Is it time for a new Outer Space Treaty? Reports of Russian nuclear space weapon raise questions

[Admin]

Reports of a potential Russian nuclear space weapon recently ignited discussions about the Outer Space Treaty, an international agreement that set the norms for behavior in space.

Is it time for a new Outer Space Treaty? Reports of Russian nuclear space weapon raise questions : Read more

 

[Atlan0001]

I wonder how many people here have actually been in the military or understand at all the historical concepts of "military" and "weapon"? Nothing that enters space above the Earth, especially human, is not capable of being almost instantly turned to "military" and "weapon", or a "military weapons' platform."

 

[billslugg]

The weapons treaty only bans nukes in outer space. Conventional explosives and Rods from God would be legal according to that one treaty. There are other treaties, like you can't hurt someone else's satellite and you must belly up if your falling satellite causes damage. Also if someone's satellite falls on your ground you can't have it, you have to give it back.

 

[DrRaviSharma]

More seriously

• I have been India's alternate delegate in 1974 and 1977 to the UN Outer Space Technical Committee and have worked hard on international agreements regarding Earth Observation Satellites, and other agenda.
• We have enjoyed ISS co-existence.
• Yes we need agreement on Peaceful uses of Outer Space, but need to allow nuclear and hopefully fusion propulsion and lunar, mars and interplanetary safe nuclear power generation.
• It will take lot of deliberations and a few years but past shows that we can convince non-democratic powers of today to see reason and thus save humankind. It will be an effort worth it based on slow deliberation experience of past two times I was deliberating.
• Soviets were difficult then, China will be a tough one now, but we have very little choice!

Thanks
Ravi
(Dr. Ravi Sharma, Ph.D. USA)
NASA Apollo Achievement Award
ISRO Distinguished Service Awards
Former MTS NASA HQ MSEB Apollo
Former Scientific Secretary ISRO HQ
Ontolog Board of Trustees
Particle and Space Physics
Senior Enterprise Architect
SAE Fuel Cell Tech Committee voting member for 20 years.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/drravisharma

 

[u235]

We have had the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle since 2001. Development was years earlier.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle is not exactly a "space weapon" any more than an ICBM is a space weapon. It is the ground-launched interceptor portion of the U.S. anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense system. It is mainly intended to work against small-time nuclear threats from the likes of North Korea and Iran, not massive attacks from Russia or China.

That said, if it not exactly going as planned. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoatmospheric_Kill_Vehicle

The treaty is intended to prohibit deploying things like orbiting bombs and orbiting laser "cannons" that could be used with essentially zero warning against ground targets. Such weapons would be highly "destabilizing"in the sense of making it more likely that a nation would decide to strike first if it believed another nation was seriously considering striking it first with space-based weapons, because there would be little capability for defense.

 

[Atlan0001]

During WWII all the warring nations tried to keep away from obvert use of chemical and biological weapons. Since WWII, during the Cold War conflicts use of nuclear weapons has been added to use of the other two (thus CBN) to stay away from during major power conflict.

Above, I liked what Dr. Sharma had to say, but life is inherently conflict, minor and major, and some point the minor will build, or complexity collapse, inevitably to the major. Some of you have heard the saying of piling straw (straws) on the camel's back and it will be the weight of the last least littlest needle of straw's complexity that will break the camel's back.

It's a matter of negative entropies, a matter of buildup of least little tyrannies, wars of a thousand (million, billion) least littlest cuts, into the force of major Iron Curtain bubble tyrannies, major darkening unraveling of civilizations, enclosed closed or closing systematic entropies, that will have rotted the aging (Orwellian Utopian Dystopian) structures and infrastructure of governments and civilization to brittle stone-poor facsimiles of what was. Ancient Greco-Roman and Chinese civilizations did not ultimately decline and fall from the pressures of external barbarism but from growing nonsense barbarisms and losses of dynamic history within.

My answer! No matter what you think the cost will be, breakout in a spreading out to more or less local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) of detached environmentally shielded and protected Personal Colony ((space colony 'Space Ark') PCs)) Space Frontier Colonization. Else, Stephen Hawking's prophecy of 1,000 years to Mankind's extinction (if breakout doesn't happen), and maybe all life's extinction on the Earth, will have been far too optimistic!

