Apollo 11 – The Eagle Prepares to Land
The Eagle Prepares to Land, NASA
“The Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle, in a landing configuration was photographed in lunar orbit from the Command and Service Module Columbia. Inside the module were Commander Neil A. Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin.”
I like the CBS news coverage of the landing.
http://youtu.be/E96EPhqT-ds
I sure hope there’s a skunk-works somewhere working on a lander.
James Lundblad
wrote
NASA is certainly working on a cargo lander. Some high up could ask them to write a report saying what is needed to permit human landings.
Wasn’t there some kind of exploration module that could be the ascent stage on the lander? I really like the idea of having the redundancy of a lifeboat module.
We may be limited to the cabins and content massing no more than 2 tonnes.
If I had my wish, I’d want 4K 3D optical live linked to every movie theater in the country. Either visiting the Apollo 11 site (subject to the rules), or suitable science site. I wonder if the rovers are serviceable?
45 years and still no plans to go back.We are creating an opportunity for others to grab our legacy and shut us out. Terrible.
Exactly HOW are “others” going to “shut us out”?
Who are the others?
Our legacy is being the first to place humans on Luna and return them safely. How can “others” land before us and steal that legacy?
Steal the legacy. The USA’s Apollo legacy is a paragraph in the history books.
The country that builds the Moon Base and mines the planet gets the money.
That in no way suggests that we will be “shut out” or have our legacy “stolen”. The Moon is a big place. There’s room for many interests there.
If China lands on the moon with human crews, establishes a presence, and shuts the door on anyone else, at least for all the resource laden area, it
will be as if the US had never been there.
If you doubt it, then you might think about whether we should have considered the Russians as reliable partners.
We do agree on the Outer Space Treaty, but then do you think China would be inclined to honor it ? Or the Russians for that matter if they ever decide to go.
How is China going to shut the door on anyone else? The Moon has a lot of surface area, you know. How exactly will they or the Russians keep anyone else from establishing a presence on the Moon?
A some outposts and a few satellites would pretty much do it.
I know this is a little off the wall but with all of the latest coverage
right now it might be a good time to declare the Apollo landing sites
some kind of Lunar Heritage sites. With the advancements happening in
the private sector, soon tourist and collectors may be rummaging around
on the moon, stealing parts off of the Apollo landers / equipment and
destroying the foot prints in the area. There should be a 50M keep out
zone around the landers.
the US already has, complete with guidelines on how to avoid flying over the landing sites so they are not disturbed.
http://www.nasaspaceflight….
from the outer space treaty of 1967:
“Article VIII
A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer space or on a celestial body. Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth. Such objects or component parts found beyond the limits of the State Party of the Treaty on whose registry they are carried shall be returned to that State Party, which shall, upon request, furnish identifying data prior to their return.”
You basically still own all the hardware you land on Luna. It is also states that the immediate surroundings are also protected. That is why we saw a rash of countries dropping hardware on the moon. China, India, Japan, EU … all have national hertiage sites, by definition because they all dropped hardware for that exact purpose.
The government will never space the taxpayer’s dollars in the amounts needed to pay both for the hardware AND the pork premium, through current contracting methods, to get us on the moon.
The funding will have to come from the private sector, it can toss hundreds of billions in investment capital at problems. Capital will not flow to sectors without well established property rights.
(drags the dead horse out once again and starts beating it)
Tackle the property rights issue, rewrite the outer space treaty and capital will flow to Luna and open the frontier.
Maybe we should have an Astronaut change his name to Custer, land him on the mountain ridges of shakleton crater and shout GOLD!
Why is that necessary? I’ve never understood this meme that the OST prevents development.
Only traditional sovereignty is forbidden. But that’s a good thing. Otherwise anyone could arbitrarily declare themselves owners of the entire moon, or Mars, or asteroid belt.
Meanwhile, the treaty requires all parties to avoid interfering in each others activities. So if I build an ice mine at the Lunar pole, you can’t a) prevent me by claiming sovereignty, b) take it over even if it’s unmanned, or c) intercept shipments of me lovely icy treasures.
In libertarian terms, it’s “homesteader law” rather than “state sovereignty”. You can only claim a site that is operational, that you have established, altered or improved. Unimproved land is open for all.
What is missing is a way of preventing the USA, Russia, China and Zimbabwe all granting their companies mining permits in the same small crater.
No, what’s missing is a legal basis for them to grant mining permits to non-terrestrial bodies.
That’s what the elimination of state sovereignty over land means. No “permits”, no “leases”, no “grants”. In space, if you land at a site, the site is yours while you are there, and your operations can’t be interfered with by another party.
There’ll be edge cases (define “interfere”), but the treaty requires all parties to “obey international law”, so there’s plenty of room for non-treaty legal precedents to be established to round off the sharp points.
(Zimbabwe?)
Paul451 – are you talking US law or international law?
Under international law the US Federal Government can grant mining permits under Article I (exploitation) and Article VI (… The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty.)
A permit is authorisation so the US Government has international authorisation.
So only US law needs changing to allow some US Government agency to issue permits.
As for Zimbabwe, its government is nationalising valuable things like farms and mines.
I’m talking about the Outer Space Treaty.
