OT: future of a manned space exploration.

[Parasite]

Originally posted by Narrew:
... go to Mars, and claim it as their own ...

Unfortunately the USA has signed a treaty (The Moon treaty ) that disallows claiming space objects for goverments or private industries. Many think this is causing companies not to try to go to space to get resources (the obvious reason after lebensraum). The emphasis is all on Space Tourism, Satillite Graveyards, and such.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Parasite:

quote:

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Originally posted by Narrew:
... go to Mars, and claim it as their own ...

Unfortunately the USA has signed a treaty (The Moon treaty ) that disallows claiming space objects for goverments or private industries. Many think this is causing companies not to try to go to space to get resources (the obvious reason after lebensraum). The emphasis is all on Space Tourism, Satillite Graveyards, and such.

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There is a slight loophole - the Last I heard, the US didn't sign second Version, the one which Banned private individuals arbitrarily claiming stellar bodies. In theory, a US citizen would be permitted to claim an unclaimed portion of our solar system and sell it to a corporation, who could then go and mine it (after all, they weren't the ones who claimed it - they bought it).

[David E. Gervais]

Originally posted by Parasite:
Unfortunately the USA has signed a treaty (The Moon treaty ) that disallows claiming space objects for goverments or private industries.

hmmm, since China did not sign this global agreement, (the moon treaty).. doesn't that mean that they are not bound by it's terms? Or does it mean that the countries that did sign this treaty will become dictators and force all the countries that didn't sign to comply?

I find it strange, yup, I really do.

Cheers!

[dogscoff]

disallows claiming space objects for goverments or private industries.

Couldn't they just go up there and start mining (or whatever they want to do) but without making any sort of claim upon the territory?

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Couldn't they just go up there and start mining (or whatever they want to do) but without making any sort of claim upon the territory?

If you mean a company, they could but would run the risk of doing all the work to extract the minerals and then having to surender them if a court decides they don't have a proper claim to them.

[ September 18, 2003, 16:09: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Atrocities]

When you think about the possibility of man in space, going faster than the speed of light, and people say it will never happen, I point out the simple historical fact that 1,000 years ago, the thought of man flying, let alone walking on the moon was unthinkable.

1,000 years ago we had to walk. A 2,000 mile trip would take 6 months.
500 years ago we had sailing ships. A 2,000 mile trip would take 6 weeks.
100 years ago we had cars. A 2,000 mile trip would take 6 days.
50 years ago we had propeller airplanes. A 2,000 mile trip would take about 16 to 24 hours.
Today we have jet air craft. A 2,000 mile trip takes 2 hours.

If we survive, think how fast we will be going in another 100 years.

[Baron Munchausen]

There are already claims being filed on the Moon and several other planets. Visit http://www.moonshop.com/ and see for yourself. Or go directly to www.lunarembassy.com for the legalese. Whether those claims will be honored is another question...

And as far as our future travel speed, those past advances were merely incremental. Even a modern jet airliner at ~600 mph is only about 200 times faster than a horse. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second not per hour. That's 670,000,000 mph! We've got a few more 'technological revolutions' to go through before worrying about that barrier. Worrying about it now is kinda like being concerned about the sound barrier when the steam locomotive was invented.

[ September 18, 2003, 18:09: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]