Scientists plan to create 'Asgardia' nation state in space
These ideas are cute and trend well on HN, but I fail to see what real political effect they have outside of making some people feel good that they can pretend to be some type of star citizen. Sealand had a better claim to the traditional definition of sovereignty than a roving satellite you can&#x27;t even set foot on ever will have.<p>Geopolitics is more than sticking a flag on something, and then saying it&#x27;s a nation-state. No current country will respect the &quot;citizenship&quot; of Asgardia, and the &quot;citizens&quot; of Asgardia will be subject to the laws of their resident countries. The moment there is any real threat to the current geopolitical status quo by an orbiting nation-state platform, the current powers, assuming equivalent strength in the future, will strangle or corrupt it from existence with financial and military power.<p>I don&#x27;t even see how it would ever get powerful enough for other nations to take notice; a hypothetical space station makes a terrible nation state because it has no resources of its own. Without resources it is powerless and reliant on other states. Let&#x27;s assume it has trade from asteroid mining or the like; with these resources and trade it is, for military&#x2F;national security purposes, an enormously fragile platform floating in a place uninhabitable to humans if there is so much as an air leak. It is pretty much the least defensible position, and all it takes is a strongarm threat of blowing it in half with a nuclear weapon to make them pay attention to you. What retaliatory force do you have if your space station inhabitants all died from asphyxiation?