Infinite Economic Growth in Outer Space?

[Comrade #138672]

One important argument against Capitalism is the idea that infinite economic growth is impossible, because we're constrained to our planet Earth. At some point there are no space and resources left for further expansion. At that point, people say, Capitalism has definitely failed.

However, I think that the assumption that we're constrained to our planet Earth isn't valid. Well, it may be valid now, but it can change. Gradually we're becoming more capable of exploring Outer Space. We're already sending robots to Mars to collect rocks and stuff, in order to research life (or the possibility of life).

Which is all kind of cool, of course, but at the same time it bothers me. Why? Because Outer Space has "infinite" space and resources for Capitalists to exploit and this will allow "infinite" economic growth. No doubt we will colonize Outer Space in the future. I'm not sure when - and I hope it will take a lot of time - but until that time it may be wise to think about this problem, so that we may be able to prevent it.

If a Revolution happens before this turning point, then we will probably be safe. But what if it does not? Would it make a Revolution more difficult?

I'm very interested in your opinion.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Space most certainly has the room for infinite growth, but it seems to me that the problem for capitalism is getting there in the first place. Most scientists and engineers reckon that the "return on investment" for colonising and industrialising space would take a decade or longer, a length of time far exceeding the quarterly assessments of profit and loss typically found under modern capitalism.

Having said that though, there does seem to be an increasing private interest in space. I think we've all heard of Virgin Galactic, but perhaps more significant is the arrival of Planetary Resources Inc (http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/11/asteroid-mining-startup-planetary-resources-teams-with-virgin-galactic/), a private company with the goal of mining asteroids.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I really don't think that humans should expand into outer space. We are, in general, a hugely destructive species.

I am extremely interested in what lies out there, I just have a feeling that, for the sake of whatever exists beyond earth, it is probably best that it is beyond our reach.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I really don't think that humans should expand into outer space. We are, in general, a hugely destructive species.

I disagree. We may pollute and make war, but we also build and make a lot of things.

Also, the consequences of our destructive activities would be ameliorated considerably if we could move them into space, a long way from ecosystems and the living things within them.


I am extremely interested in what lies out there, I just have a feeling that, for the sake of whatever exists beyond earth, it is probably best that it is beyond our reach.

Is human behaviour not malleable? Even if it's supposedly "in the genes"?

[Psy]

I really don't think that humans should expand into outer space. We are, in general, a hugely destructive species.

I am extremely interested in what lies out there, I just have a feeling that, for the sake of whatever exists beyond earth, it is probably best that it is beyond our reach.

Space is huge and we are alone in our solar system thus no reason why we shouldn't expand to make use of what resources are in our system.

Of course from a capitalist point of view space is too big, for example communicating with moon has significant lag and the moon is next door compared the distances to the other planets. This means any production in space would have longer and longer production cycles as their distance from Earth grows you have to factor in time it takes to transport commodities back to Earth.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't see capitalism has so much leeway to expand infinitely - it still has to exploit the same number of workers. They're just standing somewhere else.

But I think the history of the 20th century demonstrates that while we're divided into seperate competing countries - in other words, while capitalism persists - it's going to be hard to organise the exploration of space. Russia and America may have competed in the space race, but had they co-operated (with the ESA and the other space agencies...) then perhaps we'd have more than a single international space station.

In the '80s, the Russians invested in the Mir space station; the Americans had the shuttle, a fairly decent space-taxi. But there was no real plan to put them together. Perhaps if there had been the Russians wouldn't have blown up so many rockets on the launchpad, the Americans might have had somewhere to go, and it might have been possible to keep Mir up there. Maybe a bit of co-operation would have given us a Moonbase or a manned Mars mission by now. Of course we might then have decided it wasn't worth it and stayed home... but we'd know.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I disagree. We may pollute and make war, but we also build and make a lot of things.

The problem being that we tend to make a lot of things/build things that are useful for us and mighty impressive, but to the detriment of pretty much everything else. Now, i'm not some primitivist, but I think it's important to recognise that if we are going to implode at some point, it's best not to take another planet/part of space with us.


Also, the consequences of our destructive activities would be ameliorated considerably if we could move them into space, a long way from ecosystems and the living things within them.

