Starship Orbital Test Flight - 4/20 Launch

[hridge2020]

"Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_real_estate

Well, once you leave this world (earth)
no regulations from this world will apply to the new planet, if you have the only spacecraft to get there and you have your own workforce, and protection unit in place.

 

[Ogre]

That also means the ground won't be quite as dense and the lack of water means it will be less compacted. Some parts could be like bulldust here, which is actually dangerous as it likes filling potholes etc


For a repulsive landing that would turn a Starship into a Boring machine, and it would land in Mars not on it, let alone cover the engines etc.

Unless they do a orbital transfer to another vehicle, they also need to take enough fuel with when they land, so togethercwith a useful payload will generally be quite heavy for a Mars landing.

Landing won’t require near as much thrust as this, but it would definitely move a ***LOT*** of dust unless they send something in ahead to create a landing zone. They might find a rocky plateau?

As for fuel, they need to have some kind of fuel generation on planet otherwise I’m not sure this would work at all.

 

[charliemagpie]

Maybe we should send criminals first.

Worked for Australia ?

 

[JBee]

The criminals being starving bread theives because anybody worse was executed...

 

[charliemagpie]

ICE buyers then

 

[JBee]

Well, once you leave this world (earth)
no regulations from this world will apply to the new planet, if you have the only spacecraft to get there and you have your own workforce, and protection unit in place.

You are actually much, much closer to the truth than you probably think.

Although now seldomly used anymore due to lack of new land discoveries on Earth, all land claims fall under international maritime law, being in essence first people to occupy and flag land bounded by sea. The US law doesn't apply as such, nor unratified international treaties, before which time the USA claimed the moon with a flag, before the Russians. There is also a reason for the language, also in the wiki article, in that a "claim" is always disputable BUT in order for a ruling to take affect for or against, the court or governing body must first prove "jurisdiction". Like when a country tries to extradite someone to get them into their own jurisdiction for persecution. Without legal jurisdiction, like the the one that allows free movement and use of international waters by anyone, criminal or hero from whatever other country, rules and subsequent military enforcement of them are meaningless, outside of the territorial water limits (12miles) and more recent exclusive economic zone (200miles) all of which fall very short of any other body of land in space.

This was the primary reason good old James Cook researched the east coast of Australia because the west coast was already claimed by the Dutch and East India Company a "spice" conglomerate, as New Holland; and later by the French also in the west, but that claim was considered "unenforced". The west was actually found in 1606 by the Dutch already, because of the Roaring Forties" spice trade shipping route to east Asia. At the time the convicts were being sent to North America until they claimed independence in 1776, which in itself was disputable, so they needed a new place to put them to expand the empire with cheap forced labor of their own citizens, so they settled the Australian east coast (1788) claiming that Australia was divided by a continental sea and was not part of the West. A few decades later after things settled with the war with Napoleon (1815) the English then looked to "consolidate" Australia, in particular in a race against the French colonization ambitions of the area, based on US intelligence from British sympathizers there (!).

They came to the West and claimed two islands, one being Garden Island which is a navy base to this day, the other being an island in the Swan River, from then on known as Swan River Colony (1829). From these two islands they progressively "invaded" French territory and the rest of WA, as the first "private colony" under Stirling, although they still used cheap penal labour. At the time and even since, the French have disputed the English claim but were distracted given their domestic and north America obligations, and despite La Perouse arriving in Botany Bay just days after the British First Fleet, to establish a French colony in the east. Technically, in the broader scheme of things we are actually French citizens here in the west, with the line to the east becoming murky given the fact that no such dividing sea actually exists in Australia, as was claimed. Had the cartography of the claim been accurate, it would all be French. But who was going to trip out here to check, let alone who was going to believe them all over a bit of bush in the land of Giants? (They thought that if rats are the size of Quokkas and Kangaroos, what other monsters could there be? )

This is also one of the reasons that independent principalities exist in Australia, and in other commonwealth countries. In fact many of them are still part of the Commonwealth under the crown, in that land owners above a certain size give you royal title, and country laws are replaced by royal degree, or their own constitutions, on the basis that any country that does not allow the livelihood of it's citizens and oppresses them is a illegitimate government of the people.
There is a lot of case law that represents this and has created some contention over more than 50 years here, especially seeing that Australia is in fact just an incorporation for managing the "business" of Australia, without any actual sovereignty of it's own. (have a chat to our Aussie "Republicans" that are trying to get Australia to be a "republic" instead of being under the crown and commonwealth)

Funnily enough, the movie "The Martian" highlights this very point, that Matt commandeering a foreign vessel on Mars would be considered piracy under maritime law. BTW if you feel up to it, have a look around for the history of maritime law and "birth certificates" and how they originated from shipping as "berth certificates" where the "captain" declares the contents of the ship before delivery, and how that relates to the "incorporation of persons" rather than "natural persons", and the art of CAPITILISATION that formed the basis of the economic recovery after the great depression, where human CAPITAL and their subsequent future tax revenues formed the security for the creation of fractional lending and government bonds. Everyone knows what "bondage" is right?

Anyways, in the context of space, the rules are most definitely still "written in the stars" in that the concept of jurisdiction, also extends to the concept of the "ability to enforce". Now some unknown Antarctic tribal leader prancing around a fire on the south pole claiming the sun and the sky, will have no effect on the satellites he sees passing overhead, that are taking pictures of him in his shorts whilst throwing rocks at the heavens. Likewise, any government claiming title to a ship or people launched from international waters to Mars, like from a retrofitted SpaceX oil rig 200miles off the coast in international waters because of the Starship "noise", will have a hard time trying to persuade a court to make a judgment order, in favor of any claim, due to their limited jurisdiction. Also, the oil rigs are a backup should the necessary launch approvals not be forthcoming, as might be necessary with the current launch dust cloud fallout.

