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Legal questions linger as governments and companies keep pushing into space:
The Perseverance rover's landing on Mars is still fresh in people's memories, privately owned companies are ferrying people and supplies into orbit, and NASA continues to work on "the most powerful rocket" it has ever built. But as world governments and private enterprises continue to eye the skies for opportunities, a SXSW panel called "Who on Earth should govern Space" makes clear that the laws dealing with space aren't evolving as fast as the technology that gets us there.
"People like to think of space as the Wild Wild West — nothing out there, there's open frontier, we can do whatever we want," said Michelle Hanlon, president of For All Moonkind, a non-profit devoted to preserving mankind's cultural heritage in space. "Unfortunately or fortunately, that's not true at all."
Hanlon was referring to the Outer Space Treaty, which was developed in 1966 and ratified by over 60 countries in early 1967. Considering the treaty was put into effect a full two years before mankind landed on the moon, it's little surprise that the document is heavy on broad principles, but light on specifics. Among its greatest hits: outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all states; states should avoid harmful contamination of space; celestial bodies shall only be used for peaceful purposes; and, perhaps most importantly, the assertion that outer space isn't subject to claims of sovereignty by Earth-bound governments.
[...] There have been efforts to more fully codify a set of rules to govern the way we approach space, including most recently the Artemis Accords signed by the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates in 2020. Ten countries are a start, but a slew of significant space-faring states — including China, India and Russia — have not bought into the largely US-brokered accord. It's hard to say exactly what (if anything) it will take for the international community to agree to a comprehensive set of guidelines for the use of outer space. But one thing is clear: With the technology to get us and keep us in space growing more advanced by the day, these are issues we can't afford to keep punting.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 22 2021, @05:52PM (16 children)
'eh, you got a big enough gun, like a Nuclear Weapon, it counts for something. Still, you won't have that much bargaining power, because your only option is the one giant gun. In the event that you are insane enough to threaten to use it a lot, you're more likely to end up dealt with. As opposed to having much power over anything.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 22 2021, @06:03PM (15 children)
Stellar War One will probably be won by whoever can move the larger rocks around. Dropping a fifty gigaton rock down a gravity well will decide a lot of things. If you can figure the precise impact point ahead of time, you win. The question becomes, how many such rocks will it take before Earth begs for terms?
Once again, I point to the novel and the television series, 'The Expanse'. I don't see any Proto-molecule on the horizon, but for the most part, they've got stuff figured out. That stealth tech may be a little overboard, but it's going to be hard as hell tracking every rock in the solar system!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 22 2021, @06:08PM (8 children)
I'm only now watching S5 of The Expanse. One thing that occurs to me is that those rocks also work against Mars and the moon. Not just Earth.
It seems like nobody would have to "win" for the entire human race to lose. Each "side" in this only has to move enough rocks around to wipe out all human civilization. Because "we're" the good guys. (whoever "we" are)
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Monday March 22 2021, @07:47PM (4 children)
Being a good guy does not solve anything. I am a good guy for me, you are a good guy for you. That itself does not prevent us from killing each other.
Therefore, something more than just being a good guy is needed for peace. Trust.
I consider trust a non-renewable resource. Trust is accumulated very slowly.
And trust is something Americans lack the most of all resources. They do not trust anyone. They are not trusted by everyone. They even don't trust themselves...
Guess how this ends one day...
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 22 2021, @07:56PM
JMS, creator of Babylon 5 said: nobody looks in the mirror and sees a monster.
Some people need assistants to hire some assistance.
Other people need assistance to hire some assistants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 23 2021, @10:14AM (1 child)
https://richardfagerlin.com/2015/05/the-big-lie-about-trust-5-reasons-why-trust-is-not-earned/ [richardfagerlin.com]
There is a saying that Trust is easily given but once it's gone, it's almost impossible to get back.
So, it's bullshit to say that Trust accumulates very slowly. It's not. Trust is given to you as a gesture of goodwill. But if you abuse this trust, then you will never get it back. At one point I trusted American government to be an ideal, to generally be an advocate for some order in the world. You know, at very least to keep America the 'leader of the free world'. The election of Trump, that's killed the entire idea of American exceptionalism in this regard. And the last election completely destroyed any Trust in US (like, how the fuck Trump was not destroyed in the election but managed to get so many idiots to vote for him?). So whatever, at this point I trust America as much as I trust China.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:45AM
I take it, you're young? Because there's been a lot over the past half century to undermine that would-be trust. Trump is not unique.
Look at the alternatives. People were tired of voting for the establishment. Trump also was willing to press the hot button topics, particularly illegal immigration, that other politicians shied away from.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 24 2021, @01:37AM
FTFY.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 22 2021, @10:02PM (1 child)
I read the series of books. It was an interesting series. I've been avoiding Amazon for as much of everything that I can. They treat their workers like dirt, squeeze out small businesses, and jack up the prices whenever they can.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 23 2021, @01:40AM
qbittorrent over a VPN can be your friend . . .
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 23 2021, @05:25PM
> One thing that occurs to me is that those rocks also work against Mars and the moon. Not just Earth.
True, but they'd also work almost as well against asteroid colonies. The Earth is at a massive disadvantage in kinetic warfare because of our 11.2km/s escape velocity - which means any incoming projectile gains (11,200m/s)^2 = 125MJ/kg of kinetic energy before impact - about 30x the energy density of TNT.
Mars has an escape velocity of 5km/s, so only adds 25MJ/kg. Still 6x the density of TNT, but a much smaller force multiplier.
And the Moon's escape velocity is only 2.4km/s, so only 5.8MJ/kg, or 1.4x TNT.
In practice though, offworld colonies are going to be *extremely* vulnerable - all you have to do is break things up a bit and everybody suffocates. Whereas on Earth you can level half a city and the biggest problem is going to be the morale of the survivors and the cost to rebuild infrastructure.
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Monday March 22 2021, @07:29PM (1 child)
Reminds me of the novel "FOOTFALL" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Footfall [wikipedia.org]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 23 2021, @11:58AM
that was an awesome story.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday March 22 2021, @10:41PM
Runaway has been reading Heinlein, again. Sounds like a Moonie!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday March 23 2021, @02:13AM (2 children)
That would be en extinction-scale rock. Not clear there'll be much left to take over after.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 23 2021, @06:55AM (1 child)
https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/ [ic.ac.uk]
Fun calculator to play with. I chose an iron meteorite, 500 meter diameter, striking the earth at 90 degrees (straight on), and hitting sedimentary rock. I haven't found an easy-to-use calculator to determine how many tons that would be.
Found one - it seems for 50 gigaton, my iron spherical meteor only need be about 900 inches diameter, or about 22 meters.
https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/cgi-bin/crater.cgi?dist=200&distanceUnits=1&diam=500&diameterUnits=1&pdens=&pdens_select=8000&vel=25&velocityUnits=1&theta=90&wdepth=&wdepthUnits=1&tdens=2500 [ic.ac.uk]
Fortunately, most meteors that do hit the earth are ice and/or rock, and they tend to break up before hitting the earth, and they seldom hit straight on.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 24 2021, @02:03AM