Тег: Space

April 12

When a couple of years ago I congratulated readers on Cosmonautics Day, I mentioned that while the state might have fucked things up in space, the market has arrived there for real and for the long haul, and it won’t be possible to kick it out anymore. Since then, many interesting things have happened in space, but the most promising, of course, is Elon Musk’s Starship.

And as for everyone’s preferences, ancaps care about the displacement of the state. I’ll allow myself a simple extrapolation. Musk perfects Starship and organizes more or less regular communication with Mars. An orbital station, a base on the surface, supplies for that very base; some of the population works on a rotational basis, some settle for the long term. Nothing stops Musk from declaring that his private colony has its own jurisdiction, a certain legal code, contractual citizenship, an embassy on Earth in the city of Starbase, and other state attributes.

What grounds, precisely, would other states have to prevent this? Would the US claim the surface of Mars based on the fact that it is being colonized by an American company? It’s unlikely this would pass through the UN. Would the US begin criminal prosecution of Musk for secession? That’s bad PR; moreover, the PRC is nipping at their heels, and while you’re putting spokes in the wheels of an American entrepreneur, the red planet will be annexed by the red Chinese.

But if an independent sovereign contractual state forms on Mars, the majority of its citizens will be Earthlings who have never left Earth. Formally, they would, for example, be waiting in line for relocation, hold a residence permit and a correspondingly broad list of civil rights associated with that permit. They would even pay taxes, for instance, in the form of fixed regular contributions as a subscription fee for the maintenance of their interests by a diplomatic mission before Earthly states. In short, all the attributes of a state will be present, but its sole function for citizens will be the provision of legal norms; in all other respects—complete freedom of entrepreneurship. This means that the space offshore will rapidly grow its citizenship, while states will face the prospect of being left high and dry.

Why do I think that something like this could quite possibly happen? Why not, that’s why. Musk has repeatedly demonstrated that “it’s not done that way” is not an argument for him. The idea of getting rid of state dictate is in the air, as is the idea of space expansion. I don’t see why the noble Don shouldn’t combine two promising ideas.

April 12

They say that in the past, in the USSR, it was a nationwide holiday, but now it has lost its drive and in many ways has acquired the mood of “Sorry, Yura, we fucked everything up.”

No. The state fucked everything up. The “market” gradually crept into space, and once the market arrives somewhere, it settles in seriously and for the long haul. At first, private companies simply held contracts for state space companies. Then they started buying satellite launches from state companies. Then they learned to launch satellites themselves. They are just about to launch the first human. They have already launched a lunar expedition, albeit unsuccessfully.

Private space exploration is happening unobtrusively. In some places, it is the whim of a billionaire, in some it is the donations of enthusiasts, and in some it is a normal profitable business—and this, of course, is the most solid basis for expansion.

All of this applies to Russia as well. So S7 Space, Dauria Aerospace, or some other Russian private space companies will certainly enter the bright market paradise. And Roscosmos will simply die.

Happy holiday!

And the romance of space isn’t going anywhere. Starman sends his regards to Yuri Gagarin.

Do you think a full-fledged ancap could emerge in the process of colonizing planets?

анонимный вопрос

A vast number of science fiction works are dedicated to the theme of relations between Earth and its alien colonies. Significant attention is also paid in such works to the organization of society within these colonies. In essence, it all comes down to which specific sci-fi assumptions form the basis of a given plot.

Let us try the opposite approach: to understand what minimum sci-fi (and preferably realistic) assumptions must be made so that the society emerging in Earth’s alien colony is anarcho-capitalist. Well, let us reason it through.

In theory, of course, by the time alien colonies appear, ancap should already exist on Earth; accordingly, it would be quite natural for a colony to maintain this specific type of social relation. But that is too trivial an assumption, albeit quite realistic.

For the sake of interest, I would, for example, assume the opposite: that for some mysterious reason, the technologies for colonizing other planets are all available, yet ancap has still not taken root. It is not entirely clear to me how this could be, as there are no grounds for states to have survived for so long. But we are talking about science fiction, and this is our sci-fi assumption.

Moving on. For anarcho-capitalism to exist in a colony, a free market must be established there. If, for instance, the entire colony consists of a single firm trading with Earth, then the relations within it will likely be monetary-labor relations, and we will get a completely different society. Thus, sufficient autonomy of the colonists is necessary; after all, if they depend on centrally distributed resources in everything, there can be no anarchy. This means either the planet is terraformed, or it was originally habitable, or the technologies for arranging living space around oneself are very inexpensive and accessible to almost everyone.

As a result, we have a surplus of living space, which allows people to coexist only when it brings benefits, and not simply because it is crowded and there is nowhere else to go. This is very important for the emergence of the proverbial autonomy of the individual and the dominance of voluntary relations—coercion in such an environment is simply unnecessary and highly ineffective.

In general, with the colonization of such a planet, we get a situation similar to the experience of the USA, but without Indians and slaves—those two ancestral traumas of the United States that contributed to the expansion of federal government powers and led to internal wars.

We will dismiss the sci-fi assumption regarding the possibility of interplanetary wars with disdain: it is good for a blockbuster, but far too improbable. This also works in favor of ancap: there is no need to maintain a defense against space invasion, because out of fear of something like that, a state might accidentally emerge, and then you’d have to root it out of people’s minds…

How could the issue of Earth’s orbit being polluted with space debris be regulated under ancap? After all, you cannot establish private property over space.

anonymous question

There is the Earth. Around the Earth is a certain near-Earth space where people regularly launch satellites. A satellite may fail on its own or disable another satellite, either as a result of targeted commands from its owners or as a result of many unpredictable natural factors.

What rules would govern the interaction of interested parties in this sphere under ancap? In essence, roughly the same as now. The legal frameworks in which property disputes regarding satellites and their mutual influence occur already largely correspond to free market principles: entities are equal and act on the basis of clearly defined agreements.

What would be the reaction now if someone began consciously shooting down other people’s satellites? The affected parties would try to prove this fact, the broader community of those potentially involved in the conflict would also be interested in such an investigation, and further, everyone would be interested in depriving the aggressor of the ability to continue the attacks, as well as recovering damages for the affected parties.

So, with the transition to ancap on Earth, little will fundamentally change in space. Except that currently, sections of the geostationary orbit are divided among states based on geographical criteria; were there no states, other agreements between players in the space industry would come into effect. Perhaps the simple principle of homesteading.

Well, alright. A considerable amount of time has passed, a huge amount of debris has accumulated in orbit—how will the market solve this problem? In general, what is trash for some is a valuable resource for others. Someone has already paid to launch mass into orbit. The temptation arises to use materials raised by someone else instead of launching one’s own. For now, this is commercially inefficient. The more debris there is in orbit, the lower the costs of extracting raw materials from space debris compared to launching.

Finally, it is worth noting that the accumulation of debris occurs only in sufficiently high orbits, while in low orbits, debris soon leaves orbit on its own and harmlessly burns up in the dense layers of the atmosphere. Thus, for low orbits, extending the lifespan of a satellite is more relevant than the accumulation of satellites that have already become debris.

Thus, in the space industry, one can see all the approaches humanity has developed in the fight against the problem of waste: increasing the service life of products, littering less, and recycling waste.