The current US administration’s plans were to send astronauts to Mars. That’s now been dropped, and the emphasis will now be to compete with China and try to build a base before them. Who starts a lunar base first matters. Although the Outer Space Treaty prohibits anyone from claiming lunar territory, whoever sets up a base can claim some sort of rights to the site and its vicinity.
The best site will be somewhere on the south pole (this means almost continuous sunlight) with access to frozen water at the bottom of craters. It’s possible that extensive lava tubes for radiation protection will be important, too. China’s plans envision its base being built inside these. The number of places with easy access to water and lots of lava tubes may be very small, and some much better than others. Presumably whoever gets there first will get the best spot.
Who will get there first? It remains to be seen. The US’s weakness is that it is relying on SpaceX’s Starship to first achieve a huge number of technical goals, and so far, SpaceX is far behind schedule on those.
I always thought we should have done more on the moon. we should be working out automated construction and things likespace elevators. Things to push technology forward and just use the moon as a nice safe (in the sense that if things go wrong no one gets hurt) and relatively close mass of stuff. If we can do everything we might want to do there then the technology is that much more along for the next steps.
I mean, it makes sense anyway, since the moon is closer and doesn’t have that difficult atmosphere.
But… sigh…
The atmosphere of Mars is arguably a feature. Otherwise it’s the same thing, just way further away.
The USA keeps changing focus between Mars and the Moon, and the current administration let go of hundreds of NASA employees.
I wish the folks at NASA success but fear it’s going to be difficult with their current management.
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Time to get boobs on the moon.
Turning out to be a prophetic show. I just hope John Malkovich gets to be part of it all.
Christ what if humans worked together 🙄
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Although the Outer Space Treaty prohibits anyone from claiming lunar territory, whoever sets up a base can claim some sort of rights to the site and its vicinity.
I think what the Outer Space Treaty and its contemporary interpretation says is this:
- Claiming a whole celestial body (e.g. Moon, Mars) is NOT allowed
- Claiming a small territory (1 km² max) IS allowed, if you can set foot there and meaningfully utilize the land area (e.g. excavation)
Right, I’m pretty sure the outer space treaty is based on the Antarctica Treaty, and countries can still establish research facilities down there. This feels similar
The thing is that contemporary interpretations of the outer space treaty differ significantly from what’s actually written in the text. In the text, it just says that “no nation can claim a celestial body for itself”.
This contains not only one, but two fallacies:
- that it’s only “nations” that could possibly reach a celestial body to claim it
- and that only a whole celestial body could be claimed at once
both are wrong. and that’s why we have contemporary interpreters today saying that the paper is total bullshit and should be completely overhauled/rewritten.
How cute you guys think international law still matters to the US.
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