Alternitive to the Outer Space Treaty

[tater]

I think we should use any weapons we like in space, and we should in fact claim the moon, since we planted our flag on it. Is that political?

4 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Because right now, space is the only true area of peace, and we should keep it that way

This is pixie dust level stuff. Agreeing on "peace" would be non-political, but disagreeing would be political?

 

Edited April 9, 2016 by tater

[Damien_The_Unbeliever]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

I think we should use any weapons we like in space, and we should in fact claim the moon, since we planted our flag on it. Is that political?

 

Who is this "we", pilgrim? If you're saying "humanity", then probably yes, So far as we know, we were the first to plant a flag there, and for lack of a better standard, asserting that we own our own moons is sensible, I agree. If by "we", you mean "the USA", you may want to remember that there's an international audience here :-|

[tater]

How can your tags possibly make any sense---that there should be no reason for politics in this discussion? Any alternative would be a new treaty. A new treaty would be enacted via a very political process.

[Kryten]

If we're pretending planting a flag counts as a claim, then the soviets have priority. They landed pennants on the moon all the away back in '59, as part of Luna 2.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, Damien_The_Unbeliever said:

Who is this "we", pilgrim? If you're saying "humanity", then probably yes, So far as we know, we were the first to plant a flag there, and for lack of a better standard, asserting that we own our own moons is sensible, I agree. If by "we", you mean "the USA", you may want to remember that there's an international audience here :-|

Note the wink.

That said, the world didn't plant a flag on the moon, one country did. The treaties that were created to prevent that from being a claim were hammered out politically. Any change or opinion regarding those political agreements is by definition political.

Edited April 9, 2016 by tater

[Damien_The_Unbeliever]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

Note the wink.

I did. But did you realise that it works on at least three levels? Should the planting of a flag by a citizen from the USA grant certain rights? Should the planting of a flag by a human grant certain rights? Should the planting of a flag by an living organism originating from Earth grant certain rights?

[tater]

The only bit that matters is country in the case of Apollo as it was funded with public (US)) money.

[Thor Wotansen]

I would treat the issue as the American government did with westward expansion in the early to mid 1800s (of course I realize that this image is not ideal due to the tendency of settlers to displace native americans).  The first guy there stakes a claim and subsequently has the rights to the area, in the case of asteroids he (or she) gets the whole thing and in the case of planets perhaps an area around his base.  I wouldn't expect large Martian cities to be too close to each other to begin with due to potential competition for resources.  And yes, I do believe that once a Martian or even moon colony becomes self sufficient they will most likely declare independence of government from Earth countries/organizations.

[tater]

Yeah, the existing treaty is bad. You'd need to hammer out for planets how much can be claimed. Would the area be set by having people walk the perimeter?  Would they be granted X km^2 per person landed? Any such new treaty would involve.... politics. What the US and private business wants, vs governments. 

I still think OP tends to make some threads that are equivalent to a 2016 election thread with tags added that say "even if this is technically politics there should be no reason to talk about politics here." Wait, what?

Edited April 9, 2016 by tater

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, tater said:

It's always funny when a thread is started that is nothing but politics, that then says, "don't discuss politics."

Any discussion that involves treaties, or international relations is political, and any discussion that avoids all politics effectively avoids all real content.

The same applies to threads about what NASA should/could do, for example. Without politics, you might as well be talking about treaties among unicorns.

You can keep it pretty technical and analyze benefits and downsides of various strategies. Lots of the asteroid defence plans involves nuclear bombs. 
No its not legal under the OST but the parts will simply suspend / ignore it in an serious setting. 

An more realistic setting is some country set of an nuke in deep space saying its about asteroid defense, but its main purpose is an nuclear bomb test. 
I don't see anything wrong about this either, as in if the US or Russia verify that their bombs still work or might cut 5% of weight has no security impact, deep space is far outside moon orbit so no fallout or emp. 

[tater]

The problem is that changing any treaty is a 100% political activity, and given the body that makes such laws, people will get to vote who... arrange their entire lives around fantasy (I'm trying to be as diplomatic as possible here). It's an irrational system, so technical arguments don't matter. The countries that actually do space will have variant political interests and might disagree.

[YumonStudios]

 

16 hours ago, Mare Veris said:

Alive astronauts or dead? You could cheat by dropping dead bodies on all the planets.

And if an alive astronaut is necessary, then when your last astronaut dies, would the land be free again?

If it would not be freed, then you could cheat by sending still-alive expendables to quickly arrive and die on the surface.

