The Hidden Soup Line, Food Stamps and Why They Fail

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

We rarely see these lines anymore because America brings
the soup kitchen to your doorstep.  Image Source:BlogCritics.org by J.M. Harrison.

The Great Depression was easy to accept, why?  Because the lines were clear to see, today they are hidden from view.  As Republicans and Democrats square off over what to cut, the 47 year old food stamp program finds itself in peril and for good reason.


The Wall Street Journal reported last May that a shocking 1 in 7 Americans were claiming food stamp benefits.  In states like Oregon and Mississippi the numbers were an abysmal 1 in 5 while states like Wyoming featured only 6% of their citizens relying on government assistance.  If 1 in 7 Americans are struggling to eat why isn't this alarming and obvious to mainstream America?  

This is an example of the new and improved EBT system.
No more lines, no more hassle; benefits streamlined!
Image Source: eHow.com by Joe Raedle at Getty Images. 

          Well, Instead of waiting outside in front of God and country for hours and in long lines Americans have, since 1939, grown used to the idea of receiving assistance in bulk once a month versus having to gather two or three times a day out in front of a local charity, church, or government soup kitchen.  With the advent of the food stamp program in 1964 the local grocery store or any participating venue could become a charity (without being charitable) and charge for food, tax free.  Today, however, the dollar denominated paper stamps have given way to modern times and are now distributed via government issued debit card.  


          Today "poor" Americans, those within 130% of the poverty level (currently $22,350 for a family of 4), are eligible to receive electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards in the mail and are loaded automatically.  There is no need to walk down to the local family or health services office - no lines, no hassle, no stigma, but importantly little effort.  Hence, out of sight is out of mind, at least when it comes to most Americans and realizing that our nation is suffering from a growing dependency on government assistance.  


          The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for administering the food stamp program now officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and on top of the staggering number of dependents, the cost of the program has metastasized.  Traditionally over budget, inelastic to demand (requiring Congress to approve budget increases every year) and now accounting for 67% of the USDA's budget (up from just 27% in 1980) the program, regardless of constant adjustments, reorganization and new snappy names, is a demonstrable failure.


          There is no doubt SNAP relieves those struggling to eat, but don't you every wonder how Americans ever made it this far without food stamps?  The program wasn't there during our greatest time of need, the Great Depression, so how did we make it this far?  If the story of Leroy Fick, a millionaire still receiving food stamps, has anything to offer it is that there is a massive disconnect between the federal government and the people in need.


Revolutionary solutions require operating within new revolutionary paradigms.


          While the Food Action Research Center and Moody's Analytics contend that food stamps are the most effective forms of economic stimulus, credited for increasing economic activity by $1.73 for every dollar spent, questions still abound.  Is the USDA, an agency envisaged to regulate US agricultural production, meant to stimulate the economy?  Is it more important to feed a man or teach him how to feed himself?  Can the states, churches, charities, NGOs, and individuals do a better (a more cost effective, responsive and responsible) job at feeding the needy?

Created in 2003 with 3 gardens and a pamphlet Urban Farming
has created over 43,000 ways of teaching modern America
how to feed themselves once again.

          Urban agriculture evidently has been around since the Maya and can even be traced back to ancient Persia, but as they say new news is old news.  Organizations like Urban Farming are rediscovering and reconnecting with a skill set that was available to everyone in the pre-modern world, the ability to grow your own food.  With the rise of the modernity and its commensurate cities, supermarkets, restaurants, and assistance programs we lost this old art, but Urban Farming is showing a new generation how even in the most urban of areas we can sustain ourselves.  Moreover, growing our own organic produce and understanding the nutritional and healing benefits of food can lower crime, increase civic association, job opportunities, but most importantly increase our health and longevity.  The government model and those who wish to perpetuate it only increase dependence, chances of obesity, and suboptimal health, which feeds our already difficult health care crisis. 