Surely we'd only really be able to move into space if there was another tangible place - i.e. a planet or similar large fuckin' rock - to live, and that it would need to develop its own ecosystems if we were to be able to have enough food etc. to survive?




Is human behaviour not malleable? Even if it's supposedly "in the genes"?

But how malleable? I'm no expert in behavioural psychology, but i'm not sure that humans will ever be anything other than destructive to other species/the environment. But that's no surprise, since competing species do tend to be quite violent to each other.

[Psy]

I don't see capitalism has so much leeway to expand infinitely - it still has to exploit the same number of workers. They're just standing somewhere else.

But I think the history of the 20th century demonstrates that while we're divided into seperate competing countries - in other words, while capitalism persists - it's going to be hard to organise the exploration of space. Russia and America may have competed in the space race, but had they co-operated (with the ESA and the other space agencies...) then perhaps we'd have more than a single international space station.

In the '80s, the Russians invested in the Mir space station; the Americans had the shuttle, a fairly decent space-taxi. But there was no real plan to put them together. Perhaps if there had been the Russians wouldn't have blown up so many rockets on the launchpad, the Americans might have had somewhere to go, and it might have been possible to keep Mir up there. Maybe a bit of co-operation would have given us a Moonbase or a manned Mars mission by now. Of course we might then have decided it wasn't worth it and stayed home... but we'd know.
The USSR had its own shuttle program it is just the USSR collapsed while the shuttle was still going through testing.

J9ZGJucbLiw

The Russians blew up so many rockets because of the NK-15 rocket engines that ran at high operating pressure to increase fuel efficiency. On paper this was the most rational solution to the engineering problem of getting a rocket to the moon, yet this also meant anything that went wrong in the NK-15 engines resulted in catastrophic failure.

[Ocean Seal]

One important argument against Capitalism is the idea that infinite economic growth is impossible, because we're constrained to our planet Earth. At some point there are no space and resources left for further expansion. At that point, people say, Capitalism has definitely failed.

That's not the argument against capitalism. There are only a set number of things that will satisfy people, and capitalism has to make them scarce. When they aren't people don't have to pay for them, so no need for wages or capitalist production. Capitalism continues to force scarcity, forced scarcity in turns causes workers to have to compete for the fewer and fewer jobs which haven't been automated, and thus lose out in relative wages because they have less bargaining power. This grinding of the plates explodes and you have the proletarian revolutions.

[maskerade]

The problem being that we tend to make a lot of things/build things that are useful for us and mighty impressive, but to the detriment of pretty much everything else. Now, i'm not some primitivist, but I think it's important to recognise that if we are going to implode at some point, it's best not to take another planet/part of space with us.



Surely we'd only really be able to move into space if there was another tangible place - i.e. a planet or similar large fuckin' rock - to live, and that it would need to develop its own ecosystems if we were to be able to have enough food etc. to survive?





But how malleable? I'm no expert in behavioural psychology, but i'm not sure that humans will ever be anything other than destructive to other species/the environment. But that's no surprise, since competing species do tend to be quite violent to each other.

It's the way that our social behaviour is structured and organised that is violent, not humans themselves. I hate to pull up the old and tired hunter-gatherer argument, but they have completely sustainable economic practices. while we cannot be sure that the current state of contemporary hunter-gatherers is similar to how our species lived initially, it is still the closest comparison we can make.

with that said, I see the problem as being the different economic behaviour and social organisation between 'us and them'. the significance of this isn't that we should go back to running after antelopes, but rather that there is nothing intrinsic about our 'violent' behaviour. and if we're going to put on our marxist hats, it's worth remembering that hunter-gatherers, though largely not in possession of modern productive technologies, are still in complete control over their means of production. I guess the point i'm trying to make is that hunter-gatherers - the few that are left - are not as alienated, if even at all, as the obedient and compliant worker bees of the west.

here is an excellent piece on the 'human nature' question: http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html

this is of course irrelevant if one believes that the people that are normally referred to as hunter-gatherers are themselves intrinsically different from the rest of us, but if one was to believe that I suspect we'd be having a very different conversation

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I don't see capitalism has so much leeway to expand infinitely - it still has to exploit the same number of workers. They're just standing somewhere else.

