Dems pitch national park on the moon (this is not satire)

[HeatDeath 430]

The idea isn't necessarily stupid, per se, and wouldn't actually involve any actual money being spent or facilities being built.

It is reasonable to suppose that at some point, some country or private entity will build a colony on the moon. This would simply establish and attempt to assert legal penalties against anyone else messing around with the Tranquility Base site, which is, to be fair, a site of tremendous historical significance.

My big problem with this is more basic - does the US government have anything even vaguely resembling territorial jurisdiction over any portion of the moon's surface? Can you even define a chunk of real estate to be a national park if there is no well defined claim of ownership over that land? Is the US government, by this bill, contemplating attempting to assert territorial sovereignty over some or all of Mare Tranquillitatis? Absent that, this law would either be purely symbolic and toothless, or a legal overreach of literally astronomical proportions.

Apparently there's a 1967 treaty preventing any of the signatories from claiming to own the moon. And there's an American nutball who says he owns the moon because the treaty seems not to have directly precluded individuals [as opposed to national governments] from claiming such ownership, and he made such a claim first. So this law can't possibly be making a territorial claim, so its hard to see how the US could define a region of the moon as a National Park. I think the UN may have the jurisdiction to declare the area a UNESCO site, but it don't think it can be a US national park without first being part of the US.

An analogous earthbound case would be someone trying to define the Titanic wreck as a national park. The Titanic sunk in international waters, but someone could make a case that the legal status of the ocean-bottom real estate is less well defined. Simply asserting that the Ttianic wrecksite is a US national park would open up an enormously complex mess of international law. This is a little more clear cut than that would be, but still seems to run counter to existing space treaties.

Edited July 10, 2013 by HeatDeath

[mota bhai 2,675]

The US should tear up that treaty, claim this part of the moon as ours, and give Snowden a lifetime appointment as park ranger there. Employment shall not be at-will. He can never quit.

[Harsh_77 718]

Two House Democrats have proposed legislation that would establish a national historical park on the surface of the moon to mark where the Apollo missions landed between 1969 and 1972.

The bill from Reps. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) and Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) would create the Apollo Lunar Landing Sites National Historical Park. The park would be comprised of all artifacts left on the surface of the moon from the Apollo 11 through 17 missions.

The bill says these sites need to be protected because of the anticipated increase in commercial moon landings in the future.

...

The park ... would be run jointly by the Department of the Interior and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The measure would allow the government to accept donations from companies and foreign governments to help manage the landing sites and "provide visitor services and administrative facilities within reasonable proximity to the Historical Park."

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/309829-dems-propose-historical-park-on-the-moon

Can someone please tell these numb nuts.. at the moment we do not even have capability to go to ISS we rely on Russians.

Since the Apollo missions we never had capability to go to moon, for them establish a national park first they need the capability to go to moon.

[Rattlehead 69]

Can someone please tell these numb nuts.. at the moment we do not even have capability to go to ISS we rely on Russians.

Since the Apollo missions we never had capability to go to moon, for them establish a national park first they need the capability to go to moon.

Well I suppose it might be good to restart our own manned spaceflight program.

[Harsh_77 718]

Well I suppose it might be good to restart our own manned spaceflight program.

It would be.......manned or not, right now we don't have any capabilities other than putting satellites in orbit.

[Darnell 8,478]

Can someone please tell these numb nuts..

Nota.Bene.: I dislike you referring to females as 'numb nuts' - they both lack the anatomical bits to make yer label meaningful.