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Under that logic, the Russians could claim outer space altogether.
by sebastien_b 6y ago
Under that logic, the Russians could claim outer space altogether.
- nickff 6y ago>" Under that logic, the Russians could claim outer space altogether." How so? The USA has had the most orbital launches so far in 2020, with China in second, and Russia in a very distant third. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_spaceflight#By_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_in_spaceflight#By_country
- sebastien_b 6y agoBut like the US were first on the moon, the Russians were first to send a satellite/someone in space. No one that's willing dismiss international treaties will care how many things anyone sent up - they'll only care who was the first.
- nickff 6y agoOkay, now I understand, but grandparent was talking about who was in the lead, not who was first. You generally can’t stake claims retroactively, so USSR could have made a claim, but failed to. On the other hand, it’s tough to distinguish regions of space, so I’m not sure it could stick.
- sebastien_b 6y agoNoted; basically I'm just saying that Musk won't care about treaties, and given the US' silence so far on his 'terms and conditions', I'm willing to bet they'd go along with it; in fact, wouldn't be surprised if the US 'suddenly' took things over and started staking claims.
- dividedbyzero 6y agoThey will care about who can make a defensible claim and defend it, on whatever real or made-up grounds. That will be 99% earthly politics and power projection and 1% space-to-space lasers for a long time to come.
- sebastien_b 6y agoAnd as far as (total) successful/operational missions go, I wouldn't call the USA as being ahead by that much anyways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon