Rum Doings Episode 197: Space Based Cold War
by John Walker on Jul.29, 2015, under Rum Doings
In our 197th ever Rum Doings, our topic is, isn’t it about time those captors released poor little Maddie?
Sorry. However, in a pleasingly upbeat episode, we discuss an awful lot of space. Going to space, the amount to spend on space, and space fiction. Especially The Martian and Defying Gravity. Of course, things move on to Lord Sewel, and the peculiarity of the story.
John laments how awful is his cat, and then we realise that John’s marriage is in the hands of a fragile china mug.
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[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/197_rumdoings.mp3]
July 29th, 2015 on 10:54
Two episodes in one week? You really are spoiling us!
July 29th, 2015 on 15:16
With regard to the point about a space cold-war to reignite the space-race: In a way we have the outer space treaty of 1967( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty) to thank for the space-race petering out after Apollo. It forbade the signatories from putting nuclear weapons in space and so limited the military application of moon-bases and orbital space-stations and the like.
To those who would call this point of view cynical and callous, I would point out that the particular treaty did little to limit the nuclear weapons build-up which continued well into the 1980s with warheads numbering on the tens of thousands on each side.
It only affected a change on the way in which said warheads could be delivered, i.e. steering the development towards ever more advanced terrestrial-based ballistic missile systems.
Of course you might also argue that space launched weapons system simply aren’t actually that cost-effective or practical compared to earth-based systems which can at least be more easily maintained and upgraded. After all, a nuke launched from the moon would take a couple of days to actually reach the earth, which doesn’t make the very practical as a surprise first strike option.
None the less, I’d say there’s a good chance that we would at least have had a moon base in place by the mid-1980s. Just think of the amount of money they spent on things like the ABM and SDI projects which didn’t amount to much of anything.
July 30th, 2015 on 02:57
Feedly’s issues sorted themselves out, for what it’s worth.
September 25th, 2015 on 19:34
You misquoted Going Live’s phone number. It was 081 811 8181.
The same number was inherited by Live & Kicking. Later the area code changed to 0181 so they had to add an extra beat to the jingle.
I am a very dull person.