this episode is brought to you by
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if the past is anything to judge by one
thing humanity is sure to bring with us
in our journey to the stars
are arguments interests and squabbles so
what else does the past tell us about
the future
[Music]
today we have a two-part episode looking
at the geopolitics of colonizing space
and we are joined by rudyard lynch of
the what if all
his channel to give us some historical
insight into how this might all play out
the second half of the episode will be
over on his channel and don't forget to
hit the like and subscribe buttons while
you're over there and check out some of
his awesome content
if you are coming in from what if all
hiss to watch the first half
welcome to science and futurism with
isaac arthur or sfia
and what we'll be doing in this half is
trying to set up the landscape and
critical factors that will be
influencing the scene
then rudyard will try to overlay our
existing geopolitical landscape
into those in the second part the first
thing to acknowledge though
is that there isn't a single scene or
landscape
space is huge and it's likely that even
the development of our own solar system
will result in a local population
of many quadrillions scattered around
not just the well-known major plants or
even the dwarf plants and bigger moons
but on the millions of minor plants and
asteroids and potentially trillions of
artificial habitats
that's just this solar system too and
does not include the half a trillion
siblings it has in this galaxy
among the billions of galaxies in our
observable universe
it also doesn't include potential
multiverse parallel realities or
potential virtual worlds which might
become far
more popular and populated than mania
baron rock needing terraforming
all of which means we should not be
assuming any given ideological economic
religious or political system would be
universal throughout colonized space or
time
but a broad never-changing situation
indeed
in spite of the laziness of many a
sci-fi arthur where entire colonized
planets seem to have a universal
language and culture
earth has never had that and quite
possibly never will
indeed it'll be hard to think of any
nation that had a monoculture
and even the impression of that
occasionally from history derives from
there being many a nation that we have
less than a page of records from
or because we get accounts from a single
person who is stereotyping their
neighbor or even their own civilization
conveniently for a lot of those minor
planets and artificial habitats
they could be small enough that they
really paled up with small nations or
possibly just small towns
but even then few would be very static
or homogeneous based on our known
examples here on earth
one minor caveat to that there may
actually be some ideal way to run a
civilization
discoverable by science or one that
believably appears ideal anyway
in which case you could get convergence
of ideological political or cultural
beliefs and behaviors
we still wouldn't really expect that to
result in a homogeneous civilization
but it may be fairly cookie cutter in
many fashions
basically uniform around all colonized
space and not changing with
time we might call that a stagnant
culture but would have to do so with a
grain of salt
if your civilization can demonstrate as
the best possible one mathematically
accusations of being staggered are a bit
hard to make stick
stain number one isn't stagnation
for today's purposes we will assume that
either is not the case or so far in the
future has to be beyond our scope
though if such a thing existed it might
be a thing of even this century not a
million or billion years from now
now it is common to look at history as
swinging on certain critical factors and
events
which may or may not be a good approach
in some situations
but it would be hard to argue against a
major influence the age of sale
was all the new commodities available
for trade or more easily and reliably
available
be it precious metals or spices or new
foods indigenous to other areas
that trade impacted those civilizations
a lot
and the folks who forced those trade
routes established access to those goods
and controlled the trade in them had a
lot of wealth power
and influence as a result as we head up
into space we expect something parallel
and while there are a host of potential
trade items the two we discuss most on
sfia
as potential kickstarters for space
industry and development are asteroid
mining
and power satellites and which one
happened first and start the snowball
rolling for space development
would probably affect a lot of what the
character and focus of early
colonization was
for instance power satellites are all
about getting energy down to earth
a multi-trillion dollar economic sector
and one with a lot of knock-on effects
if you have cheaper electricity
it also helps with environmental issues
related to energy generation ground side
plus has the cousin industry of solar
mirrors and shades for influencing the
planet's weather and temperature
someone who got this working to the
point that they were generating power
even just slightly cheaper than its
growing rate nowadays is going to be in
a position to be the world's first
trillionaire
and a rare example of an industrialist
popular with environmental groups
they might start getting introduced as
that person who saved our planet
while also opening the door to a million
other planets
not a bad position to be in getting
viewed like that while having more money
than most entire nation states
asteroid mining goes a different way the
main initial interest is in precious
metals being brought back to earth
which has no real benefits to the
economy or environment in and
of itself compared to abundant cheap
clean energy for instance
however while power satellite grid
probably requires a huge investment to
get running and see profits
a trip to a metal rich asteroid and home
with a couple thousand tons of gold or
platinum
is a big initial profit now it takes a
long time to get an asteroid even a
near-earth asteroid
of which there are tens of thousands and
to mine the metals out and send them
home
but some of your money comes when you
prove to a reasonable degree of
certainty that the asteroid you have
picked has
these metals and you have a reasonably
reliable method of extracting them and
shipping them home
at well under current commodity value so