So to quote the book of Musk 6:9:

The mission to colonize Mars, is more than just a refuge of the continuation of the current state of consciousness, and the conscience thereof, but also an opportunity for a reboot of the moral makeup, with guiding ethics that allow for the rebasing of society on fundamental truths that support the sustainable prosperity and continuation of all forms of life.

lol....maybe they should send me to Mars!

--

conscience
noun

Synonyms of conscience
1: the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good.

 

[charliemagpie]

That was a great read 17655486, thanks.

 

[cvalue13]

Although now seldomly used anymore due to lack of new land discoveries on Earth, all land claims fall under international maritime law, being in essence first people to occupy and flag land bounded by sea. The US law doesn't apply as such, nor unratified international treaties, before which time the USA claimed the moon with a flag, before the Russians. There is also a reason for the language, also in the wiki article, in that a "claim" is always disputable BUT in order for a ruling to take affect for or against, the court or governing body must first prove "jurisdiction"

A great history read, though I’m unsure of the import to modern claims to territories (or voids outside the bounds of Earth?

There are modern treaties on this that govern, parties to which include over 110 countries (including all capable of space travel).

Of course someone could ignore these laws, with the same effect as here on Earth.

 

[JBee]

A great history read, though I’m unsure of the import to modern claims to territories (or voids outside the bounds of Earth?

There are modern treaties on this that govern, parties to which include over 110 countries (including all capable of space travel).

Of course someone could ignore these laws, with the same effect as here on Earth.

Treaties are poor mans laws, unless they can be enforced.

It's a bit like SpaceX's capacity to launch more Starlink satellites than the rest of the world together can afford to shoot down from space. In the end they can shake that hands in fury...but thats about it. (EM words btw) Starship capacity is fundamentally huge and game changing in comparison to the Falcon 9 rocket, and it hasn't even launched a single Starlink satellite yet. The launch capacity is huge, we're not talking "visiting" Mars, it's colonisation with a thousand Starships.

In a world where treaties are in decline, and "one world" politics are showing fatigue from more patriotic demographics, I think there is little hope we will return to more globalisation, of economy, or politics in the future. The "fractioning" is already happening, and not even just between nations, but more concerningly from within nations.

This is especially so because sustainable energy is by it's very nature not subject to centralised control and distribution from a single industrialised source, and without the power structure that facilitates global trade of fossil energy, it is no longer required to power a standard of living for constituents of a country. How this bodes for countries reliant on such energy control can be seen in current world affairs. But the upside is that developing nations are already taking advantage of these distributed benefits and are freeing themselves of the need of trade of those actors.

I for one think it is a good thing, because diversity and distribution of such systems provides much greater resilience to economic, environmental and political downturn and stops this whole construct of continuing to "build a tower of cards on a beach of shifting sands" approach to solving cascading systematic failures. Some things just don't need to be forcefully interconnected and co-reliant, and nature shows us that although we can live together on one planet, not all of us must share the same resources, evolution or structure. In fact sustainability cannot be achieved without decentralisation, so at some point we will need to choose which one we want more. Mars colony will be the epitome of that, as it's unlikely that we will ever establish a colony further away in our lifetime.

 

[CyberGus]

It's obviously difficult to serve a warrant to a Martian, but Elon and SpaceX will continue to be Earth-bound indefinitely. Could make for some interesting legal theatre...

 

[anionic1]

It’s probably been posted, but did you see how the launch obliterated the launch tower foundation. It completely took out a grade beam that must have been 20’ wide 30’ deep and 100’ long. That’s nuts.

I am sure the structural engineering manual doesn’t deal much with vast quantities of rocket fuel hitting the structure at 3000 meters per second. I am surprised that they failed to account for that. Looks like at least $2M in damage to the tower.

 

[charliemagpie]

I am now a Musk Twitter subscriber.

" Will do a Spaces review of Starship flight 1 for subscribers only on Friday "

 

[JBee]

It's obviously difficult to serve a warrant to a Martian, but Elon and SpaceX will continue to be Earth-bound indefinitely. Could make for some interesting legal theatre...

I am sure it will.

BTW in response to your comment regarding Martian terms in the Starlink contract; no contract is "legally binding" until the court orders it to be so, and has jurisdiction to do so. You can think of contracts more as "legal suggestions" to which the court must ensure the law applies, before making judgement orders either way. In reality there are millions of contracts drafted by lawyers, some correct some completely bogus, but most never see a court room for validation by the court. It would be impossible for the courts to validate every contract simply because there is not enough courts.

 

[JBee]

I am now a Musk Twitter subscriber.

" Will do a Spaces review of Starship flight 1 for subscribers only on Friday "

Did you get your checkmark already as well? I was thinking about it so I can listen at least.

 

[cvalue13]

Treaties are poor mans laws, unless they can be enforced.

Any unenforceable law isn’t a law at all.

As @CyberGus alluded to: no sense in talking as if things “in space” can’t be enforced, if that “thing” has left something of value back on Earth.

If instead you’re just taking a position that ratified treaties governed by the UN have no force, then we just disagree on a first principle, and not much use getting into details.

I’d note that since those treties’ signing in 1967 no country we’re aware of has ever housed nuclear warheads in space, despite being fully capable of doing so.

I suppose you could argue that’s mere coincidental altruism of Earthly politics.

In which case I’d refer you back to the point RE nothing exists solely in space.

Silly discussion