But I think the history of the 20th century demonstrates that while we're divided into seperate competing countries - in other words, while capitalism persists - it's going to be hard to organise the exploration of space. Russia and America may have competed in the space race, but had they co-operated (with the ESA and the other space agencies...) then perhaps we'd have more than a single international space station.

In the '80s, the Russians invested in the Mir space station; the Americans had the shuttle, a fairly decent space-taxi. But there was no real plan to put them together. Perhaps if there had been the Russians wouldn't have blown up so many rockets on the launchpad, the Americans might have had somewhere to go, and it might have been possible to keep Mir up there. Maybe a bit of co-operation would have given us a Moonbase or a manned Mars mission by now. Of course we might then have decided it wasn't worth it and stayed home... but we'd know.

One thing I've heard is that the invention of the transistor made computers small enough to place on unmanned satellites, which meant the major commercial interests in spaceflight at the time could conduct their business without crewed flights.


The problem being that we tend to make a lot of things/build things that are useful for us and mighty impressive, but to the detriment of pretty much everything else. Now, i'm not some primitivist, but I think it's important to recognise that if we are going to implode at some point, it's best not to take another planet/part of space with us.

We're not doomed yet, but if we give up on extraterrestrial colonisation and industrialisation then the chances of humans becoming extinct approaches certainty. Sooner or later there will be a global cataclysm - not necessarily of our doing - which will present an existential threat to human civilisation or its descendants. However, if we have a presence on multiple bodies, then our chances of survival increase arithmetically for each self-sufficient colony we have (one colony doubles our chances, two colonies triple our chances etc).


Surely we'd only really be able to move into space if there was another tangible place - i.e. a planet or similar large fuckin' rock - to live, and that it would need to develop its own ecosystems if we were to be able to have enough food etc. to survive?

That is why it is important that we aim to build our own self-sufficient systems capable of supporting human life indefinitely. It's not going to be easy, but I think it is worth it if it helps to increase our chances of long-term survival.


But how malleable? I'm no expert in behavioural psychology, but i'm not sure that humans will ever be anything other than destructive to other species/the environment. But that's no surprise, since competing species do tend to be quite violent to each other.

Well, even if we were to remain on Earth with a low population, we would still be displacing other species by our very presence, no matter how ecologically friendly our lifestyle.

I think it's probably a good idea to maintain significant wild areas on Earth, and I think extraterrestrial colonisation and industrialisation would be helpful in that goal, at least in the long term.

[Blake's Baby]

The USSR had its own shuttle program it is just the USSR collapsed while the shuttle was still going through testing.
...

Ten years or more after the Americans had one. My point is that the Russians didn't need one. The Americans already had one (or about seven). Sharing the research and development would have meant one excellent shuttle programme not one good one and one failed and late one.


The Russians blew up so many rockets because of the NK-15 rocket engines that ran at high operating pressure to increase fuel efficiency. On paper this was the most rational solution to the engineering problem of getting a rocket to the moon, yet this also meant anything that went wrong in the NK-15 engines resulted in catastrophic failure.

On paper, the most rational solution was collaborating on one combined space programme, including a shuttle and space station. That's not what happened.

Are you actually trying to defend the gains of the 'space race' for humanity here? If so, why?

[Psy]

Ten years or more after the Americans had one. My point is that the Russians didn't need one. The Americans already had one (or about seven). Sharing the research and development would have meant one excellent shuttle programme not one good one and one failed and late one.



On paper, the most rational solution was collaborating on one combined space programme, including a shuttle and space station. That's not what happened.

Are you actually trying to defend the gains of the 'space race' for humanity here? If so, why?
You don't seem to understand why bourgeois society went to space, if Khrushchev took up Kennedy's offer to cooperate in getting to the moon we wouldn't have gone to the moon as Kennedy couldn't have justified NASA's budget without it being a race against the USSR.

While the problem with the USSR's space program was the Politburo was putting too much pressure on immediate results thus engineers were skipping necessary steps just to meet arbitrary milestone created by the be Politburo. The USSR space program would worked better if it ignored NASA and it just have worked at its own pace.

