The Outer Space and Moon Treaties and the Coming Moon Rush

spacedaily.com ^ | 18 Apr 02 | Bill Carswell

[Tuor]

If we could wean ourselves off our diet of throwaway metals we'd never even think about it.

Sure we would...as we carved its image into the cave wall with a chunk of sharp rock before turning back to the roast beast that is spitted on the fire.

Tuor

[pabianice]

The Solar System is strictly a "pay me now of pay me later" deal. Once we've exhausted rare mineral resources on Earth, we'll have to go diggin' other places. The tragedy is that if we hadn't killed the space program after Apollo, we'd have the technology now that we saw in the movie "2001." That technology is now 50-100 years away because the Libs insist on spending the money buying transfer payment voters.

[Crusher138]

Clarino member since April 18th, 2002

Location: Guizhou

What a shock.

Look, where there are resources, there will be development of those resources. On earth, areas of land are "set aside" for "protection" and "recreation" but that is just another form of development. Such areas are a sign that a society or civilization is so otherwise rich in resources that they don't have to use these areas. It is called economics.

Space will be developed when it economically feasable to do so. The organization with the biggest guns will ultimately be the ones in control of any such resources.

Deal with it.

[dead]

despoil another celestial object?

It’s all ready a barren, lifeless, inhospitable, airless, gray desert, bombarded continuously by radiation!

We’re going to go up and decorate the poor thing. Add a little color.

We'll even bring art and music up there. We humans good.

[RightWhale]

Space is there to explore, not to exploit

My book says go forth and multiply. What book are you using?

[finnman69]

Hey, I got a solution to the Mid East Crisis. Give the PA authority 1000 square miles on the moon. No Jews, no pesky neighbors, plenty of sunlight. Just let them come up with the transportaion.

[in_troth]

Space is not, and should not be, a new empire to exploit as we will. Space is there to explore, not to exploit. A nuclear shuttle is a great idea, and should be vigorously pursued.

Space is TOTALLY there to explore AND exploit. Heck, this will probably be the first time where we don't inconvenience or endanger any other people or animals or plants in doing so. The moon belongs to the earth (she trapped it fair and square) and God gave the earth to us.

The nuclear shuttle though---there's a dumb idea, unless maybe you assemble it in space and only fly it around from the space station to wherever. No one needs that blowing up over their city or town.

[RightWhale]

I agree with your analysis. They don't want us flying the nest. But it isn't the government doing this, government is merely a tool in the hands of the controllers, some of whom seem to be here on this thread today; maybe it's the ANWR debate in the Senate today bringing them out.

[dead]

Like all other species, we will utilize the resources available to us to the best of our abilities. So far, the geese, mold, and beetles of earth have not communicated any objections, let alone attempted to alter our behavior.

I expect even less resistance from the barren moon.

[Andy Ross]

Your opinions are rather pagan. How on earth (!) can the moon be "owned" by the universe? Does your universe-wide version of Gaia have a name?

The moon is not there to be worshipped (a particlarly large and dangerous religion already does that, incidentally). It's a great place from which to stage other missions. If it has plentiful and easily mined resources, all the better!

If people want to build houses there, who are we to stop them? I can't wait for such developments. See the first 4000ft homerun! Opening day, 2020.

Whoever gets there first, claims it. Frankly, I don't care if the UN or anyone else gets annoyed (let's see them come and evict people from the "pristine wilderness".)

Andrew

[finnman69]

Back to DUmmyland for you my communist friend. Nice Chinese flag on your page. Bet you wanna plant that on the moon.

member since April 18, 2002.

[Willie Green]

The door to space resource development is closed. Open it! Mr. Bush, knock down that wall!

Sounds good to me!
Nothing up there but a lot of sterile rock and rock dust anyway.
Time to defund NASA and put our tax dollars to better use.
If some private-sector lunatic (pun intended) wants to pi$$ away their money going to the moon, that's they're choice.

[RightWhale]

We're not the landlords, we're part of the whole scheme of things

It's ours, we are the caretaker. There is no one else out there and it is our job to get out there and make something out of the wastelands that make up outer space. That's what we do. We build. Should we be stuck on this dust particle forever?

[demlosers]

Looks like China will be on the moon within 8 years, and NASA won't.
There is a silver lining here. China going to the moon will make the US take space exploration and space exploitation seriously. A little competition seems to be good for us.

NASA will be concentrating on developing a nuclear interplanetary shuttle, yet another White Elephant to go with its ISS International Orbiting Black Hole.
I disagree with you about the interplanetary shuttle. This country needs a solar system cruiser to establish our space dominance, although I agree with your assessment about the White Elephant.

[El Sordo]

-Waste is unavoidable, the best we can do is to minimize waste. And here in the US we do a dang good job of minimizing waste in production. If you want to talk about minimizing waste by the consumer, then you are either putting the use of space resources off for all eternity or promoting collectivist control of the individual (which is ungodly wasteful).

-Priorities in the US are generally detemrined by the free market which direct resources to where they are most useful and most highly valued. This is the best way to eliminate waste. To claim that "we" can re-prioritize has little basis in the reality of how resources are allocated.

-"We" have not despoiled the earth. Humanity of times past has used earth's resource to the best of their ability and often the limits of their technology resulted in some filthy situations. Today the US is among the world's leaders in the development of cleaner technologies. Today, and in the pasat, the most dirty and wasteful economics systems are those that attempt to dictate priorities to the consumer (the Soviet Union remains the most polluted country in the world!!).

What makes you think that the moon would be "despoiled"? Doesn't this assume that there's some pre-existing condition that is not supposed to be changed? Nature has a tendency to despoil things with abandon.

For that matter, how can you possibly determine how much metal we need. Do you realize that limiting our dependance on metals requires using either different materials or none at all? Different materials have to be manufactured all the same, often from resources derided as being "dirty" such as plastics. To use none at all returns us to a more wasteful way of life where only the elite can prosper.

[RightWhale]

Since you are sitting in a cottage in China, you must be feeling somewhat alone in wishing to stay on earth. Many of your countrymen are getting ready to go to the moon, to build stations in earth orbit, and to develop space resources. Is the excitement passing by your cottage and not knocking on the door?