Mankind's progress and evolution had always been driven by a desire for profit. It is the healthy bottomline that things are created, that would enhance our lives, from the first flint knife to Boeing jets.
The makers of products and their workers would be rewarded when they trade their products and they in turn will have money to purchase or trade for other products.
Thus, economics/ commerce was responsible for our evolution, coupled with religion and politics to ensure a stable environment for futher intellectual and economic growth of our civilisation.
The first great massive ships created by medieval Spain and England were solely meant for trade, carrying their trinklets to trade for Asia's gold, which led to the great age of discovery as well as domination of others. It also provided great wealth for such nations, leading to an age of renaissance in Europe.
It was the desire for profits/commerce that transformed Europe.
During the dark middle ages of medieval Europe, espacially England, torned with constant religious wars as well as virus epidemics, it was the discoveries of new worlds that uplifted and progressed those nations.
Nations that financed trade explorations overseas created empires, so much so that a small island state known as England almost ruled the world with its total domination of the seas using their ships, through its intelligent and loyal subjects, from the shopkeeper to the general.
Currently, the world is in a similar state as the dark ages, with forthcoming religious wars, financial crisis and epidemics threatening to break out. Mental depression is the state of mind of most. It needs something strong to give hope, and that which is worth continuing this struggle of life for themselves and the next generations, a common direction and destiny all can hope and head for.
The answer for this age would be outer space and colonnization of worlds.
Eversince the russian sputnik1 satellite was successfully launched, it broke the boundaries between earth and space, as well as our mental barriers to make that leap into space.
Now, thru national funding, mankind had spaceships that could travel even out of our solar system and into the beyond. However, such fundings are low, and meant only for research purposes, have no or little commercial gain except its spinoffs, rather than serious attempts to colonnise worlds.
It would take commerce leaders to initiate that effort.
It is the commercialisation of outer space that will allow mankind to make that baby step towards colonnisation, beginning with our moon, the way the first spanish ship was built for trade.
Only in this case, there will be no one to trade earth's products with, for we are the only known sentient beings in the Universe. However, this claim is still refutable as we had not ventured far enough to know.
It will be space tourism instead, that will create the necessary funds, to make contact, in stages - from the suborbital tourist flights, to nuclear powered space stations/hotels, to moon bases where factories could be built to create nuclear powered spaceships like the russian types, with its low gravity pull and utter barren environment, and will springboard manned missions to chart planets for habitability and resources.
Side by side with the altrusic motive of space colonnisation will be attached the tourism industries at every stage for funding. Currently, the costs borned by space tourists will be high, but subsequently, thru economies of scale and competition, trips to outerspace and moon may be similar in price to trips to US.
With the large economic base provided by the masses later, huge amounts of funds can be set aside for the conquest of space, provided mankind learn its lesson and avoid the excesses of greed such as high bonus payouts to officers of the space enterprises, as well as the destructive nature of religion twisted to serve evil men.
Such funds will be use for research in both biomedical sciences and engineering to further our reach into space, eg, just as commerical air travel started from the humble DC5 into the jumbo 757 booasting better features and technologies.
Singapore, like England of the past, is only a small state. We have peace and stability, and our citizens scientifically intelligent as well as economically pragmatic. We may be the ones to lead mankind into commercialization of space.
Singapore's spacesport is the first step towards that direction, just as the great East India Company started out as only a bunch of shopkeepers with 3 ships but commanded nations when it grew.
How nice.
Being able to explore the depths of space while half the world lives under $2 a day, a billion people go hungry daily and 25,000 children die everyday from preventable causes due to the systematic globalisation of poverty.
And thats also assuming that space doesnt become the next frontier for the arms race between the US, Russia and China.
Originally posted by freedomclub:How nice.
Being able to explore the depths of space while half the world lives under $2 a day, a billion people go hungry daily and 25,000 children die everyday from preventable causes due to the systematic globalisation of poverty.
And thats also assuming that space doesnt become the next frontier for the arms race between the US, Russia and China.
Wao well said
Kind of like during the cold war when the russians were trying to send people into space while its people live in unimaginable poverty
This is unpractical on every level and i don't think we'll see this happen in our lifetime
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