this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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I think artificial scarcity can be effective even in a space fairing society.
Yeah but that's only possible in a system where only a few entities are in total control of the space fairing, otherwise anyone could just go find their own unclaimed asteroid or comet to strip down for parts and come back with the entire net worth of a country.
A society where only a few entities are in total control of space exploration is literally where we live, right now.
Space is hard. You need incredibly long supply chains and tons of bespoke parts, materials, infrastructure and experience just to get a few kg to a low orbit. All of those things, and the means and contacts to procure those things, are in the hands of the elite, and they're not letting go.
For a person or small collective to be able to independently carry out space missions would first need a complete overhaul of our society to the point where it's semi-utopian.
Yeah but space fairing implies it's about as difficult for such a society as getting a home made car on the road is for us, or at the most how hard it is for a merchant ship to be chartered in mercantile times.
Once you open the door that is figuring out how to make resource retrieval from deep space affordable to the point of profitablity, you've knocked down those barriers to entry since those are what makes getting to space for such a purpose financially unfeasible at present.