Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is an enduring story of two bank robbers in the Wild West. In the film of the same name they are played by the good looking duo of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. They swagger through the film to a jolly accompaniment by Burt Bacharach (including Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head) from one fruitful explosion to another. Inevitably the Federal authorities catch up with them and they manage to escape over the border into Mexico by the length of a horses tail. In Mexico they make a resolution never to rob a bank again, such has been the horror of their last experience. They realise they now have a clean slate to start their lives again. What happens next has always fascinated me. They start robbing banks in Mexico. A few bank robberies later, they die in a hail of Mexican army bullets.

The moral of this story in my view, explains a lot about the worst side of human nature. Remember that these are bad men even though they are played by a couple of smoothies. Humans find it very difficult to change their inner motivations, methods and objectives.

At present humans are plundering planet earth of her wealth. They have been doing it for a long time but now the scale and speed of the robbery is unprecedented. The villains have a plan;

‘Let’s start robbing again in space’.

China, Russia, the USA, Europe, even India have space programmes.

Why does India have a space programme when many of it’s rural villages don’t even have one flushing toilet and a sewer? The answer is complicated of course but one reason has to be the promise of new sources of raw materials; what in Klondike in the Wild West was nicknamed the ‘gold rush’. True to human greed for natural resources, these countries and others are not unaware of the promise of minerals ripe for harvesting from other planets and moons.

Without a World Government with an enforcement arm, it is hard to see how this rush into space and the allocation of unclaimed resources, will not turn into a laser gun fight.

On the 1st July 2019 the United States of America declared a new arm in it’s Defence Services; the Space Development Agency. Will the USA move itself into the role of World Government Peace Enforcement in space – like it has tried to enforce the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on Earth? Will the USA being armed in space be accepted by those being told they cannot do the same? Bear in mind the present difference of opinions between the USA and North Korea and Iran.

The USA may or has assumed a role of Sheriff or ‘protector’ of the valuable scientific, communications and defence satellites already in orbit around the earth. This role is enhanced by the prospect of the new 5G satellites being privately launched – over 2000 in number – to provide fast internet to rural communities around the globe. Who asked for 5G is a subject for another blog. In democracies, no one votes for what private enterprise decides needs doing for profit. Arms manufacturers usually lobby for war.

It just happens because science and technology get the smell of cordite and can’t stop themselves blowing a few banks, and a few more and a few more. Ethics committees don’t carry.

The hugely wealthy entrepreneurs, Elon Musk (BFR) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin) both have their own visions for space exploration and travel. Will they be taking pot shots at each other across the craters on the moon or work together?

The space exploration of the 1960’s was famously driven by bitter competition between the Soviet Union and the USA. The latter likes to think it won the race but in the end what came out of those missions was a desire to monitor the earth from space, not keep going to the moon. This mutual desire and pooling of resources and know-how, evolved into a co-operative project which is the International Space Station.

Not surprisingly today, Russian and China want to co-operate in space and ban space weapons and they both signed a treaty in 2008 on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space.

On 21st October 2017, the first committee of the United Nations discussed the non-placement of weapons in space. 122 countries voted in favour of such a ban and five against, which included Georgia, Israel, the USA, Ukraine and France. 48 countries abstained, including the European Union.

The reasons for co-operation disarmament in space are obvious so let us consider reasons for having weapons in space.

There may be attempts by rogue states or state sponsored dissident groups, to interrupt or destroy or threaten to do this to civilian or military satellites.

positions of satellites at time of publishing were correct but may have moved now

The problem with this argument is that a rogue state, or state sponsored dissident group, is being lawful in it’s actions in one view and unlawful in another. Robin Hood was by some definitions, a terrorist. Black and white hats are for cowboy films. The hats in space wars are multi-coloured and nuanced.

For instance, a GPS satellite is used for civil purposes and military. So is the mobile phone network and satellites and direct satellite communications used in those areas where there is no mobile telephone network.

You can describe the action as good or bad depending on which facts you select to present. The criticism is that the ‘threat’ that the threat on which the military base their plans and actions, can be exaggerated for funding approval reasons and, or just plain politics. A government likely to declare war on false intelligence on earth is just as likely to do the same in space. Different place, same gunmen.

There is also a non-military threat; namely asteroids. These are objects that enter the earth’s solar system from outer space and may be on a collision course with earth. The possibility is that a weapon of some kind may be able to alter the course of the asteroid. Comparing the then with now, money would be better spent on protecting the earth from humans rather than asteroids in my view, that threat being more immediate.

The last Hollywood blockbuster myth is one that has appeared on cinema screens since movies were invented – alien invasion. I call this a myth since my belief is that any civilisation that has found and is watching us for malign reasons would have acted by now. Because they have not I conclude that they are benign and waiting for humans to become spiritually aware enough to stop wanting to destroy the planet and each other.

Little Blue Men (and perhaps some ladies)

This is Butch and Sundance story yet again. The question for governments and billionaire entrepreneurs in search resources and a life boat for planet earth is;

Should we spend our time and money on fighting each other in space, or on protecting the earth and building a sustainable future?

I know what my answer would be because I have seen the statistics about life on Mars and in my view, it’s a hell not worth visiting.

I hope and expect we will forget Mars as an objective in the next decade, as future space based telescopes spy out so called, exo-planets. Astronomers now believe it likely that most stars have a system of orbiting planets based on observations of light from those stars. The new generation of telescopes will find new exo-moons. With so many new places to visit that are in the ‘Goldilocks‘ range of environmental factors similar to earth, man in the future will be spoilt for choice for places to colonise.

Those who choose to live in such places will have one important choice above all others. Shall we take guns to these places? My advice,based on Butch and The Sundance, is don’t.