Pretty sure what makes this attractive is the extraterritoriality. The first step to sovereign corporations, free from any pesky government rules and regulations
It would be so much easier, cheaper and more practical to just retrofit a cargo ship and float it in international waters…or pick a jurisdiction on land that doesnt give a shit as long as you pay them.
I’m thinking mid to long term here. International waters are nice and all, but not really an ungoverned space. If these people have true megacorp ambitions, as in, toppling governments; establishing corporate ruled fiefdoms, commanding private militaries etc. A ship at sea is just another target for the enemy.
Seems more sensible to use this current period of virtually exclusively private space travel to ensure space becomes a privately and not government controlled domain by deploying their tech first and fast, before legislation can catch up.
What are the governments gonna do if google quickly brings a reactor powered data silo into space, and then some defensive satellites? Slap some ICBMs on there or maybe a railgun. Before states and nations are even able to act as a sovereign in space, those corpos will have claimed it already.
The US, China, Russia and more all have the capability to reach out and touch a data center in orbit. Further, such a facility wont last long without regular and extensive ground based support, which will very much be in someone’s jurisdiction. Finally, if a mega corp cant even get one government somewhere on Earth to let them operate a single micro data center without interference then they hardly have the pull required to make a play at world domination.
Fair point, but assuming they manage to get orbital weapons up there, is any government willing to drone strike some replaceable executives if the threat of a nuke looms overhead? Even if they can’t hit terrestrial targets for now, shooting down rivaling satellites and other comms infrastructure (or even shuttles?) seems a pretty powerful deterrent to most developed countries because they are so dependent on it.
Pretty sure what makes this attractive is the extraterritoriality. The first step to sovereign corporations, free from any pesky government rules and regulations
It would be so much easier, cheaper and more practical to just retrofit a cargo ship and float it in international waters…or pick a jurisdiction on land that doesnt give a shit as long as you pay them.
I’m thinking mid to long term here. International waters are nice and all, but not really an ungoverned space. If these people have true megacorp ambitions, as in, toppling governments; establishing corporate ruled fiefdoms, commanding private militaries etc. A ship at sea is just another target for the enemy.
Seems more sensible to use this current period of virtually exclusively private space travel to ensure space becomes a privately and not government controlled domain by deploying their tech first and fast, before legislation can catch up.
What are the governments gonna do if google quickly brings a reactor powered data silo into space, and then some defensive satellites? Slap some ICBMs on there or maybe a railgun. Before states and nations are even able to act as a sovereign in space, those corpos will have claimed it already.
The US, China, Russia and more all have the capability to reach out and touch a data center in orbit. Further, such a facility wont last long without regular and extensive ground based support, which will very much be in someone’s jurisdiction. Finally, if a mega corp cant even get one government somewhere on Earth to let them operate a single micro data center without interference then they hardly have the pull required to make a play at world domination.
The datacenter may be out of the reach of terrestrial law enforcement, but the company directors won’t be.
Fair point, but assuming they manage to get orbital weapons up there, is any government willing to drone strike some replaceable executives if the threat of a nuke looms overhead? Even if they can’t hit terrestrial targets for now, shooting down rivaling satellites and other comms infrastructure (or even shuttles?) seems a pretty powerful deterrent to most developed countries because they are so dependent on it.
This is a solid take.