[Blake's Baby]

You don't seem to understand why bourgeois society went to space...

You don't seem to understand why I'm posting on this thread.


... if Khrushchev took up Kennedy's offer to cooperate in getting to the moon we wouldn't have gone to the moon as Kennedy couldn't have justified NASA's budget without it being a race against the USSR...

Irrelevent.

The USA spent the money on R&D. The USSR spent the money on R&D. Justifications are neither here nor there; vast amounts of social wealth were invested in the space programmes - not to mention the European space programme and in later decades the Indian and Chinese space programmes too.


...
While the problem with the USSR's space program was the Politburo was putting too much pressure on immediate results thus engineers were skipping necessary steps just to meet arbitrary milestone created by the be Politburo. The USSR space program would worked better if it ignored NASA and it just have worked at its own pace.

Irrelevent, and probably untrue.

There was no objective need for the USSR to begin investment in a shuttle programme, which hadn't produced a shuttle even ten years after the Americans had one. Why? The Americans already had one.

So, why do you think I was posting?

It was to demonstrate that under conditions of capitalist competition, companies and indeed nations duplicate each others' work and investments unecessarily. The Russians have a space station, but no shuttle. So they put work into building a shuttle, even though that duplicates work the Americans have already put into building their own shuttle, which doesn't have anywhere to go (not enough American investment in space stations) so the Americans use their shuttle to take satellites up, which rather makes the Arianne rocket developed by the ESA redundant and the work put into developing that a waste of time. In the meantime the ESA starts taking things up for the Russian space station...

Meanwhile, discoveries are slow to percollate from East to West and back and commercial companies guard their secrets while three massive launch sites are built in Florida, Kazakhstan and French Guiana...

The whole affair (at least 5 affairs) are massively less efficient than a single space programme would have been. Not 'all the space programmes should have been combined' because that's utopian lunacy under the conditions that prevailed in the 20th century. Rather, 'had that level of investment of social wealth been carried out by a single agency, saving on massive unecessary duplication (triplication, quadruplication and even quintuplication) then the results would have been far more spectacular'.

[Psy]

Irrelevent, and probably untrue.

What benefit was the Voskhod programme? It did allow the USSR to do early EVAs but it was such a engineering mess it set back the Soyuz program as engineers time was wasted on fixing the Voskhod's flaws that was only a stop gap to the Soyuz anyway, as the Politburo wanted to still wanted to achieve firsts in space between the Vostok and Soyuz.



There was no objective need for the USSR to begin investment in a shuttle programme, which hadn't produced a shuttle even ten years after the Americans had one. Why? The Americans already had one.

The Columbia launched in space April 1981 while the Buran launched in space November 1988 the only difference being the Buran launched was unmanned and was remotely controlled, the US shuttle lacks this capability while the Buran inherited this capability of the Lunokhod.

The Buran didn't go back in space because the Buran didn't have a completed life support system, the engineers were still working on that part and in 1993 Ptichka (a Buran with a crew compartment) was scheduled for launch and before being cancelled most of the work was done thus if the USSR had survived till 1993 odds are Ptichka would have launched.



So, why do you think I was posting?

It was to demonstrate that under conditions of capitalist competition, companies and indeed nations duplicate each others' work and investments unecessarily. The Russians have a space station, but no shuttle. So they put work into building a shuttle, even though that duplicates work the Americans have already put into building their own shuttle, which doesn't have anywhere to go (not enough American investment in space stations) so the Americans use their shuttle to take satellites up, which rather makes the Arianne rocket developed by the ESA redundant and the work put into developing that a waste of time. In the meantime the ESA starts taking things up for the Russian space station...

Meanwhile, discoveries are slow to percollate from East to West and back and commercial companies guard their secrets while three massive launch sites are built in Florida, Kazakhstan and French Guiana...

The whole affair (at least 5 affairs) are massively less efficient than a single space programme would have been. Not 'all the space programmes should have been combined' because that's utopian lunacy under the conditions that prevailed in the 20th century. Rather, 'had that level of investment of social wealth been carried out by a single agency, saving on massive unecessary duplication (triplication, quadruplication and even quintuplication) then the results would have been far more spectacular'.
The larger problem was the goals of the space programs, in that they really didn't have any incentive under global capitalism to really explore and develop space.