          The integration of rural and urban lifestyles may be a few years off (urban farming on Facebook for example only has 3,706 fans as of this post), however, given our current debt crisis, a massive impetus to shed archaic and inept systems of government charity and an opportunity to emancipate ourselves from the idea aid can only come from the federal dole cutting edge ideas can and will be given room to grow.  Imagine:

Greenhouses no longer need to be relegated to the countryside,
but can now be brought indoors and engineered to produce
far more than we ever dreamed.  Image Source: Ecofriend.com

Allowing scientists, engineers, farmers, and charities to work
together human ingenuity can achieve unknown possibilities.
Image Source: Sharkride.com

MEDIA MYOPIA: Oslo Massacres' Reports and un-Reported

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Immediately the pictures of the Oslo, Norway bombing bring
back memories of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Image Source: Mirror.co.uk

It is important in any investigation to ascertain the facts before a narrative is woven.  This is a taste of what is being reported in the mainstream media:


New York Times


"Norwegian police on Saturday charged a man they identify as a right-wing fundamentalist Christian." 


"...a gun loving Norwegian obsessed with what he saw as the threat of multiculturalism and Muslim immigration."


"Facebook page and Twitter account set up under that name [Anders Behring Breivik] days before the rampage, suggesting a conscious effort to create a public persona."


"...a remarkably meticulous attack on Norway's current and future political elite."


"...at least 85 people, some as young as 16, were killed in an attack on a summer camp..."


"...'slaughter of young children.'"


"...many from political families..."


"...the gunman calmly and methodically shot..."


"...attacker wore a police uniform..."


"...camp has been an important rite of passage for the country's budding young liberals."


"...saw a second man, about 5-foot-11, with dark hair, holding a pistol and carrying a rifle..."


"police official, Roger Andresen..."he is right-wing and a Christian fundamentalist."


"...soldiers cordoned off the square where the bombing occcured...armed soldiers in camoflauge gear was a jarring sight."

“…questions about whether the Norwegian security services and police, which had been concentrating on threats of Islamic terrorism, missed the threat from the anti-Islamic right.”

"This is the Norwegian equivalent to Timothy McVeigh."

“’This is right-wing domestic terrorism, and the big question is to what extent Norwegian agencies have diverted their attention from what they knew decades ago was the biggest threat’ and instead focused on threats from militant Islamist groups.”


"...writings on a right-wing site, Document.no, revealed...an abiding obsesion with Marxists, Mulsims, and Norway's multicultural ideals."


“'It may make a lot of people reflect on the challenges of integration and ensuring tolerance and antiracism, so that these views can be openly rejected by everyone in Norway,' Mr. Ulrichsen [reasercher at London School of Economics] said."


BBC


"...possible another person was involved."


"suspect reported by local media to have had links to right wing extremists"


"...Norway has had problems with neo-Nazi groups in the past..."


"farm supply firm has confirmed selling six tonnes of fertilizer to Breivik."


"...tall blonde man dressed as a policeman opened fire indiscriminately..."


"...two weapons, one of them an automatic rifle."


This is what has not been reported (at least when it comes to mainstream media):


"Oslo Police Conducted Bombing Exercise Days Before Terror Blast"


DHS video framing white right-wing extremists ranked 6th biggest story in the world according to Alexa.com day before Oslo attacks.


Mr. Brievik may have been a practicing Free Mason?  At least according to his days old Facebook page he was.  


There is a massive body of evidence that government, through covert intelligence agencies, quasi-government bodies, and interested societies, have attempted to manipulate public opinion through terrorist attacks.  This has been well documented for decades.  The fact that mainstream media won't add this into their coverage should concern all of us.  


I'm sure those of you who are unaware or outright disagree with me on these facts are thinking "conspiracy theorist", but the "lone gunman" scenario currently being proffered is not copacetic with the last 50 years of geopolitical history.  Moreover, the temporal and physical proximity of this event to the current tumult being felt in Europe and throughout the world should invoke high suspicion from the fourth estate yet it has received little if no attention.  Europe and the United States are being turned upside down economically and this event is being treated as if it occurred in a vacuum.  


I am not submitting this event is an example of a false-flag, however, to immediately treat it prima facie as what it seems without allowing historical precedents to supply us with prudent questions and alternative scenarios is negligent.  Evidence is scant so far to support anything, however, there is a glaring dearth of focus on the political ramifications of this attack.  This is my point.  We live in an age of hyper-politics where one act changes everything, we have a right to be suspicious.


A great book on the history of false-flag and state-sponsored terror (and their drug connections) plus a whole lot of blowback:

Peter Dale Scott outlines a fascinating history
of covert operations and exposes the deep powers
and financial interests involved.
There are two states in this world, the one we know about
and learn in civics class and the deep state few of
us care to admit is there.

