Generating energy from solar power satellites in space is the long-term final solution to the energy needs of humanity. Cheap easy access to space is crucial for this. In fact, we live at an important time where if we do not use the energy, we have wisely we may squander this chance. If we used all the energy resources available on Earth alone we could only put into orbit a mass equal to that of Mt Everest. After that we are trapped here. Environmentalist claim, as always, that a big project will poison the water and make an animal endangered. They claim this though multiple environmental studies have shown this to be false. They claim that it is colonialist, and racist, and imperialist … for the US to use US territory in Texas, on the mainland where the only people with any title to the land sold it to create a space port.
There is being an environmentalist, antiracist, protector of “the Mauna” whatever natural landform that is to a local people who at least consider themselves indigenous and traditionalist. For example, one valid sounding point they may is that the presentation from Space X didn’t have slides in Spanish and call it colonialism. Zeroth Brownsville is 95.5% self identified White people. First it needs to be pointed out that the Spanish first colonized Texas. The White Hispanic people of Brownsville who may object are not indigenous any more than George W Bush is. (Hispanic is a culture that encompasses ever race in the Americas and over a dozen countries). Spain is not indigenous to Texas. Even if they were mestizo, Mexico is as much a colonial creation as the USA is. Yes, it is. The Aztecs themselves did not live in harmony with nature or anything and they were imperialistic, built cities, had aqueducts, roads, and a very brutal and effective army. The “colonial” situation we have in Texas is because first the Aztecs lost a war with Spain. Then Mexico won a war with Spain and then lost a war with the US. They could’ve won they just didn’t.
Such feelings matter and have a value, but we should not legislate based on them if the consequence of not proceeding with a project is we could lose access to space or hinder the progress of human science and technology.
Here is a video which shows you why access to space is crucial. Using Starship we can put payloads into space of 100 Tonnes 220,000lbs to Mars. Even larger payloads to say Mercury. Through Starship and craft like it being developed by Space X and Blue Origin (New Glenn) and a similar project by the Peoples Republic of China, humanity could begin to achieve something as spectacular as a Dyson swarm.
There is an bad 9-year-old article that claims this is impossible or a bad idea is often cited by people who don’t read beyond the headline. In which it is admitted eventually that this will work.
Crafts like Starship can get payloads to orbit with the mass of small manufacturing facilities which could mine a planet like mercury for the metals and elements needed to create solar power satellites. Which from a body like Mercury could launch much more easily due to the low gravity. The same facilities placed on the moon could do similar work (Though for reasons like the creation of navigational hazards it would not be wise to put too many such satellites near the Earth.
With these we could create a global power infrastructure that would not pollute the Earth and would not even require mining the Earth for the resources to do it! The sacrifice of the wild spaces of a few select places can protect and defend the wild spaces of many more around the globe. Space exploration be that with telescopes like TMT or rocket launches like those of SpaceX Starship is the key to all of this.
Yet environmentalist and indigenous traditionalist (in the case of the Space X issue the people claiming this are not American Indians or even Mexican-Americans for the most part) can appeal to emotion. Appeals to the amygdala will always gain traction much more quickly than appeals to the neo cortex.
If I wanted to appeal to the reptilian brains of at least some people, I’d lean on my Instagram and pole dancing. At least this form of doing so requires some skill.
By the by I am a person of partial American Indian descent, I am a BIPOC. If identity politics matter to anyone who reads this, to anyone who claims to care about BIPOC people, and our views needs to care even about our views when we do not agree with them. Like the full human beings, we are. We can be on every side of an issue.
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