"President Kennedy pointed America to the New Frontier. That frontier has advanced to Mars. It is time for President Bush to ensure that humanity's new frontier will enjoy constitutional freedom rather than U.N. despotism."

Rather naively assuming it would be the US Constitution, isn't he?

This article spoke in terms of US exploration, US abrogation of treaties, US exploration and US settling of space.

I wonder if the author is aware there are other countries afoot, or "a-wing". And that the Chinese, for instance, might establish the first area on the Moon which could defend the Moon. They seem to be the only capable entity which has a national goal of a Moon colony.

That colony might say that since resources on the Moon are so precious, water so rare, there is not enough for another colony. Any additional colony is really an invasion of their colony. In effect, the Moon belongs to them. Wouldn't matter how true it could be. After all, the colony would grow. Could say that.

It might be safe to assume they could defend it locally and prevent any other colony from establishing itself. Much the way Americans in the old West might have protected a spring from foreign use.

Private corporation that it would be, there would be a legal fiction that it wasn't the Chinese. The Chinese could say they just contract with the private corporations to launch their hardware, don't have any responsibility for their operations. Could add that the private corporation has contracted an arrangement for protection from the Chinese government, much the way the US would protect Exxon or GM.

The US would then be faced with whether or not it wanted to go to war with the Chinese on Earth. And the Chinese, with it's land, people, and weapons would be a formidable power, certainly able in the longer run to take better care of themselves than the US. Disrupt the US highway and rail system, and we'd starve, fast.

At a minimum, for those people who think the US could nuke an area the size of China, the Chinese could cause the US enough grief for it to lose any interest in the Moon or Mars, or the next block over. WTC could look like a firecracker on the Fourth of July.

A problem with the chauvanistic ways the US looks at these things is that there are others out there, too. Prayer in schools is assumed to be Christian prayer, for instance. No one thinks there might be Hindu or Buddhist symbols, too, or that class might be interrupted 5 times a day for Muslims.

Bullies tend to not cooperate until another bully comes along. Then comes the scramble to "resolve our differences".

Arf