[Blake's Baby]

Oh, right, the larger problem was that there was no incentive? I thought the larger problem was that 40 million people died unnecessarily and everyone's lives were blighted by international capitalism divided into two militaristic superpower blocs, but there you go.

[Psy]

Oh, right, the larger problem was that there was no incentive? I thought the larger problem was that 40 million people died unnecessarily and everyone's lives were blighted by international capitalism divided into two militaristic superpower blocs, but there you go.
I meant problem with the space programs.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

History aside, what's fellow Revlefters' opinions on the implications of the recent private interest in space? Or is it too early to tell?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Response to the OP's headline:

No. Capital lives off of the exploitation of live labor, not space. If resources such as water and necessary survival needs would be exported for workers to be exploited on Mars, then yes, it is a possibility; but not very likely (read, "cost efficient") with the current productive forces.

[Blake's Baby]

I meant problem with the space programs.

Why do you keep positing the problem as being something inside the current economic system? The problem is the current economic system.

What I am saying is 'there can be no rational and coherent space programme inside capitalism'.

What you've been saying is 'inside capitalism, it makes more sense for...' and I really don't give a fuck.

This isn't a thread about how the Russian space programme was 'really very good and if only the Politburo hadn't... ' - it's a thread about whether or not a world divided into competing capitalist powers is likely to be able to exploit extra-terrestrial resources. An exegesis of the Russian shuttle programme really isn't relevent here. The point is that division between capitalist powers means that space research is less effective than it would be under socialism, not who had the best orbiter.

[Psy]

History aside, what's fellow Revlefters' opinions on the implications of the recent private interest in space? Or is it too early to tell?
Private interests into space basically is just providing Earth orbital capabilities where they see the potential for surplus value yet private interests have no interests in space exploration or even developing space.



Why do you keep positing the problem as being something inside the current economic system? The problem is the current economic system.

What I am saying is 'there can be no rational and coherent space programme inside capitalism'.

We got to moon while under capitalism, if NASA found any resources capitalists find worth extracting and bringing down to Earth there would mines on the moon now. Yet the only valuable resource on the moon is helium-3 that capitalists don't care about because helium-3 reactors are too far away for capitalists to care.



What you've been saying is 'inside capitalism, it makes more sense for...' and I really don't give a fuck.

This isn't a thread about how the Russian space programme was 'really very good and if only the Politburo hadn't... ' - it's a thread about whether or not a world divided into competing capitalist powers is likely to be able to exploit extra-terrestrial resources. An exegesis of the Russian shuttle programme really isn't relevent here. The point is that division between capitalist powers means that space research is less effective than it would be under socialism, not who had the best orbiter.
Yet capitalists don't care about space research, it was the military bureaucracies that went into space as they saw military advantages to having the high ground and scientists just rode on their coat tails, of course this all within capitalist society.

Military bureaucracies are driven by the capability of potential enemies, for example the big reason the USSR space shuttle got massive support was when the USSR military saw the US shuttle and saw the military applications (of sending up shuttles to steal enemy satellites) and wanted their own shuttle.

[Soomie]

We were just discussing global warming in my astronomy class not too long ago. My professor proposed that finding a new planet was the best solution. To that I say the following:

A. Wonderful! We destroyed our own planet. Now let's go destroy every other planet in the universe!

and

B. Even if it were possible to travel to a newly discovered planet that would support life, it's impossible to transport 6 billion people. Think about it. The planet is several hundred, thousand, or millions of lightyears away. They can't just keep making trips. Secondly, if there were a critical situation on earth in which a mass evacuation were required, what makes you think we'll be on the ship? Only those deemed "important," such as the president, the queen, and celebrities, would get to go on the ship. We'd be left here to die.


But back to your question. I don't think we'll be able to exploit the universe. As we speak, our galaxy is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. When the two collide, all life on the planet could be wiped out. That's a long way off, but still. We haven't had any luck so far finding planets that support life, and even if we did, we're back to the "not being able to evacuate the entire planet" thing.

