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Bill: Colonization of Space Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Imperialist Party
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: February 2102
Description[?]:
| By nationally sponsoring expeditions to explore and settle space, Trigunia may expand her power and sphere of influence. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Government policy towards space exploration.
Old value:: The government shall issue permits to private space-exploration companies.
Current: Space exploration and use shall be totally unregulated.
Proposed: The government shall operate a space agency that contracts with and oversees private space-exploration companies.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 08:43:03, August 23, 2005 CET | From |  Democratic Socialist Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | We agree. Humanity has been based on exploration since the beginning of time, and while space may not be the final frontier, it most certainly is the next frontier. Trigunia would be foolish to not pursue this. And it needs to be under government control because they have the money and it is very hard to make much from a space exploration programme, any private one would not be exploring, it would simply be putting satelites in space for the TV stations. |
| Date | 08:48:15, August 23, 2005 CET | From | People's Equality Party Of Trigunia | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | As long as it remains private, we have no problem. We should be investing in helping humans, not finding ET. |
| Date | 09:24:12, August 23, 2005 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | As we have stated, it remaining private will not help us explore as there little immediate gain from doing it. Long term, there is massive gain, but not soon enough for companies to be investing in it. And we should be finding ET, because one of the major question left for humanity as a whole is "Are we alone in the Universe?" and we should be trying to answer that. And while none of these reasons are particularly economically founded, no-one is hungrier, no-one is colder and certainly no-one is dumber because humanity went to the moon. It's time we reached further. It's what's next. |
| Date | 17:26:07, August 23, 2005 CET | From | Capitalist Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | Thats rubbish again to be honest. In RL their are countries already exploring space, hell, there was a competition between private companies to see who would be first. |
| Date | 17:37:00, August 23, 2005 CET | From | Liberty Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | Well, I'm obviously a bit late, the DSP has got in first with the Rob Lowe quote I was about to use! It's nice to have something that we agree on for a change. We support this bill although we do not feel that it goes far enough. However, it is a vast improvement on the status quo. We find the assertion that the government has the right to 'issue permits' as though the state has some proprietary interest in outer space offensive. Nonetheless, we remain concerned about the government-operated space agency. The state has a bad record of running sophisticated projects, and I am reluctant to fund government misadventure. OOC: compare the disaster that is the space shuttle with the energetic and efficient competition of the X-Prize. The latter model seems to have far greater potential for maximising human endeavour and minimising the risk to the taxpayer. |
| Date | 23:02:11, August 23, 2005 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | To be fair on the government, there were a quite a lot of deaths as flight was discovered, and that was done basically entirely by private individuals. There will be mistakes that are made, as there always are pioneering a new frontier, but we do not feel these will be particularly more or less depending on who does it. However, we still feel the government should be in control, due to the funding and the exploration, as we have prievously stated, for the reasons stated. |
| Date | 23:21:13, August 23, 2005 CET | From | Imperialist Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | We are not suggesting a complete ban on private commercial enterprise concerning the matter. Certainly private firms are a boon in terms of creating a competitive atmosphere that stimulates growth. However, space exploration should be regulated by the government in the public interest. Just as the goal of science is to further the cause and understanding of the human race, space exploration is another such endeavor. Besides if great discoveries are achieved that would contributed to progress through leaps and bounds, should not the public be party to it? We can't allow a monopoly or oligopoly to form in space that would be immensely prohibitive to the bulk of the population. |
| Date | 02:08:03, August 24, 2005 CET | From | Liberty Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | DSP, we're not quite sure exactly what you are arguing. You start by making the point, with which we fully agree, that 'remaining private ... there little immediate gain from doing it. Long term, there is massive gain'. You seem to be saying that but for the fact that companies refuse to invest at this point in time, ultimately the gains from private space exploration would be massive. We agree that long-term, the private sector commoditization of space travel and exploration will produce massive gains. We cannot see the basis for your claim that companies will not freely invest at the moment. You then imply that state control is necessary to kick-start the process. Firstly, if I am misunderstanding your position, please clarify. If I am reading your position correctly, we have to dispute the claim that companies will not embrace it in the near time. OOC: As I pointed out in my previous post, the X-Prize, despite the relatively small payout (and hence cost to the state, hence cost to the taxpayers), it immediately generated a number of highly innovative approaches. Immediately after the X-Prize was won, Virgin announced the new venture Virgin Galactic. Even the ventures that didn't win the X-Prize managed to get enough public attention that venture capitalists etc are all over them. Compare this with the astronomically expensive failure that is the Space Shuttle, and the evidence strongly suggests that private industry needs very little encouragement to make huge leaps forward with hardly any risk to the public purse. Conversely, once you introduce a monolithic bureaucracy and individual state contracts, you end up with the space equivalent of a camel* Addressing the point made by The IP, we're not sure exactly what regulating space exploration in the public interest is supposed to achieve. What exactly are you afraid the private sector will do that we need the state to prevent? Perhaps you are afraid that the private sector might consider doing something like nuking the moon? Oh wait, silly me, that was the US Air Force. Thank god for government regulation. Unfettered competition in matters pertaining to space rapidly increases the rate at which it is commoditized. Put another way, the state has had a monopoly on space for 40 years. Within a month of the X-Prize, there was already one company started to produce commodity space flights. As rich early adopters subsidise the initial R&D, the price will steadily fall and availability to the public will increase. * what is a camel? A horse designed by a committee. |
| Date | 19:53:36, August 24, 2005 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | We're not arguing that private enterprise doesn't belong in space, it does, and will probably do well there. We are just concerned about the scientific nature of exploration in space, beyond anywhere plausably reachable by humans. This is obviously not profitable, however much it is interesting to the scientific community, and this is why the government need a presence. They need to be doing the unprofitable exploration side, rather than the profitable side, which we agree should be left up to private companies. Also, we agree its time to scrap the space shuttle, the design has been in use for over 20 years. The problems with the design and the fact that so many of them are so old are beginning to show. It needs redesigning with the latest materials, tehcnologies, and knowledge. |
| Date | 03:01:07, August 25, 2005 CET | From | Liberty Party | To | Debating the Colonization of Space Act |
| Message | Firstly, I think you underestimate the private sector's willingness to pursue 'pure research' exploration. In any event, the X-Prize experience has demonstrated that the best way for the government to achieve progress is to offer a reward for discoveries rather than trying to do the discovering itself. Our concern with the space shuttle is more that is was a fundamentally bad design from the outset than that it is merely obsolete. Hence we agree that it needs a complete replacement rather than just sporadic patch-ups. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 398 | |||||
| no | Total Seats: 0 | |||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 1 |
| Random fact: Alduria, Rildanor and Lourenne all have Canrilaise (French) cultures. |
| Random quote: "We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice." - Friedrich August von Hayek |