ChetOS.net

Abdul Kalam, former President of India, is giving a speech at UCF today about his World Space 2050 vision.  Basically we need to build an international body to explore space.  He is also pushing for no militarization of space so that it will be owned by everyone, rather than individual countries.

If outer space provides anything of value, then it will be fought over and militarized.  In the short term, if the moon has any valuable resources (minerals, colonial expansion opportunities, strategic/tactical advantages, even astrographic benefits, etc) then there will be people/countries that want access and will want to prevent access.  This is the recipe for battle.

Space also provides a "high ground" for Earth, so above and beyond extra-terrestial colonization (which is a good enough reason to fight on its own), control of it means potential control and reconnaisse of all earth-based activies.  This is something that our enemies will want to prevent, therefore battle.

It's politically sensitive, but it's going to happen. Some people don't want to hear this, and it sure isn't in vogue but -- absolutely -- we're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space...
General Joseph W. Ashy
Former Commander-in-Chief U.S. Space Command (1994 - 1996)

Even though there is a lot of it (space, that is), any place of value that we can reach will be fought over.  Anyone who thinks that we could live in a universe where we will not fight over a resource is ignoring history.

If we have learned anything from history, it is that men haven't learned anything from history.