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China Will Colonize Luna
According to various reports, China, Japan and NASA each have planned manned missions to the moon scheduled before 2020. Given the current rates of growth of the US and Japan, it seems unlikely that either of these nations will be experiencing a dynamic boom that will express itself in expansionist programs. Japan's native population shrinkage rivals that of Italy and France, but Japan has no significant immigrant population. Japanese woman are currently an expanding market for man-shaped bed pillows. Of all the modern Western style nations, Japan is on the fastest track to cease to exist due to demographic trends. Unless the Japanese pass the "singularity" and become a nation of expansionist cyborgs, it seems unlikely that they will colonize the moon.
While the US is growing, this is mostly due to immigration and the higher rate of immigrant reproduction. No nation is better poised than the US right now to go to the moon and to leave a permanent colony, but there is no political will to do this as a matter of state policy, and unless the government gets out of the way of private innovators (see what happens if you mint your own coins!) it is unlikely that a purely home-grown space industry will sprout up on native soil. Look at how the state and federal governments are obsessed over finding ways to tax and regulate the internet. On-line gambling has been outlawed. State governments are trying to tax on-line purchases that would not be taxable if they were mail-order purchases. A small committed cadre of laissez faire techies and the ignorance of our legislators on the way the internet works are the largest impediments to government interference in that sphere. If politicians can find a way to kill this goose to get its golden eggs, they will. Any private American space investment would seem likely to proceed through multinational corporations and off-shore entities.
China, however, has the advantages of a booming economy and a nationalist government not unwilling to undertake huge public works. No longer a communist nation except in name, With its aggressive policy of military growth (about 10% a year for the last decade with no slowdown in sight) and its willingness to subvert the property rights of the individual in favor of large business interests with strong government ties (i.e., owned by party apparatchiks) the People's Republic resembles Nazi Germany before the Anschluss much more than Cuba or North Korea. So long as China does not regress into chaos, it is likely to expand in a way similar to the post-Civil War US. Whether it remains a stable authoritarian state or evolves toward political liberalism, it seems unlikely that cultural nationalism there is on the wane. How many thousands of children have already been named Olympics?
Chinese colonization of the moon is no forgone conclusion. The political situation in that nation could change radically. If China goes to war, it may divert resources away from space expansion. But its current public policy is one of grand nationalistic public works, from the three-gorges damn project to the seizure of private property to build Olympic venues, to its intention to send a man to the Moon. As China tests anti-satellite technology the West cannot deploy an anti-missile defense system in Europe without jostling for patronage with our allies and continuos apologies to the domestic left and to the reactionary Russian dictatorship. China seems unlikely to apologize to anyone for anything any time soon.
Ted Keer
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