WANTED: Willing To Risk Death Daily

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com


Ahh, how things have changed.  This is the kind of adventure and daring we used to have in America.  Risk wasn't something to skirt, but something to be embraced!  This roughly 1900 mile route from St. Joseph, Missouri to California would have never been allowed by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), how we got this far without them is anyone's guess!

Image Source: CircleKB.com

This is what the Pony Express route looked like in 1860.  

Map by William Henry Jackson, Image Source: Wikipedia.com

Debt Wars: Why Defense Cuts Are Essential

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Massive defense cuts are necessary to any honest GOP plan to reduce the debt.  The American people clearly bought "fiscal responsibility" from the Tea Party and its candidates, we are waiting for delivery.

"War is just one more big government program."

- Joseph Sobran

We have never spent more money on American defense than we do now.  Estimates range anywhere from a conservative $739 billion (calculating Department of Defense spending only) to 1.415 trillion dollars, which calculates much of the country's defense mechanism (FBI counterterrorism, Homeland Security, etc.) including interest on their debt - the cost of freedom.

Source: Winslow T. Wheeler, Director Straus Military Reform Project, Center for Defense Information

What are we defending against?  Is it worth the changes in our culture since 9/11?  Our current World Wide War on Terror is aimed ostensibly against yet another ideology, but instead of Communism we are faced with Islamic fundamentalism.  As evidenced by the Cold War, ideas "good" or "bad" are notoriously difficult to combat with big defense budgets and military stratagem.  In fact, it was one American president, his unparalleled naiveté, gullibility, and his "great blunder", which lead to not only Hitler, the rise of the Soviet Union, and WWII, but also to the fractionalized and tumultuous Middle East we know today. 

President Woodrow Wilson (D) is famous
for his campaign to make the "world safe for democracy."
His theories proved otherwise and lead to the death of millions.
Read "Wilson's War" for the break down.

While it is crucial to have a war of ideas delineating the differences between fact and opinion; concepts, beliefs, and ideologies will ultimately prevail or fail on their own.  While there is little doubt there are combatants willing to sacrifice their lives in order to advance their radical ideas, Islam's jihadists, for the foreseeable future, will be incapable of rhetorical, let alone, physical invasion.  To repel invasion and to ensure self determination or what we call sovereignty is the ultimate motive of our armed forces; today their motive is evidently much different.  Moreover, even if the penultimate threat of a nuclear armed Al' Qaeda materialized, the fear of this potential event isn't sufficient to justify the invasions of pre-nuclear states Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen.

Lets expand a bit, maybe we are being a little myopic when it comes to the War on Terror as there are of course other threats over the horizon.  Humanitarian crises, like the Libyan Civil War or Clinton's interdiction in Kosovo, justify our intervention on this basis of enforcing a UN mandate or international law, not necessarily the judgement of Congress.  It is argued that if we leave them unresolved and if tyranny is left unchecked it will embolden dictators and despots all over the world to oppress their people.  How this effects the United States' national security is anyones guess, but humanitarianism isn't the only call to arms, there is the cosmos to worry about too!


The Pentagon has been prepping for war in space as early as 2004 and ever since space has been a contentious subject between the US, Russia, and especially China.  Considering our mutual ability to shoot down satellites and with potentially massive stores of energy on the moon future resource wars in the mass expanse above our blue planet would be catastrophic.  


If that weren't enough to worry about, state-sponsored and multinational brigades of hackers have raised much alarm causing the Pentagon to declare the internet "operational domain."  With all of these dire possibilities cropping up virtually everywhere (pardon the pun) it seems as though the Pentagon believes the sky is almost certain to fall without constant intervention.  


There is, however, an alternative way of understanding this paranoid view of the world, our unbelievable spending associated with it, and our legitimate national security challenges.  By recognizing the phenomena of mission creep (after reading the definition, think WWII) and considering the warning given to us by our 34th president, Republican General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it becomes clear how much we as a nation have departed from our founding principles. 

President Eisenhower's military industrial complex (MIC) has on one hand become the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophet:

“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior, which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.” 

