Speaking of "moon tunnels" why not send TBMs up thete and mine whateveratetials are in the crust while building fused wall smooth habitats and transportation and hydroponic garming areas, etc. Id build it at the poles so that sumligjt is fairly readily available all "lunar day" otherwise you need some nuclear power up there or solar power station at the poles beaming mw power.
A newly discovered moon tunnel
181–188 of 188 posts
Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tordesillas Look at that line, and note which non-European countries speak Spanish and which ones speak Portuguese. For instance, Brazil wound up being Portuguese (a rarity in South America) because it stuck over the line into Portuguese turf.
The point is that since treaties are regularly ignored on Earth, they are mere artifices and have no meaning on the Moon. Do you really dispute that?
Err.... I just gave an example of one that wasn't "ignored". The world was divided up between Portugal and Spain by the Pope, never mind that most of it was largely unknown to Europeans at the time, and never mind that it was already populated by millions of people with their own countries and rules of land ownership. And the treaty was effective, to a very large degree. South America is almost entirely Spanish-speaking (except for Brazil, which wound up on the Portuguese side of the line). Many African and Asian countries (former colonies) speak Portuguese.
Not only was it not "ignored", but it's still effective 500 years later.
If such a treaty can be applied to inhabited lands, what makes you think one can't be applied to the lifeless terra nullius of the Moon?
Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that since treaties are regularly ignored on Earth, they are mere artifices and have no meaning on the Moon. Do you really dispute that?
Err.... I just gave an example of one that wasn't "ignored". The world was divided up between Portugal and Spain by the Pope, never mind that most of it was largely unknown to Europeans at the time, and never mind that it was already populated by millions of people with their own countries and rules of land ownership. And the treaty was effective , to a very large degree. South America is almost entirely Spanish-spea…
Your very link shows a number of times the treaty was ignored.
The treaty you point out found its inception from a treaty that wasn't followed from less than a decade prior! This is even explained in your link.
And for the treaty itself, this is mentioned, "It was superseded by the 1750 Treaty of Madrid which granted Portugal control of the lands it occupied in South America. However, the latter treaty was immediately repudiated by the Catholic Monarch. The First Treaty of San Ildefonso settled the problem, with Spain acquiring territories east of the Uruguay River and Portugal acquiring territories in the Amazon Basin. Emerging Protestant maritime powers, particularly England and The Netherlands, and other third parties such as Roman Catholic France, did not recognize the division of the world between only two Roman Catholic nations brokered by the pope."
There is also this very important point about how this treaty was followed, "It did not specify the line in degrees, nor did it identify the specific island or the specific length of its league. Instead, the treaty stated that these matters were to be settled by a joint voyage which never occurred."
You are confusing the self-interest of countries with a non-existent requirement to follow words on paper. Countries follow treaties to the extent of alignment with their own interests. If treaties were always followed by countries, then this world would be a far different place than it is today. There would also have been far fewer agreed upon treaties.
Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
Err.... I just gave an example of one that wasn't "ignored". The world was divided up between Portugal and Spain by the Pope, never mind that most of it was largely unknown to Europeans at the time, and never mind that it was already populated by millions of people with their own countries and rules of land ownership. And the treaty was effective , to a very large degree. South America is almost entirely Spanish-spea…
Your very link shows a number of times the treaty was ignored. The treaty you point out found its inception from a treaty that wasn't followed from less than a decade prior! This is even explained in your link. And for the treaty itself, this is mentioned, "It was superseded by the 1750 Treaty of Madrid which granted Portugal control of the lands it occupied in South America. However, the latter treaty was immediatel…
"Your very link shows a number of times the treaty was ignored."
And yet it largely remains effective. Despite all the things you mention, people still speak Spanish in the Spanish half. Ask the Aztecs, Incas, Mayas... how pragmatically effective the Pope's grant was.
I'm really not sure what your argument is here.
"The power goes out once in a while, therefore electricity is useless"? "Doctors can't always save the patient, therefore medicine is useless"? "People sometimes murder, therefore we should not have laws against murder"?
Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the things it takes is piracy being severely restricted, but by the usual interpretations of the space traty, thatsfine in space.
Are you saying piracy is fine in space? It's not the way I read the treaty - sounds like it'd be not ok - therefore potentially opening up options for "defense" based armament.
The treaty explicitly says that piracy is not okay. In fact, because of the way outer space is in many cases treated as international waters, the same laws governing piracy on the seas govern space activities as well, just with some differences regarding how ships are assigned to nations ("what flag they fly").
However the real outstanding issue with the OST is how to handle mining claims. Claim jumping is a real issue, since you could spend a ton of money prospecting a resource, only to have your competition to rush over and build a hut on top of it and legally claim it as their own.
There needs to be some sort of mechanism, perhaps even not governmental if renegotiating the OST is too dangerous or unlikely to happen soon, by which a company can claim a mining claim over a resource they have prospected and have that claim be legally protected from claim jumpers for a period of time.
Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your very link shows a number of times the treaty was ignored. The treaty you point out found its inception from a treaty that wasn't followed from less than a decade prior! This is even explained in your link. And for the treaty itself, this is mentioned, "It was superseded by the 1750 Treaty of Madrid which granted Portugal control of the lands it occupied in South America. However, the latter treaty was immediatel…
"Your very link shows a number of times the treaty was ignored." And yet it largely remains effective. Despite all the things you mention, people still speak Spanish in the Spanish half. Ask the Aztecs, Incas, Mayas... how pragmatically effective the Pope's grant was. I'm really not sure what your argument is here. "The power goes out once in a while, therefore electricity is useless"? "Doctors can't always save the…
> I'm really not sure what your argument is here.
My argument is what I originally wrote, "Treaties on Earth have very little meaning. They have zero meaning on the Moon." That argument is supported by the contents of your link.
You posted a link to show a treaty that has been in force. However, your link shows the exact opposite of that. The treaty has never been in force, was started because an earlier treaty wasn't followed, and has been superseded multiple times by other treaties.
Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like it must be incorrect. Life on earth evolved in the oceans, so the oceans had to exist for eons before life evolved and the eons it took for life to evolve photosynthesis and produce significant amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere. If what you're saying is correct, then the earth either started out with much more water than it has now, or the hydrogen escaped a lot more slowly than I'd expect it to.
I've been in planetary science and never encountered this theory. I have a default position of skepticism towards it for that reason, but I don't have a reason to object on the face of it. The question is not where the oceans came from (that's settled -- it came out of the mantle as the Earth cooled, and ultimately before that from cometary impact), but how the oceans did not boil or evaporate off like they did every…
but how the oceans did not boil or evaporate off like they did everywhere else.
gravity and magnetic field? if it were hydrogen or helium it would be stripped off by solar wind (storms) like everywhere else, but water is quite heavy due to the oxygen.
also 'everywhere else' means practically mercur, mars and asteroids (moon). no idea about venus. ice giants keeps their water also due to gravity and far apart on pluto it's frozen like rock.
Re: A newly discovered moon tunnel
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason water exists on earth, and not on mars, may be that life on earth saved the water by discovering photosynthesis. The discovery of photosynthesis caused the "great oxygenation event" which pumped oxygen into the atmosphere. Oxygen reacts with atmospheric hydrogen to form water. Without the oxygen, the very light hydrogen molecules would float to the top of the atmosphere and are easily blown away by solar w…
That seems like it must be incorrect. Life on earth evolved in the oceans, so the oceans had to exist for eons before life evolved and the eons it took for life to evolve photosynthesis and produce significant amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere. If what you're saying is correct, then the earth either started out with much more water than it has now, or the hydrogen escaped a lot more slowly than I'd expect it to.
> Life on earth evolved in the oceans
Or not; the “land theory” (that it began in shallow, possibly volcanic, terrestrial pools”) and “sea theory” (that it began in oceans, possibly at hydrothermal vents) have been competing theories forever, essentially.