Let the mindless hand-wringing begin…

Posted on by John Holst

…and they’re off.  As if the nuance of what China was doing with their Jade Rabbit moon rover was a surprise, there are now conversations in mainstream media about who the moon belongs to.   Of course today’s landing of the rover has prompted the topic.  An example of such hand-wringing is the twitter bubble at the end of this Daily Kos post and the Christian Science Monitor’s article.  At least the Christian Science Monitor mentions India as part of this “space race.”  That’s more than what many others seem to have done.

When I posted this post (based on a Chinese Launch Center expert’s quote) in a forum on LinkedIn a week ago, a conversation about this began that’s still going on.  Many postulations about the Outer Space Treaty and how that should be guiding Chinese activities have been thrown about.  There’s been the “those who get there the firstest with the mostest” argument.  And a few others.

The upshot is, there’s still time to formulate a framework which all signatories would find within their interests.  But knowing the media, there’s going to be a lot of “Who Does the Moon belong to stories.”  They’ll buzz around it, then they’ll let it drop the moment another healthcare website, or school shooting anniversary story comes their way.  And because of that, the United States government will focus for a minute, then move on to figuring out which party will win in the elections for the next few years.

At any rate, even if their motivations are suspect, “bravo” China for getting Jade Rabbit to the moon in one peace.  Now, if they could do that other giant leap for mankind and allow their citizens freedom of speech, press, and other such important civil inventions.

Which do you think would be the bigger deal–reaching the moon or revolutions in morality?

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2 thoughts on “Let the mindless hand-wringing begin…”

  1. Revolutions in morality. Respect for human rights and property rights have been conclusively proven to create human prosperity; once a revolution in morality occurs, the eventual resultant wealth would probably allow us to actually colonize the moon on some sort of economically viable grounds, not as a giant, wealth-draining government project.

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    1. There are many things that might happen. Prosperity tends to grow when there is minimal government intrusion into private lives and activities–which the US is going in the opposite direction on. There are quite a few companies working to do this without (much) government money. There may come a day when government is at the margins of main commercial space activity. But that might be a long way off.

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Published by John Holst

Ill-Defined Space is written by me, John Holst. ​If you’ve ever asked the following question, “What is this commercial space industry thing?” then welcome to my world. I will never have the answer to that question, but I do offer insights based on my industry experience and observations. I’ve tried defining, decrypting, deciphering, analyzing, and then translating the endless stream of the world’s space industry activities, policies, and press releases. I’ve experienced varying degrees of success in my attempts to do so. The upshot is that if you want thoughtful, occasionally useful, observations about the world’s space industry, then you may want to read my analyses. Boring, but potentially credibility-building information follows: I have a Master’s in Commercial Enterprise in Space through the Florida Institute of Technology. I was an undergrad at the University of Washington in Seattle, graduating from there with a degree in Journalism. My analysis of the space industry has been a definitive source for national lawmakers and departments, news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, and the San Francisco Chronicle, publications like National Geographic, and National Public Radio. It’s been published in The Space Report: The Authoritative Guide to Global Space Activity from 2014-2023 (here’s a link to a 1Q19 promo copy). You can also see my work in Quilty Analytic’s series of LEO Broadband Reports. ​ I’ve worked in the United States Air Force, Missile Defense Agency, Cobham, Space Dynamics Laboratory, the Space Foundation, and Quilty Analytics. I focused on space operations in the first few and conducted space industry research and analysis with the last two.