We all talk about

Greetings, I moved this topic from General Discussion to the more appropriate Ministry of Safety and Security / Military Security board.

Talk about, what?

The outer space treaty forbidding the militerisation of space?

Well the outer space treaty just prevents the placement of WMDs in orbit around the Earth and prevention of national claims over the Moon and such. Having a military force on the station does not constitute the "militarization" of space, unless we start bombing the planet below.

What station? We're not building a space station.

Military comprised and funded from what?

This is a very distant topic.

A big component of Asgardia is a habitable space station, and a military is funded by taxes.

As covered in another topic, what defence forces we form will not conform to definitions of military force, and shall never be used in an offensive capacity. As an example of such examine Japan after WWII, forbidden from having a military, they are allowed defence forces. There are sublte differences.

 What station? We're not building a space station.

Really? 'cause "we" tend to think otherwise. "We" being the greater population. It's obviously not going to be happening any time soon, but maybe for some not so obvious. And it'd be throughly rediculous to build A station. You want to build a collection(at least in Earth orbit). As our initial first forray away from the planet, it makes sense to have multiple redundant copies for backup. If anything goes wrong you'd need somewhere to go, somewhere closer than Earth. You'd possibly also want somewhere closer than Earth to be able to send assistence/supplies etc. Done right you could get a response time down to less than an hour.

A big component of Asgardia is a habitable space station, and a military is funded by taxes.

Truthfully, it would be madness to attempt to lift from the surface of Earth enough material to build a station to support our current population - let alone a few decades of growth. Therefore, it would be madness to attempt to build a station until we have resources in situ to do so. By the time we have what we need to start building habitation facilities in orbit(and soon after, beyond) then we shall have no use for taxation. I'll cover this in a second.

The closest thing to a "tax" I could imagine would be some sort of "voluntary tax" in order to kickstart various initiatives within the restrictive Earth economy of fictional resources. As a nation, we need various things and we kind of need them now. Things like a secure and useful digital infrastructure, alternative communication methods that will be resilient against disruption, secure passport production facilities etc. To take the passport production facilities, for about $5USD a head it should be possible to establish these. Pending recognition as a nation we'd also require diplomatic corps etc. Defense forces are unlikely to feature on that list until we actually have borders to defend. Digitally it can be defended by an IT team that actually understands how security works, or even what secure is would be a good start, - and once we have laws, we can write into that folks like me are legally able to forcibly enter and sanitise hardware that has attacked us in view of preventing it from attacking us further, even if this does mean writing secure firmware for people's toasters, fridges, lightbubs, thermostats, kettles, washing machines, and other IoT(Imminent obvious Threat) devices.

Now for why I think we'd not need "taxes" to support our defence forces.

I personally think once our first satellite is up there, we should also be developing a seed factory to clip up on ISS - we can have this done by 2020»2025 for about when NASA abandon this and move off to their cislunar base - where it can begin to scrape LEO derbis into usable resources to expand itself, then clone itself - and construct a centrafugal launcher(or even series of) to throw the new seed out to the asteroid belt betwixt Mars and Jupiter where it can begin to mine those asteroids for resources - 70% of which it throws back this way as raw materials for us to use as fodder in the Earth orbital seed factory, retaining 30% to expand itself. Once it's popped a clone off, it can throw that a few hundred KM to the left, and that can being the same process. It'll become 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256.... Exponential growth. Exponential influx of resources. By the time there's 8 of them, at least two will of expanded themselves to the point where they're able to throw back refined/purified materials - or hopefully even products(basic ones). By the time the Earth orbit seed factory has created enough modular components to begin moving them to appropriate locations and assembling into actual facilities the only real costs involved are going to be that of sending an engineering crew up there to begin assembly - assuming that too can't be automated(even if it is, I feel supervisation/testing essential). Sensibly habitaiton infrastructure will be the last thing to deploy, first deploying all the infrastructure this will be reliant upon. So, the cost of sending a crew up there being a known variable, what would it cost per head to get a seed factory on ISS? less than $15USD....

That's a one-off cost, and the rest does itself... There's then no need for "taxes" (tho, whilst this is establishing itself, there will be need to purchase things from Earth, and enabling citizens to donate towards various initiatives should assist in achievement) and any "funding" required can be obtained through trading materials and or goods with Earth. Just one of those rocks up there has more platinum in it than has been mined in the entire existence of humanity. Almost every element in the periodic table is sat there, waiting.

The larger population doesn't understand that we're not building a habitable space station.

Thos madness over building a space station and a military of some type needs to stop.

A space station was an actual misunderstanding by too many that hasn't ended since day one even after the "founder" stated we're not building a space station.

People need to be more fucking realistic.

A station is realistic. It's not realistic tomorrow, but it's definitely realistic. It's the most realistic place to put our population, even if we've no hope of even begining construction for at best fifty years.

And until we actually have borders to defend, then entire concept of a defence force is actually hilarious.

I would like to be one of the Military, to serve and Protect Asgardia.not only an ordinary citizen of Asgardia but also a protector of it.

 Thank You

Best Regard Regine Espina

Currently there are only plans to send up a satellite into space, please see the FAQ on the website

1. Will I get to go to space? When will I go to space? (FAQ page) No. Or most likely — no. So far, Asgardia has plans to launch satellites and unite people from all over the world as the first space nation — but it is not yet possible to just move everyone to space. So no, there are no plans to take Asgardians to space at this time.

Taken from the concept page of asgardia.space The third goal is to create a demilitarized and free scientific base of knowledge in space. This will provide free access to all, especially those from developing countries who do not have space access now. And such access should be free and direct.

How many times does even the "founder" have to state there is no long-term habitable space station before people get it amd stop planning for what isn't in the near or distant future?

Currently there are only plans to send a satellite up into space. The key word being currently. It's not yet possible. But we could make it possible with very little specific effort.

Currently, we are not recognised as a nation. Currently, we have no form of government. Currently, we seem to demonstrate having no clue about effectively and securely operating services.

All this will change, over time.

There isn't a long term habitable station, unless we make one. One would just be rediculous, ofc, you would sensibly deploy mulitple and distribute about that belt. I can do it with less than 10%. And surely there's at least that number with vision.

Just 'cause you've no long term plans doesn't mean no-body else does. And really, what sort of "space nation" has no aspirations for space? Without planning it'll never happen, and if by some miracle it does manage to happen, then without planning it's not going to be long history to the nation.

PS. Planning to acquire and utilise resources to the extent to build facilities capable of housing and supporting our nations population strikes me as slightly more productive that attempting to plan protection of borders and assets that don't actually exist, and won't exist in the near future.