Re: Space questions...

["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" <hous0042@maroon.tc.umn.edu>]

Kelly Starks x7066 MS 10-39 wrote:
> 
> At 9:21 AM 7/22/96, Philip Bakelaar wrote:
> >The UN claims space is *theirs*?!?!?! OH my GOD, i can't believe that.
> >I mean, how could they think that? How could the US not care? How could
> >the UN...? Guys, fill me in here. Is the US govmn't *really* stupid,
> >or is the UN *really* stupid, or is the public *really* stupid..
> >(actually, as far as I'm concerned, they all are, but im asking who's
> > fault is it that this is happening?)
> 
> The U.N. is largely composed of third world nations (their are more of them
> then us) who generally have a socialist attitude.  They largly drafted
> whats called the space treaty (which the U.S. has refused to sign, thou
> Clinton did make some moves to reverse that policy).  Said treaty roughly
> states that space is the common heritage of all mankind, and as a common
> heritage no one person, group, or state can own or take profit from any
> part of any planet, moon, orbit, or inter planetary transfer orbit.  Any
> attemp to use space must be done by an international body that distributes
> all profits equaly to all nations regardless of the participation in space
> by that state.

Kelly, I'm not sure that Socalist leanings are the real reason for the third
world nations' wanting the space treaty.  It seems to me that the more important
reason, is that they are currently unable to participate in any commercial 
exploitation, and want to stall the more developed countries from gaining an
unbreakable foothold.  At least until they (the third world) can be in a position 
to catch up.

> >  what if, say, our group (LIT) bought an island from Liberia, who doesnt
> >  have any space laws at all, and could care less.. would we be able to
> >  build a spaceport and spaceships and launch from that island?
> >  (disregard material needs for now, im talking about the law)

This might work Ben, but Liberia is the wrong place for this.  It is on the west
side of an ocean.  A better place (for safety reasons) would be brazil, or somewhere
around VietNam (ie near the equator on the eastern rim of an ocean.) A company
involved in commercial space flights (for sattelites) was trying to launch out of
french guianna (sp) but they found out that the local infrastructure was so bad
that it was worth the loss of a boost from earth's rotation just to have access
to Nasa's launch facilities and tracking stations etc.

But back to legal issues.  Your idea would work only until the local government
figured out that you were making money (or at least, you were spending so much that 
a few percent for taxes would hurt)  Then they would hold some space law over your 
head.  Or worse, they would just nationalize the launch facility, and put you in jail
for espionage, drugs, or violations of some obscure religious code.


-- 
Kevin "Tex" Houston 	http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html

Every time a third party candidate comes up, both major parties say:
"You can't vote for him, you'll just be handing the election to the other guy"
Well, Democrat and Republican are just two different names for the same thief, 
So what does it really matter?  This time I'm voting Libertarian.
Harry Browne for President.  http://www.HarryBrowne96.org/   (800) 682-1776