you might wonder if asteroid mighty has
an upper hand as a kickstarter for space
as it seems to enjoy an advantage of
providing quick revenue compared to the
other
they also seem like very different
approaches attracting very different
mentalities
a group of pioneers going out to virgin
land to farm it is likely be quite
different than when responding to a port
of a river with gold nuggets in it
in a similar notion the other advantage
of asteroid mining is for
non-precious metals all those
construction materials we want for
things like space habitats
or power collectors or solar shades or
rocket fuel
if you are doing all your processing out
of an asteroid and only sending refined
materials home
or if you're sending whole asteroids
back to earth orbit for protracted
refining
you get two very different looking
colonization plans one might see mining
settlements on asteroids growing into
habitats
embedded into the asteroid and growing
as communities far from earth
while the other might feed a growing
swarm of habitats and infrastructure in
earth orbit
it is likely to see a very different
growth and evolution
in many remote counties far from earth
or each other compared to those that
would be literally and metaphorically
trapped in earth's orbit and dominion
with all that in mind we will be looking
at some future historical alternatives
what ifs like what if the main push for
space is for asteroid mining or power
satellites
worth the push for space as a single
nation and if so which one
or if it might be a private group and if
a private group
what if it was a for-profit corporation
such as we would expect for an asteroid
mine
or more of an ideological religious
focus for a group though
seeking their promised land or refuge
from persecution
or whether they didn't have to live with
everyone of the opinion appearance or
behavior that they loathed
now it's very hard to guess how the
future will roll out but we can draw
from our experiences
and our history and maybe the biggest
lesson there is that the inevitable
conflicts and clear paths forward of
today
often are not what materialized or what
seemed obvious and inevitable yesterday
needless to say any project that
involves our global energy economy or
playing around with lighting of the
planet
is inherently a big issue for
terrestrial governments and politics
but whether you're shipping home gold
and platinum by the megaton from
asteroids
or beaming energy down by the gigawatt
from an orbital power grid
there's a vast amount of wealth and
power
it doesn't stop there either because a
power satellite grid also provides the
infrastructure
for pushing lasers for shoving
spaceships up to high speed
and beaming power to them thus assisting
in space colonization
needless to say they are weapons too and
asteroid mining also provides the raw
materials for constructing that space
infrastructure
for finding and supplying the fuels the
ships will use and for creating all that
space
habitats and waypoints those ships could
dock to
indeed we even have objects called
aldrin cyclers
or interplanetary cyclers which convert
a small asteroid into a sort of hybrid
spaceport and ferry
moving the cycle or castle as they are
called between birds and having the
ships dock or undock with them
so we can see some obvious sources of
political power in space to motivate
existing nations
or groups to seek to acquire them but it
is also a good example of how those
directly controlling
asset become powerful it's not just that
a national corporation that owns a big
asteroid gold mine has a lot of cash
the specific director of that
installation and the key engineers or
administrators for it
start becoming personally influential
either inside their existing national
group or as a new one entirely
there is no nation named facebook
twitter google or amazon any more than
there is one for a host of powerful
bureaucratic offices
or issue-oriented lobbies that did not
exist a generation ago
or for tv personalities or podcasters
news anchors or
editors and yet these entities wield
tremendous amounts of political power
this ironically is another thing to
consider because a given entity is
likely to be as afraid of being usurped
by internal rivals or
formerly junior allies and partners as
external enemies
what might start as a competitive rush
by country x to colonize the moon
to show up or keep up with country y
might later see factions in x
lobbying against the effort when their
governor or viceroy on the moon starts
becoming too influential and powerful
if you followed american politics for
instance it would not be hard to imagine
the president appointing someone from
their own party with charisma skill and
ambition to head up a moon colony
and that person later running for
president themselves and being opposed
by a candidate from the other party who
criticized or smeared the moon
development project
you could easily imagine a given space
effort like that moon base
becoming a party-line issue as a result
things which can also involve what might
have seen minor or tangential issues too
we don't tend to expect a sports game to
be political but we've certainly seen
any number of sporting contests act as
proxies for conflict down the years or
getting more popular with one unrelated
political affiliation or another
we see that nowadays and we see that way
back in the original olympics
and suddenly comes up in modern olympics
too so we acknowledge that there's a lot
of unanticipatable factors and a lot of
black swans in an emerging geopolitical
environment in space
and yet there is a lot which is
anticipatable again like the idea that
given space programs and efforts will
spawn
new powers i come from a state where the
aerospace industry is very influential
this industry did not exist a century
ago and ohio was home to both neil
armstrong and senator john glenn
and it's hard to argue that his service
with nasa was not a critical factor in
him getting elected
or that armstrong could likely have won
a seat had he chosen to run too
victorious generals acclaimed
adventurers titans of industry
and so on are an inevitable feature of
the political landscape
but also a wild card because a popular
moon explorer
might have obvious views on moon
expansion that folks respected
and more so because that explorer spoke
passionately about them
but we have no idea with that person's
view on guns abortion economics crime
and so on war
