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Lunar Landing Historical Site?
kylv writes: "Check out this article on abcnews.com telling how a New Mexico group is trying to make the site of the first lunar landing into a National Historical Site."
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Why do they want to make a covert NASA film studio into a historical site?
Read the article, then post you mindless yammering.
Because 99% of the mindless yammering on here is already clearly addressed in the article. For example:
The students don't want to claim the moon, which clearly would be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty.
Of course, I think about 75% of all posters to slashdot are violations of the Outer Space Treaty to begin with, so I guess maybe I'm hoping for too much.
Bova's long out-of-print novel Millennium, about the fight for independence waged by a joint US-Soviet moonbase (hey, it was written over 20 years ago!), includes a visit to the Apollo 11 site ... which has been preserved with a coating of plastic, so you can walk on it without disturbing the footprints.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
> Mount Pinatubo, Phillipines
;)
Naw I vote for Krakatoa
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
It won't do any good to send oxygen with him, because he swears he won't inhale.
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Um, no. The Soviets went to the moon.
Probably voiced best by Warner Brothers The Goofy Gophers:
Mac: They're going to have a terrible time getting that Historical Marker up there!
Tosh: Terrible, just terrible!
--
Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Please Moderate Up the parent to this post!
The one draw back to the World Heritage site designation to me is personal. One of my life goals is to visit all of them, and putting one at such a remote location would make acheiving that goal MUCH more dificult.
As to the claim that it isn't part of the world, I find that legally (by Earth Law) it is. It is almost invariably described as "Earth's Moon". Under common law, after a certain period (usually 7 or 17 years) of being claimed by an individual, if the true owner doesn't come forward to claim it, ownership passes to the new claimant. With 500 years of claiming it as Earth's moon, and by planting a flag on it over 30 years ago, by Earth law it belongs to Earth. The US possibly could have staked a claim to at least the regions directly explored by Apollo, by treaty we have renounced the ability to stake such a claim.
NOTE: I am not a space lawyer, but I know someone that is, there is actaully a specialty in it now.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
? Are the oil companies thinking of drilling for crude there or something?
If the moon had crude, that would be real news. I think that would prove that the moon once had life, since crude is a pretty complex organic mix, but I could be wrong.
At any rate, yes, claiming the site as a US historic site would be widely perceived as yet another obnoxious move by "those arrogant Americans". IMHO, it's a really bad idea. An international treaty would be more appropriate.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Most certainly, these objects are *STILL* in use by NASA - mostly to study the effects of space radiation on equipment, and there are definite plans to come back to the landing sites at some point and do an analysis on the materials.
The last man on the moon left his Hasselblad camera lens pointing up at the stars on the lunar rover passenger seat. (Lunar astronauts were issued their own Hasselblads, and remained their property after the missions were completed)
He was thinking, as he was packing up, whether or not to retrieve it - but decided that leaving it there on the seat, facing the stars, would be a good way to collect cosmic particles - in the *lens* of the camera - for later analysis during some future mission.
That's how focused these guys and many of the other NASA moon hipsters were on the importance of the science they were working on.
So to assume that just because the gear up there is not being *used* does *NOT* mean that the equipment is not part of a further scientific mission. Modern-day standards for "junk propagation" do not apply when you're studying materials, space, etc.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The ball is near the javelin, that straight line in a crater. Try the text description of the image. The image is also described in this transcript of Apollo 14 EVA-2, as well as the javelin throw and golfing.
UNESCO World Heritage sites
Hmm, maybe I'll have to scale back the goal a little bit, but I still hope to see a majority of them. Even that will be a challenge, since they keep adding them each year.
Here is the current list Current List.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Leaving aside the bizarre notion of calling an area of the *moon* a "*National* Historical Site"...
;)
The article continues...
> There seems to be no doubt the artifacts are clearly U.S. property. Even NASA says the stuff left behind by the Apollo astronauts was "not abandoned," according to documents collected by the researchers.
Not abandoned? "Oh no, we really were intending to come back for it (in a few hundred years)." We weren't really littering on the moon Sir...
Anyway, *I* have some doubt, even if nobody else does. I think the Chinese should get up there quick and grab it and then auction it off to the US administration if they really think it's theirs
Mike.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
But it will be the people who eventually live there that will decide this... not some foreign government!
It seems like establishing a national monument on the moon or any other extraterrestrial body is a step over the line established by the various international treaties regarding space.
Seriously, a moon base will not be born into fruition until someone starts visiting again.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I thought the guy from Sealand grabbed it when no one was looking.