 

[Aplu]

As a private individual who has put some thought into what such a treaty should look like, may I here present (Blare of Trumpets, Drumrolls, and Maestro is ushered onto the stage):

Proposed Draft Treaty, Neutralization of Outer Space, Space debris and pollution thereof, Declaration, Definitions, Obligations, Verification

FWLIW, I wrote it during the SDI phase of the Third Ronnie's Star Wars craze, so it may need to be updated for a new, non-binary space race. I also leaned rather heavily on the SALT treaties' provision that:

SALT II TREATY

Article XV
1. For the purpose of providing assurance of compliance with the provisions of this Treaty, each Party shall use national technical means of verification at its disposal in a manner consistent with generally recognized principles of international law.
2. Each party undertakes not to interfere with the national technical means of verification of the other Party operating in accordance with paragraph 1 of this Article.
3. Each Party undertakes not to use deliberate concealment measures which impede verification by national technical means of compliance with the provisions of this Treaty. This obligation shall not require changes in current construction, assembly, conversion, or overhaul practices.
Taking "national technical means of verification" as meaning spy satellites primarily. I revised it a little after realizing that I had duplicated some common provisions of the Hague Conventions on the rights and duties of Neutral Powers, etc. Of course, those treaties merely stated the common understandings of neutral powers in war-torn Europe during the post-Renaissance period.

But I'll warrant that nobody can beat my statment:
Article 19: 2) The hostile acts and threats of hostile acts include:
a: the gratuitous production of space debris with the resulting forethought murderous threat to manned space objects, by testing anti-satellite and anti-missile weaponry in earth orbit, whether it be low earth orbit, mid earth orbit, or high earth orbit;

If the US Govt had been paying attention, we could've stopped the gratuitous production of space debris with the resulting forethought murderous threat to manned space objects, by the testing of anti-satellite weapons in low earth orbit recently.

But what do I know? I'm merely a private citizen.

 

[DrRaviSharma]

During WWII all the warring nations tried to keep away from obvert use of chemical and biological weapons. Since WWII, during the Cold War conflicts use of nuclear weapons has been added to use of the other two (thus CBN) to stay away from during major power conflict.

Above, I liked what Dr. Sharma had to say, but life is inherently conflict, minor and major, and some point the minor will build, or complexity collapse, inevitably to the major. Some of you have heard the saying of piling straw (straws) on the camel's back and it will be the weight of the last least littlest needle of straw's complexity that will break the camel's back.

It's a matter of negative entropies, a matter of buildup of least little tyrannies, wars of a thousand (million, billion) least littlest cuts, into the force of major Iron Curtain bubble tyrannies, major darkening unraveling of civilizations, enclosed closed or closing systematic entropies, that will have rotted the aging (Orwellian Utopian Dystopian) structures and infrastructure of governments and civilization to brittle stone-poor facsimiles of what was. Ancient Greco-Roman and Chinese civilizations did not ultimately decline and fall from the pressures of external barbarism but from growing nonsense barbarisms and losses of dynamic history within.

My answer! No matter what you think the cost will be, breakout in a spreading out to more or less local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) of detached environmentally shielded and protected Personal Colony ((space colony 'Space Ark') PCs)) Space Frontier Colonization. Else, Stephen Hawking's prophecy of 1,000 years to Mankind's extinction (if breakout doesn't happen), and maybe all life's extinction on the Earth, will have been far too optimistic!

Great thoughts, conflicts are part of human history, not always wisely managed.

Need to understand breakout more clearly, is it terrestrial human communications networks, or physical colonies or are these space based human colonies?
Regards.

 

[Atlan0001]

Great thoughts, conflicts are part of human history, not always wisely managed.

Need to understand breakout more clearly, is it terrestrial human communications networks, or physical colonies or are these space based human colonies?
Regards.

National Space Society has T. A. Heppenheimer's book 'Colonies In Space' available somewhere on it's website for open reading. Physicist Gerard K. O'Neill re-originated the idea of in-space manmade cloud-city-like colonies with his own 'The High Frontier'. NASA has several art work prints of different possible space colonies on its website.

