There is historical precedent: the company town, the wild west with its big cattle barons owning and controlling all local government and economy along with the range and water rights. The muscle will be provided by militias, which will simply be modified ghetto gangs, organized crime, motorcycle clubs, preppers and survivalists, religious and paramilitary armies, Klansmen and posses and krewes. It will be a lot like medieval Europe, Japan during the Shogunate, India prior to the English colonial era, Greece after the Dark Age (without the culture and civilization)and China between Dynasties, during the time of the warlords. Think of pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

Slavery will make a comeback (perhaps disguised as prison sentences or military prisons) and food will be grown by serfs toiling on vast family-owned farms. It will be a cross between the Jeffersonian fantasy utopia of gentlemen citizen-farmers, and the Deep South ante-bellum plantation system–without the grace and culture of either. The country will be run by people like Cliven Bundy.

Western clothing will make a comeback, women will be herded into purdah, and Latins and blacks, if they don’t form their own armed city-states, will simply be rounded up into work camps where they will be given the “opportunity” to work for an honest living. Other nations will trade weapons and ammunition for our agricultural produce. And the Stars and Bars will fly proudly once again.

I don’t think the space program will survive the change.