Chinese Eyes Territorial Claim Of Outer Space

spacedaily.com ^ | 21 Jan 02 | Wei Long

[Arkinsaw]

It's easy to make a big grandiose plan and announce it.

But...these guys have, as far as I know, never put a man in orbit. Big talk, no walk.

The Chinese communist leaders are so tight its unreal. I have my doubts that they are willing to have the whole world focused on their manned rocket launch if there is the slightest chance that the thing will fall over or blow up. They are not known as great risk takers. They can't stand to lose the smallest amount of face.

We were able to put a man on the moon because we are risk takers. When our shuttle exploded we mourned the victims, worried about the path of our space program, and then went on. The least of our worries was about whether we "lost face" or if it was embarassing. On the contrary we dug in and aired our dirty laundry for the world to see to make things better. We are able to do this because we are confident of who we are and what we are about. The Chinese leaders are not...for good reason. The Chinese leaders would be quaking in their boots if they disappointed the Chinese people by botching a moon landing attempt or had a couple of losses in a row.

The Chinese have been unable to establish a blue water navy. They have been unable to manufacture a top of the line quiet submarine. They have been unable to construct a rudimentary amphibious threat for use against their tiny neighbor. Their jet fighters are either Russian designs or other knock-offs and from photos are shoddy. They've been unable to put together a decent satellite launch capability without stealing that capability from us through espionage or through us being suckers. They want an aircraft carrier but have been unable to overcome the technical hurdles of operating jet aircraft off a pitching deck day and night consistently (it's hard).

I'm not saying that they can't do it, or won't do it. But for the moment, I ain't skeert.

[Arkinsaw]

It's easy to make a big grandiose plan and announce it.

But...these guys have, as far as I know, never put a man in orbit. Big talk, no walk.

The Chinese communist leaders are so tight its unreal. I have my doubts that they are willing to have the whole world focused on their manned rocket launch if there is the slightest chance that the thing will fall over or blow up. They are not known as great risk takers. They can't stand to lose the smallest amount of face.

We were able to put a man on the moon because we are risk takers. When our shuttle exploded we mourned the victims, worried about the path of our space program, and then went on. The least of our worries was about whether we "lost face" or if it was embarassing. On the contrary we dug in and aired our dirty laundry for the world to see to make things better. We are able to do this because we are confident of who we are and what we are about. The Chinese leaders are not...for good reason. The Chinese leaders would be quaking in their boots if they disappointed the Chinese people by botching a moon landing attempt or had a couple of losses in a row.

The Chinese have been unable to establish a blue water navy. They have been unable to manufacture a top of the line quiet submarine. They have been unable to construct a rudimentary amphibious threat for use against their tiny neighbor. Their jet fighters are either Russian designs or other knock-offs and from photos are shoddy. They've been unable to put together a decent satellite launch capability without stealing that capability from us through espionage or through us being suckers. They want an aircraft carrier but have been unable to overcome the technical hurdles of operating jet aircraft off a pitching deck day and night consistently (it's hard).

I'm not saying that they can't do it, or won't do it. But for the moment, I ain't skeert.

[Doctor Doom]

Disband NASA and reject the international treaties, opening space up to private exploration and private property claims.

That's how we beat the Chinese and other collectivists.

[borghead]

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I actually think that a space race for military and economic resources is a very good thing. Remember in the 15th century the Chinese were centuries ahead of the Europeans in naval technology but since all their exploratory missions where done by that 1 government without any competitive influence, China never consolidated its holding. But because the european explorers aggresively competed with eachother to overseas colones, they quickly explored and conquored the entire world, thus the west is now the dominant force on earth.

[borghead]

It is true that China lack many technologies that would make them the equal of the U.S, but you have to take into account just how primitive that country was to begin with. In 1982, the entire GDP of that country of a billion people was equal to the GDP of belgium. The entire city of shanghai(8 million people at that time) had 1 fax machine. To go from a nation of rice fields and water bufflos into a global economic powerhouse thats planning to expand its permanant infrasture into space in just 20 years is no small thing.

[vannrox]

Thank you Mr. Clinton, for giving away our 25 year advantage in Space Flight technology to the Chinese.

[Prodigal Son]

Actually, the Moon and our solar system's other known planets and their moons are owned by Dennis Hope, a Californian. Here's how he did it...

Actually, I own a plot myself. I figure if it works out- hey! I've got something and if not I've got a hokey souvenir for the wall. It's certainly no worse than buying a lottery ticket every week for a year.

I figure it like this: If I and my fellow owners really need to put a physical presence on the moon, it shouldn't actually be that outlandish a thing to do. Who says it has to be huge? A tiny chip powered device on your plot that measures radio signal intensity for instance. Your numbers say he has 300,000 owners. $100 a head would get you a $3 billion mission. Some of the owners are quite rich- Tom Cruise for example. I think it should be financially feasible to fund an unmanned mission to the moon, using 1960s technology, to deposit my "radio intensity monitors" on everyone's plot. Then you'd have a physical presence on the lunar surface and an infrastructure of functioning "equipment" to validate your claim.

Call me kooky. My wife does. Like I say though, the money could have spent on the lottery, drugs or tawdry pleasure in the red light district and I would have just as much to show for it. ;-)

[Brett66]

They are not known as great risk takers. They can't stand to lose the smallest amount of face.

