Feedback

Yes, I get feedback, and not in the Comments section. It is kind of refreshing that somebody actually reads this.

So, what feedback did I get? Mostly on my vision of the future. Let's get something straight. The vision I might have for a particular story might not be my own opinion about the way things are going to go. You have to ask the question: does it work within the story? Does the background become an essential part of the story, or is it just tacked on to give things a 'science fiction' feel (a mistake far too many people attempting to write SF make)?

Now why set a story in a habitat? This is a little complex, but I like exotic locales. Some view a space habitat as a utopia. Most utopias are disasters (human beings being what we are). But you can make the place pretty damned good. And a space habitat does conform to certain things in the past, mostly 'company towns'. Most company towns are semi-successful. In my opinion there were three that were actually successful: the US Panama Canal Zone; Walt Disney World (yes, it is a separate incorporated town); and Hershey, Pennsylvania. The latter has morphed into a successful town in its own right, but it is still a company town in that the major employer is Hershey Chocolate. The other two have had their problems.

Walt Disney World, aka The D Place, includes far more than the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and the Animal Kingdom (or whatever it is now called). There's a lot of infrastructure that is either below ground, or off behind some trees and out of sight of anyone who isn't in an airplane. Disney is a money-making enterprise that has swallowed part of Central Florida. It has its own political structure, but is still part of Disney Corporation. And a lot of what happens is shrouded inside the corporation. But it works, and that's the important lesson to draw here. And we can infer a great deal about how it works by observing it.

The Canal Zone was part of America transplanted into Panama. Its sole purpose was to build and run the Panama Canal. Eventually it was transferred to Panama, but when you are in that country you can tell when you're in the Canal Zone. You feel like you're in Middle America. You can see the change as abruptly as crossing the street. Was it successful? Very. What impact has it had on Panama? A great deal. Wasn't it Imperialism of the crudest sort? Wrong question - the Canal Zone was there to build and run the canal. And besides, when viewed in the correct way, a critic can make anything into a tool of Imperialism. The trick is in how you define Imperialism, always remembering that the Marxist definition of Imperialism, which is the one that most people hear about, means Western Europe and America, but not the Soviet Union, China, or any of the Islamic Caliphists. So in the end, calling the Canal Zone a tool of Imperialism is a non-question. Somebody had to run the Canal, unless you think people inherently have the ability to do something like that.

A space habitat is the ultimate company town. The trick is to make them economically workable. And the way I chose is to get them close to where you're working. After all, you are quite a ways away from Earth, and despite the best arguments from those pushing AI, experience to date has shown that you get the best results from reducing time in the command loop. That is why you have a habitat.

Actually, you have it for other reasons, too. Think of the advantages of the location: you have plenty of power, no worry about pollution, and with the proper application of shielding, you can have light and dark as needed. You also have microgravity. But a habitat will give people the gravity environment that they need for proper living. It is a great industrial site, better than any you'll find on Earth, and with very little worry about pollution.

The details of the habitat are just that, details. I can arrange those as I want for inclusion in the story. For more on the subject, the L5 Society has plenty of material. I personally think the biggest problem will be solar radiation. Long ago there was a short story about man’s first steps into space. Some senator kept the kibosh on the whole thing until one day he said ‘okay, you can fly’. Of course there was a meteor storm, and the crew was nearly killed, but the publicity of their ‘near miss’ meant that the space program was effectively killed. Imagine such a situation, only with inadequate radiation shielding? Remember we have a sensationalist media that is in thrall to one political party.

Would such a thing occur? That depends upon your view of how things would really go when politics and science intermingle. I look at the X-31 as an example. It was supposed to be a SSTO (single state to orbit) vehicle. The Clinton Administration picked the one version that was almost guaranteed to be impossible to build, technically. We could probably do it today, but in the 1990s that effectively killed the idea of the government doing it. While that opened the door to private exploration of space, the legal groundwork is still a mess. Go read the archives of www.transterrestrial.com for some background.

What do I envision happening to bring about a dark future? A series of things. First, there has to be tort reform and liability change. There will be Luddites who claim space flight is harming the atmosphere. There will be others who will oppose it for any number of reasons, political and religious being the nastiest (expect a fatwa saying a good Muslim must destroy such things as space vehicles as the heavens are perfect). There will be lawsuits that will seek to shutdown space operations in the US. And there will be government red tape (there already is as the FAA gets involved).

What is to be done? Moving space operations out of the US is probably the best thing to be done. There are people who will sue in U.S. Federal Court to get foreign companies to stop space operations. That means the foreign government needs to get involved as they can say ‘stuff it’ to those people, and ignore them (and kill lawsuits in these other countries).

What about the Outer Space Treaty and other things like that? Again, a foreign country is the best bet, say Japan. They have the technological and political base to pull it off. And they can quietly interpret the Outer Space Treaty as they see fit. And if someone objects? Tough beans. But expect political pressure to shut down things like that. Statists are everywhere, and that has to be kept in mind. A treaty is a drawing of a line at a certain point.

So why the dark future of no or little contact with Earth? That’s because there are too many who view politics as growing out of the mouth of a rifle, and will attempt violence. Maintaining as little physical contact as possible would be an advantage. Especially as there will be attempts at destruction (as well as legal restraints). I assume the world of Sir Humphrey Appleby and the ever-present Civil Service, as well as a world of fanatics and Luddites, as well as statists, one-worlders, and so on, will be there trying to hinder everything going on.

That’s the background I’m working with.

When you think about it, that’s all too plausible. We’re already seeing a lot of that these days, and applying the principle of “if this goes on” leads me to think it’ll continue in the future.

Now all of that is background just so I can tell a story. I don’t predict the future, I tell stories. Period. Am I an optimist about Mankind's future in space? I don't know, I haven't written that story yet.