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The truth is out th- oh, wait, here it is...
And the golf club is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Stepping into the main lobby of the NASM is simply awesome as they have the Voyager (1st around the world, non-stop, no refueling), X-1 (Yeager's plane), Wright 1903 Flyer, the X-15, and the Spirit of St Louis hanging from the ceiling.
Of course people from New Mexico would want it declared a national historical site. After all, when they faked the landing, all the filming was done on NM's turf.
-Chris
"Abandoned" has a specific legal connotation, and NASA is correct to say that the material was not "abandoned."
By way of analogy, "flotsam" and "jetsam" are not the same thing and are legally very different. If I recall the sense correctly, "flotsam" is the floating debris (and debris washed ashore?) after a ship goes down - anyone may acquire legal possession by simply scooping it out of the water.
"Jetsam," in contrast, is floating debris that was deliberately thrown overboard in an attempt to save the ship, and with the intent to retrieve the material after the storm (or other crisis) has passed. Anyone who scoops it out of the water is stealing it from its lawful owner. Even if the ship ultimately sinks, the owner of the ship still has the legal ownership of jetsam.
(As I said, it's been a long time since I looked at the exact definitions and I may have the sense backwards.)
"Jetsam" was temporary left behind, but it was not legally abandoned. "Flotsam" was abandoned. Anything that goes down with the ship was not, and for some period is owned by the owner of the ship (or the insurance company that paid a claim), although courts have (finally!) come to their senses and said that an insurance company can't protest too much after 100+ years have passed with no attempt at recovery.
NASA, quite legitimately, is considering the material left on the moon "jetsam." They left it behind so they could get the crew home, but I'm sure in the best of all possible worlds they would have the complete lunar lander sitting in a display at the Smithsonian.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
And from now on, I declare that you must call RF/Moon, so that everyone will know the great effort I put into making it available in the sky for the good of all humanity.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
If you had read the article, you'd have found out that the US has declared a few N.H.Ms in other countries, primarily some European battlefields. I don't know how the politics or legalities of that works out, but I'd bet that the U.S. offers to help pay for maintenance of the site. Meanwhile, the UN won't declare a "World Heritage Site" unless it's first a national monument, and knowing the ways of the UN, it would be easier to get Congress to declare Tranquility Base a national monument than it would be to get the UN to change its rule. Ultimately, the UN should have an exemption for sites in international territory, so that sites in Antarctica, on the ocean floor, and on the moon can be declared World Heritage Sites without the necessity of getting a national government to overstep its jurisdiction.
"We came in peace for all Mankind."
- Neil Armstrong at Tranquility Base, 1969
than you calling Navajo, Hopi, and the like "Mexico" . . .
:)]
And for that matter, those aren't even accurate--the American Indians got those lands by killing off the Native Americans that were there first . . .
[And while I'm at, it, no sillier than calling parts of the U.S> "Mexico" and "Candaa"
/hawk ducks
Don't we need a ribbon cutting ceremony? Send that perjuring excuse for a president up there, send him out to cut the ribbon, then while he makes one of his long-winded speeches, every else hops back in the lander, takes off, and . . .
:)
You see, if we leave enough oxygen & food for the rest ofhis term, he's not incapacitated, the veep doesn't take over, but he still can't do anything. We'd be safe from government for a good four months . . .
:)
hawk, who should probably fix his computer instead of worrying about this
THe link notes,
> The Soviet Lunar program had 20 successful missions to the Moon and
> achieved a number of notable lunar "firsts": first probe to impact the
> Moon,
Crashing into the moon counts? THen shouldn't Microsoft be in the lunar
probe business?
:)
hawk
Oh, yes, "world" heritage site makes a *lot* more sense. Ooh, you could get "worldwide" support. Hello, it isn't on this planet. It's not a "world" heritage site any more than it is national.
The main reason I want to move to Mars is because it's the only place left where the UN doesn't claim jurisdiction. Please, let's try to keep it that way.
LunaCorp is planning to send a robotic vehicle to the moon for a Grand Apollo Tour of historic landing sites.
This is a commercial venture and the money will supposedly come from letting people be telepresent at the location in real time (minus lightspeed lag) and even drive the rover by remote control.
I wonder if declaring them a national monument will have any legal effect on LunaCorp's plans.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Well, I don't think it was "over the horizon" when it was visible in a picture from the Lunar Module [picture in direction of Turtle Rock]. Shepard estimated "the first ball went about 200 yards (183 meters) and the second 400 yards (366 meters)".