People sometimes promote space colonisation as a good thing. However, its never made any sense to me. Space is something to capture the imagination. But it has its limits. Society is something bigger, and people seem to forget that.

In times past, Gerard O'Neil promoted the idea of space colonies in orbit. One argument seemed to be that they would somehow act to alieviate population problems on Earth.

But a cursory examination shows this to be flawed. The population problem is focused around third world countries. If you build such stations, it would be very expensive to move people from these countries to orbit, and people from first world nations would no doubt see themselves as first in the queue.

If you consider the resources expended in moving people to orbit, it would be much more effective to spend them reforming the terrestrial situation.

And the idea of space industry in orbit as something which feeds enough resources into the earth's economy to make much of a difference to overpopulation and poverty seems flawed.

So, SPACE STATIONS ARE NOT ENVIRONMENTAL !

(at least on this sort of scale.)

More recently, "The Mars Society" has been advocating Mars as a place for colonisation. However, the argument seems flawed.

It is not about sustainability. It is about responding to a lack of resources on earth, rather than working out how cope with that lack of resources. It also seems to be based on the idea that growth is an important thing in its own right. We cannot "find our own point"; we must grow or slide into demise.

This argument does not allow for the growth of the intellect and the spirit; while controlling the demand for physical resources, our minds can continue to soar.

However, having said this, I'd better clarify some of my broader views.

The argument for limiting space research, along the lines that "we will have starving people" is not one which seems to make sense.

First, there is a lot of military expenditure whose priority is not negotiable. To focus on space research just because it is public does not seem to make sense while other expenditure is not democratic.

Second, it seems impossible that society has much point unless you direct _some_ resources to creative endeavours. The next point becomes how much you allocate, and the priorities in that allocation, and whether that allocation is democratic.

And the resources allocated to space, in fact research as a whole, are in no way democratic. As individuals, we are not made aware of these choices in a participative manner. Once this happens, then we might put funding for space research in a broader context. And then, what we agree to - will be what we agree to.

This review is based on my distant view from Australia, and is perhaps more relevant to the situation in the US, where I suspect there is a lack of participation in the research/public welfare/space/ military set.

In Australia, we don't have the resources to run a space program. But, there have been invitations and for the most part we have not bothered to participate in any international projects I guess thats an example of just how our "local" priorities are set, and whether they are democratic. But, while there's an argument that some military expenditure is not needed, I don't think our military expenditure is as excessive as you get elsewhere.

But what of space research in Europe ? I'm not aware of just how much tension there is between space research and the other possibilities outlined above. Is there an "excess" of military spending ? If you've an informed opinion, please feel free to let me know.

Certainly, on an imagined global level, where the world allocates its resources, the idea of a tension between these expenditures is probably still relevant.