Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic
115
bets on space tourism, initially through
whirlwind trips without entering orbit, and later by bringing paying passengers
inside structures around the Earth or the Moon. Bigelow Aerospace has already
successfully flown the prototype of an inflatable module made of lightweight
material on the ISS,
116
and in 2018 created a new company, Bigelow Space
Operations,
117
to build real space stations in Nevada to be sent into space on
SpaceX rockets, then managed directly from their control centers, effectively
replacing NASA.
The effort of private entrepreneurship combined with federal resources will
advance the entire sector within a few decades, to the point that this new Space
Economy industry
118
could make space flights a concrete commercial activity.
Since space exploration will still remain a very risky undertaking, public opinion
will always be reluctant to accept incidents in government programs financed with
taxes, whereas it may view a private company’s business differently.
In 1925, British journalist Hector Charles Bywater wrote a novel, The Great
Pacific War,
119
in which he described a terrible naval war between Washington and
Tokyo, triggered by a sudden and unexpected attack on the US fleet in the
Philippines. Incredibly, a very similar event occurred less than twenty years later
in Pearl Harbor. After the war, historian William Honan
120
discovered that
Bywater’s book had been published in Japan and was perhaps used as a text at the
Imperial Naval War College in Tokyo just before WWII. Bywater died in London
in 1940 under mysterious circumstances, a year before the Japanese attack on
Hawaii. Although it was never known if his story really influenced the Japanese
strategy in the Pacific, we can nevertheless draw broad parallels to George
Friedman’s space wars. The era of the Battle Stars may not be pure science fiction,
but a challenge just beyond our current horizon. In his book Astropolitik, Professor
Dolmann aptly writes, “the reality of confrontation in space politics pervades the
reality of an ideal of true cooperation and political unity in space; an ideal that has
never been genuine, and quite unlikely in the short term”.
121
115
https://www.virgingalactic.com/.
116
https://www.nasa.gov/content/bigelow-expandable-activity-module.
117
https://www.space.com/39752-bigelow-space-operations-private-space-stations.html.
118
World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Space Technologies.
119
Bywater, Hector C. 2012. The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese
Campaign of 1931-1933. First Edition 1925, Applewood Books.
120
Honan, William. 1990. Bywater: The Man Who Invented the Pacific War. Macdonald
Publisher.
121
Dolmann, Everett. 2001. Astropolitik: Classical geopolitics in the Space Age. Frank Cass
Publishers, 2, Introduction.
120 Battlestar Galactica: The Space Cyberwar of the Future
115
bets on space tourism, initially through
whirlwind trips without entering orbit, and later by bringing paying passengers
inside structures around the Earth or the Moon. Bigelow Aerospace has already
successfully flown the prototype of an inflatable module made of lightweight
material on the ISS,
116
and in 2018 created a new company, Bigelow Space
Operations,
117
to build real space stations in Nevada to be sent into space on
SpaceX rockets, then managed directly from their control centers, effectively
replacing NASA.
The effort of private entrepreneurship combined with federal resources will
advance the entire sector within a few decades, to the point that this new Space
Economy industry
118
could make space flights a concrete commercial activity.
Since space exploration will still remain a very risky undertaking, public opinion
will always be reluctant to accept incidents in government programs financed with
taxes, whereas it may view a private company’s business differently.
In 1925, British journalist Hector Charles Bywater wrote a novel, The Great
Pacific War,
119
in which he described a terrible naval war between Washington and
Tokyo, triggered by a sudden and unexpected attack on the US fleet in the
Philippines. Incredibly, a very similar event occurred less than twenty years later
in Pearl Harbor. After the war, historian William Honan
120
discovered that
Bywater’s book had been published in Japan and was perhaps used as a text at the
Imperial Naval War College in Tokyo just before WWII. Bywater died in London
in 1940 under mysterious circumstances, a year before the Japanese attack on
Hawaii. Although it was never known if his story really influenced the Japanese
strategy in the Pacific, we can nevertheless draw broad parallels to George
Friedman’s space wars. The era of the Battle Stars may not be pure science fiction,
but a challenge just beyond our current horizon. In his book Astropolitik, Professor
Dolmann aptly writes, “the reality of confrontation in space politics pervades the
reality of an ideal of true cooperation and political unity in space; an ideal that has
never been genuine, and quite unlikely in the short term”.
121
115
https://www.virgingalactic.com/.
116
https://www.nasa.gov/content/bigelow-expandable-activity-module.
117
https://www.space.com/39752-bigelow-space-operations-private-space-stations.html.
118
World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Space Technologies.
119
Bywater, Hector C. 2012. The Great Pacific War: A History of the American-Japanese
Campaign of 1931-1933. First Edition 1925, Applewood Books.
120
Honan, William. 1990. Bywater: The Man Who Invented the Pacific War. Macdonald
Publisher.
121
Dolmann, Everett. 2001. Astropolitik: Classical geopolitics in the Space Age. Frank Cass
Publishers, 2, Introduction.
120 Battlestar Galactica: The Space Cyberwar of the Future