I agree with that assessment, however, the Chinese will simply ban reporters from the area when they attempt something with great risk. I saw a show on the Discovery channel about rocket failures. They had a part where the Chinese were first testing their Long March rocket. The thing veered off the launch pad right after it cleared the tower and crashed into a nearby town. The thing almost demolished that town, they think up to 500 people died in that incident. The Chinese made all of the reporters stay at the launch site for three hours. They sent in their army to clean the place up and let reporters see it, but not photograph it. Some reporter on the bus smuggled a camcorder on the bus and videoed the military in the town standing gaurd over the devastation. The Chinese put the reporters on the quickest plane out of China. They're obviously very commited to this effort because they continued with their Long March program unabated.

[Brett66]

I actually think that a space race for military and economic resources is a very good thing.

Government money spent on NASA is better used there than all of the other social engineering Tomfoolery the government indulges in. At least with NASA we get to see the good and bad uses our money is used for. You never see the graft,corruption and misuse of funds that occur with social programs.

[Key]

sounds like it will be a space station like Babylon 5

[Brett66]

Mr. Hope has other legal problems besides the potential problem with corpus possidendi.

Here's an excerpt from the spacefuture website:

Another reason for invalidating Hope's claim is that - as it is detailed in another paper of mine published in Space Policy32 - landed property rights cannot survive without protection from a sovereign entity, such as it is the case with the extraterrestrial realms.

In sustaining his claims, Hope also invokes the silence of the authorities, both US and foreign. The Lunar Embassy felt "obliged to inform the General Assembly of the United Nations, and the Russian Government in writing of the claim and the legal intent of selling extraterrestrial properties33"; however, "[t]he US Government has several years to contest such a claim. They never did. Neither did the United Nations nor the Russian Government".34

Still, as Yehuda Z. Blum notes, -

"the absence of protest is relevant in the formation of an historic title only in those cases in which protest would have been expected to be forthcoming, had the affected State really wished its objection to be made known. There are situations ... in which an inference of acquiescence cannot be justifiably drawn from the simple fact of absence of protest35".

Indeed, protest was not to be expected from the UN and USSR, when confronted with such trivial claim; actually, the Soviet reaction to earlier lunar real estate affairs was that of a good laugh: "[a]s for appropriating celestial bodies, only American speculators trade in lots on the Moon..." - Soviet jurists commented36.

The heart of the matter, as well as the reason for the silence of the authorities lays, nevertheless, elsewhere. According to Saint-Germain, what Hope is doing is "not a joke, and it's perfectly legal37". A choice has to be made, though: it is either a joke, and thus legal, or it is not a joke, and thus illegal. As the Lunar Embassy itself points out, the Lunar Deeds are "novelty gifts"38. Their legal classification as novelty items means that these are to be used animus jocandi, i.e for fun only. It is not illegal to sell or to possess novelty items; it is illegal though to misuse them outwith the "novelty use only" scope. Other companies sell items such as one-million-dollar bills, or camouflage passports from inexisting countries, or "Area 51" license plates that, as long as they are commercialised and used as "novelty gifts", do not upset the authorities. Even in the case of Juergens, if, by any chance - however remote may be - Frederick the Great gave the Moon to his ancestor, this must have been made animus jocandi.

I'm no legal expert (though I did stay at a Holiday Inn once) but it appears that once serious scrutiny is brought to bear on his claims that anyone with a serious legal challenge, and the will to back it up, will be able to blow his claims out of the water.

[Junior]

Something has got to get us off this dinky little planet. If it takes Chinese interest in the "final frontier" to light a fire under the bureaucrats at NASA, so be it. Space is man's birthright; we don't need a lot of short-sighted public feeders-at-the-trough-of-government keeping us down.

[Junior]

America reached the moon with '60s technology. The Chinese are a tad bit more advanced than that. Hell, one could build a rotating space station with 50s-era technology. But, as everything in America has to be gold-plated and sextuple-redundant and costs about a thousand times more than its worth, we're never going to go anywhere again.

[Alamo-Girl]

Sigh... Thanks for the heads up!

[RightWhale]

Bush is busy now with a war

When we say President Bush, we refer to his whole administration. The President has the final decision in each issue and in each matter, but he doesn't do all the research, nor even most of it. How many people work in this administration? 10,000? 20,000? How many are working on the war? 1000?

There are other things happening. Bush has a new man at NASA, and I would bet that if O'Keefe directed one of the hordes of federal lawyers to look into property rights in space a report would be forthcoming. There might even be an EO for Bush to sign that would create an office similar to the old Land Office. Space Lands Office. File your claim at the SLO. Being bureaucratic it might well be slow.

[RightWhale]

A simple renouncement of citizenship to any nation would screw up the theory of the "legal experts" out there

It comes down to what can be enforced.

The essence of property is that it can be used by the owner and the use thereof be denied to all other men.

Either be prepared and capable of defending your property by force, or be under the umbrella of protection of a large enough community that will back up your claim for you. A community like the USA.

[RightWhale]

corpus possidendi

The land survey markers actually in the ground are taken as proof.

Interesting that Mao Tse Tung made his career in public administration by going around to the various land records offices, emptying out the file cabinets and torching the land records. He also pulled up survey markers wherever he found them.

Is this who will conquer space? Communists who don't recognize private property?