and yet they would likely influence
folks on those topics heavily
we also want to beware false dichotomies
as an example we post asteroid mining
and power satellites as an either or
but that was principally as to which
would cause a snowball of space
development first
it's not a question of us having to do
one or the other any more than if we
asked the settlement of the americas in
recent centuries was driven by the
supply of virgin farmland or the mining
of precious metals
we could obviously debate their relative
impact but the answer is they both drove
colonization and indeed drove each other
and yet if we were pushing for
government subsidy to space development
and power satellites and asteroid mining
initiatives were proposed
we would almost certainly see either or
arguments when in truth we specifically
discussed those two options
as a way of kickstarting all types of
space development
and that obviously includes each other
too
at the same time while singular events
or personalities or opinion
can have pivotal impacts on events
unfolding we should keep in mind there's
a bit of truth to notion of inertia too
our example of asteroid mining and power
satellites both hinge on the
overwhelming desire for resources
that does not inevitably lead to either
system occurring
but we can nominate them as candidates
for getting things moving in space
simply because they offer a strong
promise to satisfy that desire
but never assume inevitability of such
things either
earth for instance has nearly as much
raw materials including precious
elements
as all the other rocky planets moons and
asteroids combined
hence if someone invents a technique for
mining our planet's mantle
safely and without ecological issues
suddenly asteroid mining is a thing for
longer down the road
because there's no real market for what
they've got down on earth
so too power satellites would have
problems if someone managed to get
fusion reactors working
or even just made solar panels and
batteries vastly cheaper and better for
use on earth
one new technology can disrupt that
which seemed eternal and certain before
as history has shown us many times
in that same vein of thought i mentioned
earth having more resources and all
those other words combined
major and minor but the lion's share of
those others is actually in
venus and as we discussed recently in
our episode looking at whether we should
go to the moon or mars first
venus might be a better option than
either as might those asteroids or the
moons of jupiter
indeed if someone gets a functioning
fusion drive even just a regular one not
something like the epstein drive from
the expanse
then suddenly the outer solar system
looks a lot more inviting
because you do not need the sun for
light and heat you can make ships that
can go very fast and
cheap and the outer system has so many
more of the resources handy for a
fusion-based economy
like hydrogen and its isotope deuterium
or helium-3
not to mention plenty of ice and water
and nitrogen which while modestly
plentiful on earth are very rare in the
inner solar system
this offers a very different realm as
well because while many of the moons of
jupiter are all fairly close together
and would permit quick and easy
interworld trade even with only modern
space ships
it offers something of an in-between
option relative to space development
in the relatively compact earth orbital
space above an already fully colonized
earth and a scattered asteroid belt
whose millions of minor planets occupy a
larger volume than all that down from
the belt in the inner system
mercury venus earth and mars each of the
gas giants also has these robust
collections of moons and trojan
asteroids of their own
albeit to a less grand scale than mighty
jupiter and each represents a
potentially compact collection
of interconnected lesser walls another
thing to keep in mind though is that
when we often discuss which national
entity might colonize mars on the moon
first
this is sometimes said as who will take
control of them and a good point to
remind ourselves that even on a single
planet or
large moon there is a huge amount of
area and raw materials
and a huge difference in climate too
indeed earth is arguably more moderate
in climate
between tundra desert swamp and jungle
than any of those places
a small base of a few dozen people being
on shackleton crater on the moon or
olympus mods on mars
while an accomplishment that would be
remembered in history for a long time
does not offer any real capability to
occupy an entire planet or control who
else arrives
these places are huge as capable of
hoarding many nations as earth is
and while science fiction often shows
colonists fighting each other over bases
and resources
you would probably see those conflicts
going on back on earth
where everyone's political economic and
military might was actually at
in part two we'll be trying to look at
those current major players
and ask how those situations might
[Music]
unfold
much of what happens in the future is
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every morning of course a healthy
knowledge of history is also vital to
understanding both current events and
envisioning future ones
and rudyard will be walking us through
how the emerging new space race might
get rolling
and you can check out part 2 also linked
below or on the end video card
this isn't our first saturday episode
but they are pretty rare with us
normally during thursdays and twice them
on sundays for the end of the month
livestream q a
and the mid month sci-fi sunday's
episode and if you're wondering
yes that's still on tomorrow sunday july
11th
as we return to our alien civilization
series for a look at annoying aliens
and this thursday we'll be discussing
whether we should go to mars now
or return to the moon and establish a
base there first
the thursday after that we will jump
into the distant future or maybe not too
distant future
to look at the end of earth two weeks
from now
we'll have our monthly livestream q a
don't forget to join us then to get your
questions
answered also if you missed our most
recent episode
last thursday strip mine the galaxy you
can still check that out and its sequel
the galactic laboratory will finish this
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don't forget to check out part two of
this episode over at what if alt hist
until next time thanks for watching and
have a great week
[Applause]
[Music]
you