There is almost no limit to the building and facilitation (including self-protective both in the spreading out and the shielding of custom-made individual space facilitations) Mankind can do on the surface of space. Almost no limit, for thousands of years, to the Noah's Ark-like facilitation of expanding life, including human life (of course), to and in space. The Earth can be largely recolonized around L-points. Mars can be (support) colonized (in the beginning) above its surface. Venus, the Jupiter system, the Saturn system, possibly more, can be colonized via networks and lanes (filaments) of in-space cloud-city-state-like custom space colonies, ships, and facilities positioned in orbits over and above, and out from, them all.

Dyson's Sphere? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! Not only NOT individual and flexible (PCs, LANs and WANs) but the most expensive, dangerous and negatively entropic conceptual black-hole-like thing (idea) Mankind has ever come with!

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Atlan0001, your repetitive insistence that there are no limits to what humans can do in space seems to be oblivious to the actual physics of the environment and the fundamental limitations on our capabilities. While it is possible that we will discover things we do not know about today that will enhance our capabilities tomorrow, blindly assuming that will be the case is neither assuring nor helpful. And your insistence that your reading of history supports your beliefs does not seem to recognize that those histories are written by the "winners", or at least the survivors in various situations, and that the "losers", whose societies crashed, are not often known or acknowledged.

While your insistence that human history (to the extent that we actually know it) shows us that we will always find a way, my knowledge of the population dynamics of other species has some severely concerning red flags for humanity's future. Specifically, other species which take advantage of environmental or ecological fluctuations to enormously increase their populations usually experience severe population crashes that dramatically end their rising population spikes. Those population crashes are most often the result of their species own detrimental effects on their ecosystems, but can also be the result of changes to themselves which are only suitable while some environmental or ecological variation persists. Humans are currently having substantial detrimental effects on our global ecosystems and at the same time are losing the abilities to support ourselves without the highly supportive technologies we have developed. That has created many potential scenarios for a crash in human populations.

Your own posts seem to indicate that you think humans will not survive if we do not establish our species in a self-sustaining manner at off-Earth locations. So, I don't think you can argue that human populations on Earth cannot be headed for a drastic crash.

Where we seem to differ is that I don't think we are likely to survive as a species if we cannot survive hear on Earth. I think that we are very unlikely to ever reach another star system unless we can get our act together here on Earth to sustain ourselves with stable population and an existence that does not cause the extinction of other species.

After all, isn't that what most people expect would have been achieved by any alien species that has developed the capability to reach Earth from another star system?

 

[Atlan0001]

Atlan0001, your repetitive insistence that there are no limits to what humans can do in space seems to be oblivious to the actual physics of the environment and the fundamental limitations on our capabilities. While it is possible that we will discover things we do not know about today that will enhance our capabilities tomorrow, blindly assuming that will be the case is neither assuring nor helpful. And your insistence that your reading of history supports your beliefs does not seem to recognize that those histories are written by the "winners", or at least the survivors in various situations, and that the "losers", whose societies crashed, are not often known or acknowledged.

While your insistence that human history (to the extent that we actually know it) shows us that we will always find a way, my knowledge of the population dynamics of other species has some severely concerning red flags for humanity's future. Specifically, other species which take advantage of environmental or ecological fluctuations to enormously increase their populations usually experience severe population crashes that dramatically end their rising population spikes. Those population crashes are most often the result of their species own detrimental effects on their ecosystems, but can also be the result of changes to themselves which are only suitable while some environmental or ecological variation persists. Humans are currently having substantial detrimental effects on our global ecosystems and at the same time are losing the abilities to support ourselves without the highly supportive technologies we have developed. That has created many potential scenarios for a crash in human populations.

Your own posts seem to indicate that you think humans will not survive if we do not establish our species in a self-sustaining manner at off-Earth locations. So, I don't think you can argue that human populations on Earth cannot be headed for a drastic crash.

Where we seem to differ is that I don't think we are likely to survive as a species if we cannot survive hear on Earth. I think that we are very unlikely to ever reach another star system unless we can get our act together here on Earth to sustain ourselves with stable population and an existence that does not cause the extinction of other species.

After all, isn't that what most people expect would have been achieved by any alien species that has developed the capability to reach Earth from another star system?

Attack what I advocate, what I write, but I'm getting sick and tired of you attacking me personally! I will follow my insights, which were shared by the likes of Stephen Hawking and Walt Disney, Gerard K. O'Neill, T. A. Heppenheimer, G. Harry Stein, Newt Gingrich, and many more for more than a century, regardless of your attempts to club me personally! I've learned to try not to do personal attacks, but you haven't . . . and you apparently want me to report you for getting personal! As a matter of fact, I won't wait!