             -  Robert K. Merton, from Social Theory and Social Structure 

And on the other hand (as evidenced in the interest paid on the debt incurred by defense organs) the MIC which includes multinational banks and the Federal Reserve, benefit from the Pentagon's "reign of error":

“…a lot of people are getting rich, building careers, and accreting power out of hyping the money flow. While soldiers at the pointy end of the spear and taxpayers are getting hosed, generals are going through the revolving door to big jobs in industry; congressional staffers on defense committees move into high ranking political jobs in the Pentagon, which then gives them a spring board to big jobs with the defense contractors; industry titans move between jobs in industry, the Pentagon, and back to industry; and contractor PAC money flows to congressmen.  The result is a self-sustaining harmonious circular flow of money through the political economy of the MICC -- what we in the Pentagon call a self-licking ice cream cone.”

            - Excerpt from Madison's Nightmare by Chuck Spinney at The Atlantic 

While it has recently been reported that "liberals see chance for big cuts in defense" I find it easy not to hold my breath.  While it is fun to poke holes in neo-conservative dogma, especially when faced with the obvious incongruent belief that while small government is crucial to freedom so is a large military (constituting 19% of federal spending), it is sobering to realize that Big Peace is a bipartisan sham.  

It is a sordid fact that liberals are often times if not more culpable than "conservatives" when it comes to groveling before the military money pit.  My cynicism is corroborated by three recent phenomena: 1) the total disappearance of the anti-war left after the election of Barack Obama 2) that one of the most liberal senators turned rabidly liberal president actually asks for more money from Congress, amidst a deep recession and perilous debt, for special forces to infiltrate over 70 countries around the world and 3) that apologists of Barack Obama, namely Center for American Progress' Lawrence Korb, lie openly to their base that the president "has dumped George W. Bush's overall strategy for preemptive attacks against terrorist states."  Mr. Kob, those aren't love letters Obama is dropping preemptively on Libya.  

GRAPH: Declaration of Dependence

Zero Hedge
7/17/11


Originally posted by "Tyler Durden" at ZeroHedge.com.

Note the excluded groups and you can extrapolate how dependent
America is becoming on its government. 

Ancient Knowledge of Money: Sound Money and Forgiving Debt

Washington's Blog
7/16/11

We Have Forgotten What the Ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, the Early Jews and Christians, the Founding Fathers and Even Napolean Bonaparte Knew About Money

Mike "Mish" Shedlock has repeatedly pointed out that we have reached "peak credit" - and there will not in our lifetimes be as much credit as we saw from 2000-2008.

I noted last year:

Michael Hudson is a highly-regarded economist. He is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, who has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. He is a former Wall Street economist at Chase Manhattan Bank who also helped establish the world’s first sovereign debt fund.

Hudson says that - in every country and throughout history - debt always grows exponentially, while the economy always grows as an S-curve.

Moreover, Hudson says that the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians knew that debts had to be periodically forgiven, because the amount of debts will always surpass the size of the real economy.

For example, Hudson noted in 2004:

“Mesopotamian economic thought c. 2000 BC rested on a more realistic mathematical foundation than does today’s orthodoxy. At least the Babylonians appear to have recognized that over time the debt overhead became more and more intrusive as it tended to exceed the ability to pay, culminating in a concentration of property ownership in the hands of creditors.”

***

Babylonians recognized that while debts grew exponentially, the rest of the economy (what today is called the “real” economy) grows less rapidly. Today’s economists have not come to terms with this problem with such clarity. Instead of a conceptual view that calls for a strong ruler or state to maintain equity and to restore economic balance when it is disturbed, today’s general equilibrium models reflect the play of supply and demand in debt-free economies that do not tend to polarize or to generate other structural problems.

Read more of this intriguing article at Washington’s Blog.

War #5? Pentagon Ramps up for Cyber Warfare

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Image Source: EcoFriend.com

Yesterday Reuters ran the headline "Pentagon to treat cyberspace as 'operational domain'", you have to love GovSpeak!  What "operational domain" really means is that the Pentagon has authorized itself to do what it essentially does now in the physical world, attack whenever and most importantly wherever.


For the last decade the US intelligence community and defense chiefs have suspected traditional state actors, most notably China and Russia, of conducting digital espionage, however, since the rise of transnational organizations like Anonymous and now defunct LulzSec the game has changed significantly according to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn:


"They have few or no assets to hold at risk and a greater willingness to provoke.  They are thus harder to deter.  If a terrorist group gains disruptive or destructive cyber tools, we have to assume they will strike with little hesitation."


