Abstract
This concluding chapter shows practically that planetary defense is not about securing the mere absence of threat. Deflecting asteroids does not necessarily require its own dedicated technology. Quite the contrary, planetary defense can and should be approached as a civilian and scientific endeavor with historical importance. This will be challenging, but if we can build a laser capable of sending nanoprobes to the nearest stars at 20% light speed and use the same installation for possible asteroid deflection, then we should not need to rely on militarily oriented planetary defense by a leading nation. In this chapter, we discuss the associated challenges and required technologies, and also that our community of fate can become a security community—a community in which we do not perceive one another as enemies but as allies. We explain the science of Moon survival and structures for the multipurpose lunar base, as well as the main issues of building a super powerful laser on the Moon. The same installation can be built on Earth if we can reach a breakthrough in global governance. The chapter ends by discussing the notion that planetary defense is not national defense.
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Notes
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Negative security seeks a mere absence of the threat while resorting to fast-tracked, exceptional and undemocratic decision-making justified as necessary to address it. For the discussion of negative vs. positive security see Chap. 20.
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Heard in person during the conference by Nikola Schmidt.
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Acknowledgement
This study was supported by the grant awarded by the Technological Agency of the Czech Republic, project TL01000181: “A multidisciplinary analysis of planetary defense from asteroids as the key national policy ensuring further flourishing and prosperity of humankind both on Earth and in Space,” and co-funded by the Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague.
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Schmidt, N., Utrilla, C.M.E., Boháček, P., Silva-Martinez, J., Worden, P. (2019). The Multipurpose Lunar Base as a First-Line Biosphere Defense and as a Gateway to the Universe. In: Schmidt, N. (eds) Planetary Defense. Space and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01000-3_26
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