Quibbling Space Interest Groups?

This is a really interesting question, as regards space travel/exploration/colonization/etc. The questions involved with what arena we should be focusing the meager dollars involved with the various space industries has always been under contention, but finding the commonalities and working together towards the portions that *are* mutual goals is a fundamentally idealistic strategy.

This same kind of thing has plagued people since time immemorial. Why has the most vicious fighting often been between sects of the same basic religion? Many times it comes down to who will inherit the legacy of the grander group; if you work with a similar group for common goals, at some point you’re going to want to pursue your own agenda in full, which will be at odds with the other group. However, they will have benefited from your mutual agreement up until that point, so they will be stronger than they were before. Whether you also have grown proportionally stronger to match them is at issue, of course, but the base perception is often that you don’t want to allow your future opponent to grow *any* stronger.

 

It’s definitely interesting to see these broad human trends of competition played out in smaller arenas. It is especially appropriate for space travel to see this competition, since Sci-Fi more than any other genre has been responsible for popularizing such microcosmic explorations of social problems…