US Space Firms Tell Washington: China Will Take Over the Moon if You're Not Careful (yahoo.com)

The US space industry is prodding the US government into refreshing its outdated laws on commercial activity beyond earth: scare it with talk of Chinese galactic domination. A report adds: At a Senate hearing on the space industry this week, companies that build rockets and space habitats and manufacture electronic goods in space spoke about a standard laundry list of complaints, from regulatory burdens to fears of subsidized competitors. But their message was wrapped in patriotic concerns about China's growing capacity for space action. These companies are eager for the US government to allow and invest in commercial activities in orbit and around the moon. Many think the laws governing action in space, and particularly the UN Space Treaty, need refreshing for an age when private companies are close to matching the space capacity of sovereign nations. The last major change was a law on asteroid mining passed in 2015.

Comments

There's one way

[TFlan91]

There's one way to get Trumps attention.

Put it in terms of China.

Trump, if we don't fund science, China will be #1 in RD
Trump, if we don't fund NASA, China will own the Moon!

Re:There's one way

[wardrich86]

"If you destroy Net neutrality, China will have better internet than us!"

Re:There's one way

[Anonymous Coward]

Lunar 1: Houston, we have a problem. The Chinese have landed their ship on the moon before us.
Houston: Don't worry, Lunar 1. We have things under control.
Lunar 1: Houston, this is getting serious! The Chinese are painting the entire surface of the moon bright red.
Houston: Don't worry Lunar 1. We know what we're doing.
Lunar 1: Houston, the Chinese lander has left the moon. Everyone can see its red now. What do we do?
Houston: Good. Now you can land.
Lunar 1: Okay, and then what?
Houston: Get out that white paint we gave.
Lunar 1: Okay, we were wondering what that was for. But we can't repaint the whole moon white; there isn't enough paint.
Houston: That's fine -- you only need enough to write the words 'Coca Cola'.

Heck, it worked the first time

[Chris Mattern]

When it was the Russians. Worth a try.

Re:Heck, it worked the first time

[bill_mcgonigle]

When it was the Russians. Worth a try.

"Know your audience." A pitch on the merits isn't going to convince more than a handful of them.

Re:So give us your tax money

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

We must not allow a pork gap.

Undeserving.

[Gravis Zero]

Considering that the US legislature has done everything they can to impede progress in space exploration, I don't think they deserve any say about the future of space exploration. China isn't great but at least they are investing in science instead of sticking their heads in the sand and saying global warming is a hoax.

Abolish NASA, and deregulate aerospace.

[jcr]

Seriously guys, this isn't hard to understand.

-jcr

Re: Have I been living under a rock??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you probably have.

Turns out it wasn't a moon at all. Instead it was a fully armed and operational battle station that we all had to witness the full power of. We asked Chewie to lock in the auxiliary power but our Wookie friend just growled and howled back, grrwaarawhh.

Meanwhile, the "Senate" was actually under full control over and evil Sith Lord. The rebels were able to get a big ass tape cartridge in the world largest robotic tape silo thingy, align a fucking satellite, then upload the battle station plans and make just one copy to a circuit board floppy disk, but only to have a door open wide enough to hand the floppy to some other dude, where it could be uploaded into an service droid, --for hope.

Don't get too choked up on your aspirations though. All Jedi must die, everyone of them, so that they are the last or something. I may possibly have omitted maky crucial details, but that's the gist and you should be caught up now.

The Germans already have

[randomErr]

Haven't you seen the documentary called Iron Sky?

Re:The Germans already have

[Anonymous Coward]

So much potential, but such a crappy result.

Jingo it up, bitches.

[argStyopa]

I don't care what motivation we have, if it takes sparking our president's over-prickly ego, or threatening ever-insecure America generally with the idea that someone else will get there first.

I truly don't care the excuse: just fucking go back to space already.

Why is it wrong to care?

[SuperKendall]

Trump, if we don't fund science, China will be #1 in RD

How is it not a problem if a repressive government gets ahead of the west in R&D? Do you like more, or less repressive government and the wrongful imprisonment of dissenters?

Trump, if we don't fund NASA, China will own the Moon!

Again, would you like a militarily aggressive force controlling the moon? That seems like a pretty valid concern for real, not just "a way to get Trump interested". In fact it's why Trump is already pretty interested in continuing NASA's work and why NASA didn't face any major budget cuts, in fact they increased planetary science spending, which is what you would hope from any rational president. We are all better off if a number of nations have operations on the moon, so we should figure out how to get more U.S. presence back on our nearest neighbor.

Re:So give us your tax money

[Applehu Akbar]

There is no economic case for space exploration.

If this is true then we have nothing to worry about when space is exploited by China, and Silicon Valley billionaires will have no interest in it.

Not any more

[SuperKendall]

I'm quoting you: "...repressive government and the wrongful imprisonment of dissenters".

As I seem to have to continually remind people on Slashdot, Hillary is not president.

Who exactly has Trump imprisoned wrongfully? Or are you saying it is wrong to imprison people who set cars on fire and loot shops? I know many on the left bellive this to be true but I had hoped that rot had not spread to the more rational denizens of Slashdot.

It's just their sheeple, drink the Kool-Aid given to them and think the other is more evil.

While that is indeed true of many Statists, it's not really true of the other more libertarian side of that equation - which only makes sense as the larger a government gets, the more unfeeling and cruel it becomes... so you can imagine what happens in essentially a world-wide government.

South China Sea

[ronmon]

You all seem to be making fun of this, but look at the territorial grabs that are taking place. Shoals and tiny islands that are very far from China and very close to other countries are being claimed, settled and developed by China. They don't give a shit about treaties, pacts or international laws. They take what they want.

Re:So give us your tax money

[nospam007]

"Banning weapons in outer space is for the benefit of humanity. "

I remember that book. It's not a weapon, it's a communication laser.

Re:So give us your tax money

[nospam007]

"Except that there demonstrably was. Please describe an economic case for a radiation-blasted vacuum with nothing in it."

Just google "Science that can't be done on Earth" like we did.

Re:So give us your tax money

[BlueStrat]

The treaty is required especially on the basis of preventing nuclear weapons use in space.

No.

*A* treaty is required, *this* one can be replaced/renegotiated. Isn't that what civilized nations do when circumstances change, renegotiate or replace a dated treaty with a new, more comprehensive one that accounts for current realities?

Strat

Re:So give us your tax money

[BlueStrat]

You want to waste money on all that?

What, do they write treaties on gold-pressed latinum now?

Compare costs of a typical treaty negotiation meeting to a just a single strike of ~50 Tomahawk cruise missiles at ~$325M each.

Diplomacy is ^always^ the cheaper option.

Now compare that same ballpark figure of the costs of negotiating a new treaty to the cost of effectively being cut out of the economic, technical, and scientific benefits of space exploration/exploitation.

Diplomacy is far and away the better option.

Strat