Shutting down the interstellar space program would be humanity's greatest mistake. If a civilization ever stops exploring and expanding their body of knowledge, it is the surest path to decline, stagnation, falling behind others, and conquest by others. Nevertheless, human civilizations in history have decided to do just that and suffered for it. The United Nations is determined to avoid the mistakes of the past and I doubt they would defund the UNSO now but the cry to spend money on solving poverty on Earth or buying more tanks for domestic defense instead of chasing the stars is an ever powerful and popular cry among politicians in UN member states and the general public. I think Patrick Steward once he would see poverty fixed on Earth before seeing the stars. Is the UNSO is real risk of being defunded and scrapped? Probably not but the temptation will be here.
The majority of the UN's attention is implied to be still Earth focused. Its new main focus, since world peace and democracy was achieved, is getting the billions of "basics" off government assistance or at least employed and turned into productive citizens. According to a Chapter 9 screenshot, the living standard of humanity in Stellaris is "social welfare" which means massive welfare programs to promote high standards of living although Cookfl has interpreted it to include differing actual standards of living among humans. My question is do you think Star Trek Federation standards of living as represented in Stellaris by "utopian abundance" or better yet "academic privilege" where all or the vast majority of the population has everything it needs, most of its wishes fulfilled, and are well-educated productive citizens can be achieved inuniverse by the UN in the future or will no poverty among mankind will still be a mere pipe dream (note: Ingame, it is a matter of clicking on a button, I am taking about in Cookfl's story)?
I doubt defunding UNSO would even be possible right now. It is probably the biggest government agency ever.
If I recall correctly, it includes the wormhole project (the most costly endeavour in human history so far), most of human research and probably the lions share of governmental scientific funding, regulates the interplanetary economy (the tax revenue of all these mining operations alone should be staggering), has control over humanities only military vessels in space and is the state authority for every human being not living on Earth itself. So UNSO would actually include:
- Sponsorship or at least continous contracts for most high tech industries and research companies, also for most space industries (shipyards etc.). That's one hell of a lobby to advocate for more investment, not less or even a defunding.
- Control over the extraterrestrial economy, especially the ressources. Mining the solarsystem and even other systems is in full swing now. IIRC there is even an economic boom on Earth, solely because of that influx of ressources and money. Now UNSO does not control that directly, but it regulates, polices, protects and taxes everything in space. It is a foreign, economic, trade and interior ministry rolled into one concerning everything extraterrestrial. All of that should yield a net gain for Earth, but of course they're also expanding, so they still rely on Earth funding.
- The military isn't probably that big compared to national militaries, but numbers don't really count into that equation. It is the only military capable of fielding space-going vessels, which immediately all other human militaries. Terrestrial armies can't protect against strikes from orbit, neither can they project force beyond Earth, UNSO can do both. Now an actual war between humans would be extremely unlikely, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation. Less extreme measures like blockading are also only avaible to UNSO. And even ignoring all that, another mighty lobby consisting of weapon industries, militarists and veterans would be firmly in UNSOs corner.
- Finally the colonies. UNSO basically replaces a state for everyone not living on Earth. Not only does that result in millions of people who are per default for expansion (since it's their home), but it also lends UNSO more legitimacy. It's not only a governmental agency, it also represents UN citizens. Currently all states on Earth probably dwarf all extraterrestrial populations combined, but that's going to change.
As for Earth First, I think that movement has peaked. Space travel is getting more normal by the day and living standards are increasing. I think they would mostly split up in a more moderate wing, focused on economics and more investment at home (and taking with them the mainstream appeal of the movement) and a radical wing, increasingly irrelevant.