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Atlan0001, as you asked, I did attack what you advocate and what you wrote, not you as a person. So, you have no basis for claiming that i am personally attacking you, other than I do not agree with your posts. I am getting the impression that you are just using the "personal attack" claim to dodge engagement on the actual issues.

Your posts merely criticize human efforts to be careful about the risks we take and the damages we cause, which you seem to think are what is preventing us from becoming an interstellar species. And claiming that some famous people (many of whom have died) agree with you is not convincing. I seriously doubt that Walt Disney, who produced both space stories and nature stories, would agree that we can afford to trash our planet to achieve multistellar existence, much less need to do that.

 

[Atlan0001]

Atlan0001, as you asked, I did attack what you advocate and what you wrote, not you as a person. So, you have no basis for claiming that i am personally attacking you, other than I do not agree with your posts. I am getting the impression that you are just using the "personal attack" claim to dodge engagement on the actual issues.

Your posts merely criticize human efforts to be careful about the risks we take and the damages we cause, which you seem to think are what is preventing us from becoming an interstellar species. And claiming that some famous people (many of whom have died) agree with you is not convincing. I seriously doubt that Walt Disney, who produced both space stories and nature stories, would agree that we can afford to trash our planet to achieve multistellar existence, much less need to do that.

If you don't leave somebody out of what you are attacking, if you put them personally in the middle of it, you are attacking them! And I reported you! Go after the subject of my posts, as is your privilege. Leave me out of it! I don't have to defend myself, me personally, to you or anyone else here! That is part of the rules!

I advocate breakout to space and space colonization, and state my reasons why! You go after that, NOT me for advocating for what I advocate!!!!

Turning away from breakout into frontier, away from space colonization, will destroy what we have on Earth! I've explained it in many explanations of why! Not in any of them have I mentioned you, personally or came after you in some reply to batter you for your opposing advocacy. The subject advocacy yes, you personally for having it, no!

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Actually, you are the one personally attacking me, by claiming that I am attacking you as a person if I don't take your word for it that you have superior grasps of history and science compared to me and many others posting here.

But, you have made it personal, so I am not going to pursue the argument about what is personal and what is not. I will continue to disagree with you on the facts, science, history and population dynamics, as I think is appropriate.

 

[Atlan0001]

Actually, you are the one personally attacking me, by claiming that I am attacking you as a person if I don't take your word for it that you have superior grasps of history and science compared to me and many others posting here.

But, you have made it personal, so I am not going to pursue the argument about what is personal and what is not. I will continue to disagree with you on the facts, science, history and population dynamics, as I think is appropriate.

Do that! The subject, not me! I was a young military DI, and I've been an instructor and teacher in my careers and interests for the greatest part of my life (and have awards for the same) . . . probably for longer than you've been alive.

 

[billslugg]

The personal attack was the phrase: "your repetetive insistence seems to be oblivious", the word "oblivious" meaning "not aware or not concerned". An insult.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Bill, I think that is debateale with respect to it being a PERSONAL insult. because I was referring to his POST and saying IT SEEMS to be oblivious . . . Would it have been more acceptable TO HIM if I had said his posts seem to be ""not aware or not concerned" with the things that I think are pertinent?

Given that he had previously posted in another thread: "Unclear Engineer, not to put you down because there are just far too many like you in the world, but I understand only too well that you haven't read enough general and more specific histories, enough stories of peoples and personal stories deeply enough, to understand the physics, the needs and wants, of individuals and families and community groups displaced out on a alien, raw, harsh and forbidding new frontier," I think he is being more personal in his statements than I have been. But, he is the one complaining.

But, you are dragging me back into what I am trying to avoid, which is debating posting etiquette instead of the actual issues involved in the subject of the thread.

Let's stop doing that.

 

[billslugg]

A post cannot be unaware or unconcerned, only a person can. His "taking it personally" was perfectly justified. There is no need for you to characterize people or their writings. Stick to the issues and we won't take you to task.

 

[Atlan0001]

Once more to clear the air:

"Turning away from breakout into frontier, away from space colonization, will destroy what we have on Earth! I've explained it in many explanations of why!" How, what and why!

THE END!