The right to grant permits to explore/drill/mine is only necessary because of state sovereignty. All land is assumed to be claimed by someone, and legal systems on Earth (including international law) assume such claims of sovereignty. The only exception is international waters.
“Authorization” in the OST is not the same as the sovereign right to grant title. “Authorization” just means having a “flag of registry”, as a ship. No nation can “grant mining rights” because no nation can claim land sovereignty in space. Therefore different nations cannot grant competing rights. The first entity to utilise a site effectively owns the site, but even then only to the limits of their “operations/activities”.
But we are so used to the idea of sovereign rights, of ideas of land titles, that we can’t wrap our heads around a realm where that doesn’t exist.
People argue that we need a system of land titles because companies won’t invest without that guarantee. But companies developing on Earth need that guarantee in order to prevent someone else claiming the site they are developing. However, in space, the existence of one party at a site automatically precludes any claim by another (because such claims have no legal basis), or any interference.
That title is also an asset. A mineral rights claim, is an asset, a water rights claim is an asset. These assets get to be put on the books. They get to be used for collateral for loans, they generate income royalties for leasing rights. They can be bought and sold. claims for rights can be a huge chunk of the asset base of some types of exploration companies. They also serve several functions in the financial resource markets. I doubt space will run as a seperate system.
Makes you wonder how shipping companies operate without owning the title to the oceans.
Why should you be able tax something that’s not owned?
Resource taxes/royalties for mining are because the minerals are on sovereign land; land owned by the “people”, therefore the central government demands payment for permanently removing that resource, in addition to normal income/business taxes.
In space, everyone has agreed that there is no fundamental “owner” of the resource. So only normal business taxes would apply, paid depending on where you were registered. (Which inevitably means a low/zero tax flag-of-convenience nation.)
[Laughs]. “Billions”? There are estimated trillions hidden off-shore, just from Earthly businesses. And international corporations routinely change their “headquarters” to low-tax nations to avoid paying taxes in the nations they actually operate and take profits.
[There’s also a zero-g/zero-tax movement in the US trying to get laws passed to exempt in-space activities from taxation to try to encourage development.]
I was talking about the libertarian “homestead” principle of ownership without sovereignty. (I’m not a libertarian, but the OST essentially creates a pseudo-libertarian situation. You need to register a “flag”, and allow international inspections, but otherwise it’s first-come, owner’s-rights.)
cars and trucks don’t own roads either. Why the hell would a shipping company have to own the entire path they travel on. A better anology would be airlines that get the rights to travel from city to city.
The freedom of the seas has proved one thing, we are overfishing the oceans and more and more spots of the ocean are “owned” for commercial fish farms.
I know you seem to like the idea of the unregulated wild west where miners were shot. I prefer a simplier solution, you drill where you have the right to.
I am in favor of zeroG zeroTax but if you think uncle sugar is going to allow unregulated profit taking …
And yet they exist. You implied that companies couldn’t operate without a title or permit to put on their corporate asset register. I was pointing out that entire industries exist without such property rights over the realm they occupy.
What “better analogy”?! Why are people so determined to manufacture some artificial need for land title in space? There is no need, and the OST thankfully prevents nations from forcing such a situation.
There are no fish in space. Nor whales. Nor forests. Nor natives to be exploited or displaced. And there are no existing communities, towns, states, who rights are usurped when a mining company takes their resources without compensation.
All the circumstances that caused us to create land title and mineral permits and resource royalties, etc, none of those exist out in space However, the rights of first occupier are inherently protected, as is the right to conduct activities.
The OST is vastly better than a situation where nations have the power to arbitrarily claim land-title over bodies and territory. And it’s better than true lawlessness, or true libertarianism. You have the best possible mix of nation-state protections, international law, and the right of free access.
Sigh. Why is this so hard. The lack of land sovereignty doesn’t eliminate the rule of law.
There’s a strong legal distinction between “real” property (land/etc) and “personal” property (everything else). The OST forbids “real” property, but insists on nations respecting the rights of other nation’s “personal” property, and the right to conduct operations. (And I think I could make a pretty strong argument that shooting a miner interferes with his activities.)
The OST doesn’t create a lawless realm. It specifically burdens nations with responsibility over their actions (and by extension) the actions of their corporations.
It’s the ideal case.
And the OST guarantees the simplest solution of all: Everyone has the right.
As I said, corporations routinely manipulate their “flag” to reduce their tax burden. Yet countries allow it. (Hell, they effectively encourage it, by allowing corporations to shift “profit” centres between divisions/subsidiaries through legal fictions.) I realise the myth of the limitless all-taxing machine is dominate, but it’s stupid.
How do you tax something that is not owned? I honestly do not believe our government will allow hundreds of billions of profits to happen without taxation.
Homesteader law is a grant from that government which controls that land the homesteader is staking a claim to.
A closer anology would be the freedom to rape .. I mean the freedom of the seas treaty.
I don’t think yelling “Custer!” would be much of an inducement. Now yelling “Sutter!” on the other hand…
A really cool Apollo 11 documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
As previously noted we created an entry with this and many other Apollo 11 videos.
http://spaceref.com/mission…