It is with this simple weak analogy and obvious red hearing the Pentagon can now justify an offensive cyberspace posture.  By conflating a decentralized internet meme bent on transparency and free flow of information with legitimate state-sponsored hackers, but which have together circumvented the security systems of not only the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI, but also defense-related contractors like HB Gary Federal, Lockheed Martin, and EMC, the US government has created another boogeyman, a perfect pretext to take back by force what it created, the internet.  To the untrained mind the Pentagon has created a convincing argument.  


To be fair the threat of cyber warfare is quantifiable as over the last decade it has been estimated, albeit according to the Pentagon, to cost the United States untold terabytes of sensitive information and trillions of dollars worth of system damage, loss of intellectual property, and diminished competitiveness.


The ol' phrase "the best offense is a good defense" is evidently not something the Pentagon wishes to hear any longer. "We've got to change the calculus" says General Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from 90 percent focus on better firewalls and 10 percent on preventing hackers from attacking, or as Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn refers to it as, "denying them the benefit of attack."  This can really only mean one thing, preemptive attack, informed by what Reuters reports as plans for "...sensors, software and signatures to detect malicious code before it effects US operations."  The only way for the Pentagon to accomplish this is through monitoring all telecommunications.  When it comes to intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA) our government has shown no problem circumventing established law in order to accomplish this task.  


Mr. Lynn claims he "wanted to avoid militarizing cyberspace."  With coffee running down my nose his statement seems somewhat dubious considering in January the US government broke ground on a $1.5 billion cyber-security center under the unsurprisingly innocuous title "Utah Data Center."  Senator Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah admitted it is "the largest military construction project in recent memory" and there is little doubt its construction has been planned for years.  Moreover, with the tacit admission by the US government of their involvement in the Stuxnet virus, which successfully postponed the nuclear ambitions of Iran, Mr. Lynn's "reluctance" carries little weight.  

Middle Class Yankee Fan Gifts Jeter $300k Ball and Foots Bill

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Middle class Yankee fan Christian Lopez 

and superstar millionaire Derek Jeter.  

Image Source: Al.com

Christian Lopez, 23, of Highland Mills, N.Y. caught Derek Jeter's 3000th hit on Saturday.  In a polite and humble gesture Mr. Lopez returned the ball to his "icon" and in the process was lavished with box seats for the rest of New York's home games this season as well as signed Yankee memorabilia.


These "gifts", valued at around $32,000, evidently caught Sauron's Eye according to the Daily News.  The Verizon salesman, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), will be on the hook for an estimated $5000 to $13,000.  Mr. Lopez isn't too worried about it since friends and family will purportedly help him out in order to keep the seats.  According to Mr. Lopez, however, "...it would be cool if they'd help me out a little on this."


Eh, sorry Mr. Lopez don't think our beloved IRS is going to bend over backwards on this one, but for arguments sake lets break this down a bit.  Loyal fan, Christian Lopez gives up a ball that would have fetched him anywhere from $250k to $350k at auction and therefore the ability to pay the IRS accordingly, but instead gives the ball back to Jeter.  Where is the IRS on this one, isn't there more than one transaction here?  The headline should have read: "Middle Class Yankee Fan Gifts Jeter $300,000 Ball and Foots Bill."


Essentially what the IRS is saying is, in order for you to receive and enjoy gifts they must be commensurate with your pay grade.  Can't pay the tax, give up the gift.  In other words, a grocery store clerk can't just receive a Hawaiian getaway and not pay the state for its value and a local mechanic can't just receive a cherry 64' Malibu Super Sport for a Pimp My Ride contest without ponying up on his next tax return.


This may be the law, but is this how our government should work?  Of course not, but this exemplifies what happens when you live under the most complicated tax system in the world, anything and everything is subject to tax.  This type of system, which taxes you before you even get paid, is exactly the type of tax regime that will also tax you on what should be a pleasure in life, receiving a gift or prize.  Gifts and prizes should be exactly what they sound like - freebies.


One more reason why this country would be better off with a Fair Tax, also known simply as a flat tax.

Goodbye NASA, Hello Space Age! To Infinity and Beyond!

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com


Warp speed to lunar mining, moon bases, heavenly hotels, missions to Mars, leisure, adventure and exploration!

