Asteroid use

On Wed, 10 January 2001, "Darren Brown" wrote:

>
> --- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, "Robert Clements"
> wrote:
> > --- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, Darren Brown wrote:
> >
> > > Robert,
> > >
> > > From what I've read they can pull out of the treaty by just
> giving a
> > > years notice.
> >
> > That's still a process of repudiation; with all of the political
> > heartaches such a gesture will create in both USAmerican domestic &
> > international politics. If they HADN'T signed the treaty, the heat
> > would likely have been a lot less.
>
> Robert,
>
> Very possibly but politicians have the an incredible ability to
> overlook such things. I'm not sure I agree so much about the US
> domestic side of it though, still, not living there my view is
> coloured (the spelling of things like coloured says it all, really;-)
> by my measuring everything against by an Australian standard. And I
> have to say that all people have a tendency to overlook flaws and
> defects when it's their interests at stake. If a politician of any
> country stood and told his constituents that by getting out of this
> treaty he could lower the tax rate, people would be lining up to burn
> the thing. On top of this tendency is the fact, regrettable but
> true, that most people don't care much about this subject. Consider
> that in places, unlike Australia, where voting is optional, the
> biggest problem facing a party or interest group is managing to get
> enough people up off their bums and out to the polls. The key to
> getting a decent set of international laws and conditions to regulate
> and encourage space exploitation is to make it in the interests of
> the masses and to make sure they know it.
>
.............

The Treaty is not worth the paper it is printed on. As Al Globus pointed out, for the treaty to be effective it must be enforced.

Dust bunnies are composed of about 50% human and animal hair and skin cells. The other half is mostly made of micrometeorite residue, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of which are hitting the earth daily, and burning up in the atmosphere. Under the treaty, you can't develop these either, or even collect them in one heap with your vacuum cleaner. It is ridiculous.

Everything out there is there for whoever gets there first. IF YOU CAN CHANGE ITS ORBIT, IT'S YOURS. For those who are worried about preserving the larger bodies as natural wonders, we are a long way from being able to change the orbit of any of the major planets, or even their moons.

Hey, why not? Let's move Titan or Europa out of their orbits, and put them at the Earth-Sun L4 or L5 points. They could be new Earths, with a little terraforming know-how.

How much energy would it take to move Ganymede, Europa, or Titan out of their orbits? Not much, if we take a few tens of thousands of years to do it. A few billion well-placed devices, of various different propulsion characteristics, deployed with precicer timing and aided by gravity boosts from other moons, planets, etc...

Hey, this is SPACE we are talking about, think big or stay on earth.

:) ed

.........
>
> Darren Brown
>

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