[Blake's Baby]

We were just discussing global warming in my astronomy class not too long ago. My professor proposed that finding a new planet was the best solution. To that I say the following:

A. Wonderful! We destroyed our own planet. Now let's go destroy every other planet in the universe!

and

B. Even if it were possible to travel to a newly discovered planet that would support life, it's impossible to transport 6 billion people. Think about it. The planet is several hundred, thousand, or millions of lightyears away. They can't just keep making trips. Secondly, if there were a critical situation on earth in which a mass evacuation were required, what makes you think we'll be on the ship? Only those deemed "important," such as the president, the queen, and celebrities, would get to go on the ship. We'd be left here to die...

Currently, more than 7 billion people. And even the 'elites' aren't stupid enough to start a new colony with 'celebrities' and no agronomists, plumbers and cleaners. The point stands, though. There are far more of us than they 'need'.



...But back to your question. I don't think we'll be able to exploit the universe. As we speak, our galaxy is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. When the two collide, all life on the planet could be wiped out. That's a long way off, but still. We haven't had any luck so far finding planets that support life, and even if we did, we're back to the "not being able to evacuate the entire planet" thing.

I think you misunderstand the nature of the galactic collision.


1 - it's 4 billion years in the future; as human-like behaviour (not even 'humans' as we know them) has only been around for 2.6 million years, homo sapiens is only 250,000 years old (or thereabouts) and 'civilisation' is only about 10,000 years old, we have about 1500 times longer than we've been around on the planet, or 16,000 times longer than homo sapiens has existed, or 400,000 times longer than we've had 'civilisation', before it happens.

2 - galaxies mostly consist of space. The actual mass of stars is tiny. Checking quickly on astronomical distances and densities here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision - it puts forward the analogy that even at the galactic centre, density is such that it's the equivalent of a ping-pong ball ever 3km or so (2miles). I wouldn't like to play ping-pong with a ball two miles away, dunno about you. Even if the galactic centre of Andromeda passes through the galactic centre of the Milky Way, the chances of collisions between the ping-pong balls 1.5km or 1mile apart are 'astronomically' slim. We however are in the Western Spiral Arm - our closest neighbour, were our sun a ping-pong ball in Paris, is a pea in Berlin, about 900km or 500miles away. Even less chance of anything hitting anything else.

In short, it'll have all the catastrophic consequences of a cloud bumping into another cloud. Over a period of several million years, 4 billion years into the future.

[Soomie]

Yes, I had a basic understanding of the collision, and looked further into it after I posted the reply. If I'm not mistaken, the sun will have reached its red giant phase and engulfed the planet about 1 to 2 million years before the collision of the two galaxies. The stars are also very far apart, as stated, so collision of stars and planets is indeed very slim. However, I imagine things will be very different while things are still settling. If the world won't be around by that time, I don't think its worth worrying about what would happen to life on earth, since there won't be an earth.

[Psy]

B. Even if it were possible to travel to a newly discovered planet that would support life, it's impossible to transport 6 billion people. Think about it. The planet is several hundred, thousand, or millions of lightyears away. They can't just keep making trips. Secondly, if there were a critical situation on earth in which a mass evacuation were required, what makes you think we'll be on the ship? Only those deemed "important," such as the president, the queen, and celebrities, would get to go on the ship. We'd be left here to die.


But back to your question. I don't think we'll be able to exploit the universe. As we speak, our galaxy is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. When the two collide, all life on the planet could be wiped out. That's a long way off, but still. We haven't had any luck so far finding planets that support life, and even if we did, we're back to the "not being able to evacuate the entire planet" thing.

Yet building space colonies is possible as it just means getting 6 billion people onto space stations scattered through out the solar system.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a3/Bernal_Sphere_3.jpeg/640px-Bernal_Sphere_3.jpeg

Yes these would be massive construction projects with massive engineering obstacles yet not impossible to build on a scale to provide what humanity needs from Earth. Of course they would require a constant supply of resources, yet mining the planets of our solar system and flying them to space colonies is easy compared to building such massive colonies in space.

Having such space colonies means humanity doesn't need to keep finding live supporting planets as our engineering might means we can support life artificially and just need planets for raw minerals, as we can grow food and produce oxygen on space colones.