Implications of private space flight

[Art Vandelay]

Platforms in international waters must fly a flag for their country of origin, and they are governed under the laws of that country.

Kinda begging the question, aren't you? The declaration by Country X that platforms must fly a flag for their country is binding only if you accept that the platform is bound by declarations by Country X.

 

[The Don]

Moon-based lasers.

I believe the correct technical term in that context is

Moon-based "lasers"

 

[a_unique_person]

I didn't realise the thing was so small

 

[Soapy Sam]

Am I the only person here who thinks it's just the sexiest flying machine since the Spitfire?

 

[richardm]

Am I the only person here who thinks it's just the sexiest flying machine since the Spitfire?

It is a sexy little thing. It looks so much like a spaceship ought to look like!

Re: all the doom-and-gloom merchants - there are already numerous commercial launch platforms about the planet, and if you happen to be an eccentric billionaire who wants to put up a spy satellite, I'm sure they'd be happy to let you.

 

[Mark]

It is a sexy little thing. It looks so much like a spaceship ought to look like!

Re: all the doom-and-gloom merchants - there are already numerous commercial launch platforms about the planet, and if you happen to be an eccentric billionaire who wants to put up a spy satellite, I'm sure they'd be happy to let you.

Exciting, inspiring, awesome, hopeful, etc.

But sexy? As wonderful as this craft is (and it is), I, for one, have no desire whatsoever to have sex with it. I mean, eeeew!

 

[StuBob]

about time

I'm with you, LostAngeles. I've had high hopes for the space program for the last 30 years only to see it go nowhere. NASA is now a bloated agency that funds lots of extraneous research and isn't focusing on space travel. Not entirely their fault, I suppose, but now I've about figured that the private sector is humankind's best bet to get off planet. I still have high hopes for China, though, as they strike me as able to push projects with lifetimes longer than 8 years.

The next year or so should prove interesting if Rutan et al can win the X-prize.

On to Mars, says I!

 

[crimresearch]

At this stage, I remain unconvinced that it is much more than some wealthy adventurers re-enacting a half century old event, choosing to fly a small plane out of the atmosphere, instead of climbing Everest, or hot air ballooning around the world.

 

[richardm]

Exciting, inspiring, awesome, hopeful, etc.

But sexy? As wonderful as this craft is (and it is), I, for one, have no desire whatsoever to have sex with it. I mean, eeeew!

Do you have to actually want to have sex with something before acknowledging that it is sexy?

For example, I'm happy to agree that Russell Crowe is sexy. But I assure you I have not the slightest desire to have sex with him

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

So, if say, Paul Allen were funding a sub-orbital space vehicle capable of carrying a hundred pound payload, that would be supressed, right?

This private space program is not unregulated, it is merely private. There is government permission up the wazoo here. This isn't highlighted because the backers are government approved private aviators from the get go. Plus extra permission for their latest feats.

These "eccentric millionaires" are not guys quietly cobbling together a spacecraft in their basement, like in some thriller novel. Everything is in the open and officially approved. As it must be to happen at all.

If some Mad Arab nobody had heard of, let's call him Abdul Alhazred or John Smith, suddenly came up with a whole bunch of money and started to develop an ICBM, he'd disappear.

Manufacturing an ICBM or a spacecraft isn't like manufacturing land mines or suicide belts. It really can't be done in secret except by a government, or with the complicity of a government.

And as has amply been shown, terrorists don't need to develop fancy equipment to sow terror. Indeed that would be a waste of their time from their point of view.

 

[Mark]

For example, I'm happy to agree that Russell Crowe is sexy. But I assure you I have not the slightest desire to have sex with him

Oh, sure, you say that now.

I was just goofing. But...OK, on a more serious note (read pedantic), sexy means sexually attractive. Personally, I don't find anything other than females of my species to be sexually attractive. Well, maybe Viggo Mortensen after 12 beers and 6 months on a submarine.

 

[LostAngeles]

Oh, sure, you say that now.

I was just goofing. But...OK, on a more serious note (read pedantic), sexy means sexually attractive. Personally, I don't find anything other than females of my species to be sexually attractive. Well, maybe Viggo Mortensen after 12 beers and 6 months on a submarine.

Viggo Mortensen is sexy only as Aragorn. I'd drop from alcohol poisoning before I'd bed him.

I would love to caress that machine in a tender way. It's sexy without the need for sex.

 

[StaticEngine]

The flag thing is International Law for International Waters. It's not up to any one country, it's treaty signed by all nations, and enforced by all nations.

 

[wjousts]

Am I the only person here who thinks it's just the sexiest flying machine since the Spitfire?

It is cool, but the landing gear is so wimpy looking. Let's the whole thing down.

 

[Abdul Alhazred]

The flag thing is International Law for International Waters. It's not up to any one country, it's treaty signed by all nations, and enforced by all nations.

Interesting. I seem to recall an Outer Space Treaty from the 1960s that in principle precludes governments from claiming territory. Thus the USA does not own the moon just because of planting the flag.

But what if having territory on the moon were actually useful, as it might be at some point? Treaty breaking time for whoever establishes bases, I suppose. Or serious re-negotiation.

And is outer space "international waters" or something else? That is a legal question that has not previously been important. The extention by analogy is not obvious.

The real crunch will come, not when private spaceflight as such becomes profitable, but when resources in outer space become economically important. Other than mere presence in orbit as with satellites.

Everything anticipatable about private space flight is already under strict government regulation.

Nobody owns the moon.

What if somebody can reliably and repeatedly make trips to the moon? Not tourist trips, but trips that make money off "native" lunar resources in some way.

Whose law applies? That represented by the national flag of the private spacecraft as it would be on a merchant ship?

Will there be a body of Liberian and Panamanian space law as a result?

Will the flag of Panama be carried to the stars by non-Panamanians because it was once a good flag of convenience for ships passing through the Panama canal at one time?