If the land would be free, then you could just kill the last astronaut of some other party, and then claim the land. This would mean that you would always have to send your colonists guarded by armies. So, nothing changes.

Why would you air-bomb dead bodies just to claim land? Just send a pressurized rover with alive humans- 3-4 missions can theoretically cover the entirety of Mars. I think that's why you need to base land claims in space on a manned base or outpost of at least 4 people, with a 100km radius around it.

And by the time land is so precious on Mars or asteroids that they'll start killing others, you'll have quite a few people in each base. You'd basically have to slaughter a small village, which could be considered an act of war.

That's probably enough to prevent that from ever happening.

16 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Alive, but weapons wouldn't go with them, and would be well trained, which also brings this up: Now, I completely agree with that one, space should not have weapons, it should stay peaceful, unless aliens decide to shoot at us, but after we take care of that, it should return to a peaceful state.

Also, despite relations between the US and Russia, Astronauts and Cosmonauts get along very well together, so in the future, relations between different Astronauts from different countries would likely be relaxed rather than tense.

I think that once space gets used enough, war is inevitable, and someone will just break the treaty anyways.

15 hours ago, Steel said:

But that is just a false claim to history. Why would they be the best of humanity if they are from a nation hell-bent on claiming land on another planet with the intent to exclude others?

 

Also historically explorers claiming new lands represent the worst of humanity, usually bringing disease and destroying cultures that have been around for years

Because people in a rival nation today are generally better off alive than dead due to globalization and free trade.

Also, there is literally nothing to bring disease to and destroy cultures of in the inner solar system, except maybe Martian bacteria.

14 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Nuclear packages are not weapons unless they are intended for offensive use. Hydrazine could be an extremely effective biological WMD but that doesn't mean using it in an engine constitutes "putting a WMD in space".

Likewise, the atmospheric test ban treaty does not prohibit peaceful use of nuclear explosives. 

The test ban treaty bans weapons of mass destruction in space in general. There was to be an exception for Orion, but the Soviets didn't like it, since they feared it could be used as a loophole to send nukes in space.

And even if it was legal, you need a very good reason to build an Orion in the first place.

12 hours ago, tater said:

2016 election thread

Good idea for a new KSP forums thread

[Andem]

On April 9, 2016 at 11:41 AM, Kryten said:

That would also be completely invalid, it's not the 17th century anymore.

Well duh. I made a gross simplification intentionally, but point taken.

[tater]

On April 9, 2016 at 11:35 AM, Kryten said:

If we're pretending planting a flag counts as a claim, then the soviets have priority. They landed pennants on the moon all the away back in '59, as part of Luna 2.

Two issues. One, there is no Soviet Union, so there is no longer a claim. Two, the US disagrees, and it can be solved the way territorial claims have historically been solved, treaties, or war.

See, it's political

No exceptions to the WMD thing was... political. It was not about "peace," it was the fact that the US could plausibly have done something the CCCP could not, so they vetoed it. Political. It's all politics.

[Darnok]

On 9.04.2016 at 4:53 PM, Steel said:

OK, so what's to stop China (just an example, could be any nation) landing the first man on mars, claiming it as part of the People's Republic of China and claiming that any attempt to land on it will be trespassing/ a border violation/ an invasion?

Same thing that was since we learned to draw animals on caves walls... if you have army large enough to defend this territory it is yours.

[Kryten]

Actually orbital nuclear weapons were more of a soviet idea, they wanted them to bypass the early warning and potentially ABM systems that were being set up in the US. They even did produce an operational orbital weapons system (R-36ORB, or FOBS to the US), for these reasons-it would have stayed for less than a full orbit, so was judged not to be against the treaty.

[Steel]

2 minutes ago, Darnok said:

Same thing that was since we learned to draw animals on caves walls... if you have army large enough to defend this territory it is yours.

Exactly my argument, you cannot regulate borders effectively without military force.

[Darnok]

9 minutes ago, Steel said:

Exactly my argument, you cannot regulate borders effectively without military force.

That is why this treaty is pure nonsense... it is for people that have no idea how world works. It is like saying that no country can claim land in North and South America after they were discovered

Edited April 11, 2016 by Darnok

[Mitrae]

Don't worry, the treaty will be re-negociated when interstellar colonization would be possible ;).

We can wait a little (!), but for now it is just a "Earth orbit / Moon = neutral zone" treaty. And I think it could be worse.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Mitrae