Asgardia- The Space Nation

Hello Readers,
First of all, Happy New Year.

Anyways, let me get back to what I was saying.

Today I found out about this "country" that declared independence in October 12th of this year. It is called Asgardia. It was founded by Igor Ashurbeyli. It is a country that is going to be in space, and it is the first one ever created. Naturally, when most people hear of something unique like this, they get excited. However, there are some problems that the government of Asgardia is going to face. One thing is that the leaders of this micro country acknowledges some of these problems.

Before I continue, I want to assume that they will use ships, as there are pictures of hypothetical ships used by the nation (below).

Let me lay down some of the problems:

• Getting 573968 people (as of this writing) into space.
• Definition of a country.
• Getting acknowledged as a country (by other countries and the UN).
• Functioning.
• Enforcing law.
• And a couple others.

Ok, first one. Getting every citizen into space.

This would require SO MANY spaceships and so much money, and they probably don't have that much money. I bet they barely have enough money to launch their satellite into space in 2017, let alone more than half a million people. They know that they cannot do this, and they need decades of time before they are able to do this. Why? Because money and technology. They don't have enough money, and the technology to safely have this many people and to manage them IN SPACE and IN A SPACESHIP is way to hard.

Now there are several solutions:

1. Sending people one by one (maybe 10-50 at a time?) until everyone is in space. 
2. Sending a couple of people, in a small ship. Let them do some things in Space (whatever they want to do), then add more to that place, and make a giant ship in space.
3. Wait for a space elevator and send many more at once.
4. Put a giant spaceship and use a spaceplane and put everyone up there.

Now I can explain some problems with each.

1. This would need money, and they don't have it. Keeping this many people is hard (read above).
2. Same as #1, except wouldn't they want to move around and not just orbit around.
3. There will not be a space elevator anytime soon.
4. Same as 1 and 2.

Starting up the nation with everyone is going to take such a long time that most of the government officials and most of the people who applied would not live to see the nation in space, including the founder.

Second problem, being a country by the dictionary.

Not the same as number 1. Let me explain.

In the Montevideo convention of 1933, the conditions of being a country was made. It is commonly used (I think). This is what it said:

"The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states."

Asgardia does not fit letter a, and I already explained it (yet they have the audacity to try to get recognized by the UN, which I will explain soon). 

It does not fit letter b. They say that they are in space, but they have no ships to stay in. Also, where in space? Which spaceships? There are many questions to answer. 

It does not fit in letter c yet. They have some parts of the structure of the government created, and no constitution. No one is in the government yet. They also have no location of their government.

It kind of fits d, as they are trying to negotiate with the UN, but they have no ambassadors.

So they only fill 1/4 as they only fill 2 of them partly, so I will count them as .5.

They are not going to be considered as a nation, or at least not yet.

Third Problem, getting acknowledged by other countries and the UN. I described it in the second problem. The second problem is going to lead to the third one. They want to be part of the UN, yet they have no reason to be considered as a country or should be one.

Fourth problem, being a functional country.

Assuming that the first three countries are made, how is the economy going to run? They definitely won't get that much tourism as space tourism is not that big. If they get to space much later (in a couple of decades), then there will still be problems. They might get some tourism, but what else? How are they going to farm? How are they going to feed their population? Is one small problem going to make a GIANT effect? Wouldn't it be so easy to destroy the entire country? There are so many questions to ask, especially the fact that it is in SPACE. Also, wouldn't it be harder to have foreign relations? Think about it.

Fifth problem. Enforcing law.

I somewhat described it in the fourth problem. One bomb and the entire population goes poof. Also, I could kill someone and easily escape the ship (escape). What if there is a uprising? They kill the pilots of the ship and crash it somewhere, killing thousands? Or they could control thousands of people when hijacking a ship. If a ship is hijacked by terrorists, it would be many times worse than 9/11.

Those are my main points of why the country will not work in a couple of decades or even centuries.

Thank your for reading.

Thank you and happy new year,
~~~~BloggingPi

Link to official website of Asgardia- https://asgardia.space/en/

(btw it is 9:28 PM right now)

Edit: They will actually make a space station. But still, same thing applies.