Image Credit: Small Art Works 

The National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA) has a very special place in the hearts of many Americans, but its time has ended.  Granted, the end of the space shuttle program is by no means the end of NASA itself, like all government agencies it will find a way to persist regardless of deep budget cuts.  From Apollo 11 to the disasters of Challenger and Columbia NASA has had its ups and downs as will the future of private space exploration, however, unlike under NASA the burden of finance, risk and reward will no longer rest so heavily on the shoulders of the American taxpayer.


NASA by any argument enjoyed its fiscal zenith in 1965 (4.4% of federal budget) during the Space Race between the US and the former Soviet Union.  Amidst the Cold War the two superpowers were in a literal boat race for years until Neil Armstrong in the summer of 1969 set foot on the moon famously proclaiming the feat as: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."  NASA at this time was useful above all for one reason, its ability to demonstrate American political, economic, technological, and ideological superiority.


After the stellar success of Apollo 11 and the corresponding prestige it bestowed on America, NASA was relegated to the very unsexy task of hauling space antennas and assembling the constellation of satellites necessary to power our modern economy.  Recently, instead of an elite cadre of space exploring super scientists NASA has been used as a political football as much as ever and has been referred to as a "$18.9 billion self-esteem program" for its awkward foray into scientific ambassadorship rather than serious space travel.  


It has taken decades for the NASA model and the legion of scientists and private contractors it supports to come to grips with the inevitable walk into obsolescense.  NASA may maintain its mission statement to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research", but these are responsibilities which have traditionally found more fruition in the private sector.


While there are compelling arguments to keep NASA as the tip of the spear a la Christopher Columbus who "discovered" the new world for Europe on Queen Isabella's dime, others point to the example set by British and Dutch joint-stock companies of the early 17th century which succeeded in actual colonization and famously advancing commercial interests.  These early models of the modern corporation upon hearing of potential riches in the New World garnered the support of many private citizens through the selling of stock on the promise of potentially large dividends versus merely relying on the fickle largesse of kings and queens.


Today many companies are stepping up to the plate in hopes of providing private persons with the same opportunities provided by the Virginia and Plymouth Companies of the early colonial period.  Albeit, nobody is seriously considering colonizing the moon any time soon some may in the near future find themselves on our first satellite longer than the 21 hours and 31 minutes of Apollo 11.  From $200k low earth orbit adventures envisioned by Virgin Galactic and SpaceShipOne to celestial semi trucks designed by Orbital Sciences Corp. and SpaceX to service the International Space Station (ISS) near space is already if not well on its way to being domesticated.

Image Credit: Reported by Gizmodo.com in '08

There are companies entirely self funded by the fortunes of internet moguls to titans of hospitality as in the case of Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nevada.  Already tasting the success of currently orbiting modules and industry accolades this 1998 stellar startup aims to develop space habitats as well as the vehicles necessary to transport their crews and residents.  For a surprising list of private space companies just look here and see what marvels they are coming up with.


Low Earth orbit is just the beginning!  While there may be some who cover this uncertain period as the abdication of US hegemony in space or that the US will be consigned to heavenly hitchhiking relying on the Russians and Chinese I would submit we are embarking on an unbridled adventure.  For those alarmists out there still beating the benighted drum of "peak oil" and "renewable fuels" look no further than our own solar system laden with hydrocrabons and other sources of abundant fuel.

Image Credit: Richard Kurbis and National Space Society

Take the moon for example, lunar strip mining may not be the stuff of science fiction much longer.  The isotope Helium-3 is an amazing substance able to aid in nuclear fusion which cleanly releases vast amounts of energy.  Helium-3 is not only abundant in the atmosphere of Jupiter, but there is purportedly millions if not hundreds of millions of tons lying on the surface of the moon and companies like Shackelton Energy Co., a subsidiary of Stone Aerospace aims at raising billions of dollars in order to extract and deliver this precious possibility to Earth.  Other fuels such as plutonium-238 while rare on earth are also abundant on the moon and will be able to power everything from space stations to lunar rovers.


According to Jill Stuart, fellow in global politics of the London School of Economics' Department of Government, since 'the international community sort of insists that [space travel] be tied to a state', and given the fact that 'governments control most access to space through their ownership of most launch pads' the US government will continue to be able to assert a measurable authority over its citizens' access to space.  NASA therefore will no doubt be here for posterity, but it will most likely transform into something a kin to the FAA of space, a bureaucracy that will manage, certify, and license America's appetite for the cosmos.


Regardless, let the real Space Race begin!