Recently one of the United State's candidates for President on the Republican ticket claimed that if elected, by his second term we would allow a colony on the moon to apply for state hood should they have enough people to warrant such an endeavor. Unfortunately, while I think Newt Gingrich is a disaster as a politician and a human, I have to take pause at this particular notion. This is not a case of science fiction, this is science percolating. While eight years from now may be a little lofty to assume such a place exists, sooner than later is a very good bet. Most of the technology is here and the only hurdles left to jump for basic sustainably are speed, regeneration ability and longevity. In space time, a few decades is not far off and maybe about all the time needed to get it going. But who gets to go? Who get's to be the first true Alien?

One easy scenario is the “let's hold hands outcome” and life is peachy. The friendlies get there first, some come later, and everyone gets some. We all sing songs and move toward the future of mankind. We barely do that here and we all know we most likely cannot do it there. The moon while not a planet is still an alien “world” which makes the colonizers of it “aliens” in a every way but they will remain human. The anti positive is most definitely in play and the first colony will ignite the pilot light on Lunar Cold War II. The USA and the USSR already exercised #1. This is how it begins.

Superpower Shuffle – This is your happily ever after scenario again and the B side would be differing ideologies of world powers collide and the Lunar cold is introduced to global warming. We now have Lunar World War I and Intergalactic World War I. That in of itself is both kind of cool and quite a moment in history. Plus, it should be assumed what happens there will affect what happens here and the reverse. A terrible event on the Moon could ignite Earth World War III in a snap. Now getting there first becomes a tad of a priority. A little prior planning on the part of the first settlers and defending the moon would be relatively easy in this context. Then what? Maybe one of them tells the world too bad so sad, you can't have any.

Superpower Vengeance – This involves a once slighted powerhouse hell bent on revenge arriving to the moon first and using it to exact its re-write of history. Candidates include Russia, China, possibly Japan and a few other notables. The United Kingdom perhaps? They have a chip on their shoulder and not just because they are born that way. Once the world's premier empire they had a couple one night stands with the Americans and it never panned out. Maybe they would like to teach those over-sexed Yanks a lesson once and for all and reclaim hat was once theirs.

Cosmic Terror – Ah... our less industrialized but dedicated nomadic fighters for the cause. Surely they will get a seat at the table eventually. Maybe the Iranians say to the world, “You don't want us to have nukes then we won't have nukes. Instead we are going to use our time and resources to go to the moon, colonize it and do whatever we want to it and you.” All they really have to do is threaten to do it and then what? You can bet that early moon colonies would need supply lines until they become completely self-sustainable and there would always be passenger travel. Maybe the terrorists never reach the moon and just become space pirates, menacing weary travelers and destroying precious cargo. A colony could transport nukes to the moon and the space pirates can in turn steal the ship Captain Kirk style and then say “ Ha Ha, we got one anyway!” In fact the ingredients for this are rather simple, it only takes a crazy billionaire and a supply of Member's Only Jackets.

I doubt the gory end result of any of that will happen in my lifetime but I would give many of those chess moves a very real certainty. For now the building blocks are there and will be improved upon before my time on Earth is up. My children's generation will innovate those technologies and the generations they create will begin the push to the end. The drum beats on. That gives us about one hundred years or so to start trying to figure out just what we intend to do about all of that. It is rather disheartening to know that whatever unfolds, mankind's pension for repetitive history is uncanny. What was once science fiction becomes the norm all the time and like the universe it will taint forever, it will be absolute in its process.