, unless there's a dynamic instability someone hasn't thought of.
Completely avoids the entire stability problem.
Squid For Breakfast again? Tastes like Troll to me (Score:3, Funny)
[ ] Create confusion by referring to Intel's CPU isolation and privilege strategy as LaGrange
[ ] Suggest renaming these imaginary, 3D coordinates the "Delarge" points - in honor of Alex from "A Clockwork Orange"
[ ] Mmmmmmm! Tasty fairy-cake!
[ ] Bend over, and kiss your asteroid goodbye.