My last few blogs have been about the framework of international law under the United Nations that is supposed to govern how space faring nations conduct the exploration and exploitation of space for the benefit of all nations. I felt that this was topical because of increasing discussion of mining asteroids.
Last week I blogged about four additional International treaties that deal with the exploration of space by member of the United Nations. In light of the five international space treaties, the UN adopted five "International principles and declarations to encourage exercising the international laws as well as unified communication between countries." These five principles are listed below.
Last week I blogged about The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, the first important treaty on space law which was signed in 1967. In the same year another space treaty was signed called the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
With all the talk about private space enterprise and exploring the moon, the issue of who owns what and who can stake a claim to exploit space resources has become significant. I thought that this would be a good time to post a blog entry about the main treaty that governs exploration and exploitation of space.
There are many ways that the world could end. War, volcanoes, plagues, solar flares, etc. One disaster scenario that has gotten a lot of publicity is the possibility of a big asteroid strike that would destroy civilization. There have been attempts to catalog asteroids that regularly cross the orbit of the Earth that might pose a risk. There are a lot of that type of asteroid but the probability of any particular such asteroid striking us is very small.
At the dawn of the Atomic Age, there was talk of using nuclear bombs for civilian purposes such as digging canals and harbors. In the Soviet Union, there was even a plan to use nuclear bombs for fracking natural gas. Fortunately this plan was never carried out. However, it turns out that these proposals were tame in comparison to ideas expressed by an astronomer named Fred Zwicky at CalTech.
The start of the Space Age is usually thought to be the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957. While Sputnik was the first Earth orbiting satellite ever launched and did start the Space Race, the actual roots of the Space Age reach back much earlier to World War II.
I have posted many essays on nuclear weapons on my nuclear blog at nucleotidings.com. Most people are not aware or are not bothered by the fact that the United States and Russia both have about fifteen hundred nuclear missiles aimed at each other that can launch in minutes. As I have posted before, the U.S. missile forces has low morale all the way up to the generals in charge.
The first British space program began in 1959 with the Ariel series of six satellites which were built in the U.K. and the U.S. The satellites were launched by N.A.S.A. from U.S. sites. Ariel 1 was launched in 1962. The last of the six Ariel satellites was launched in 1979. Four of the satellites relayed back information about the Earth's ionosphere. The other two were dedicated to X-ray astronomy and cosmic-ray studies.
In 1961, French President Charles de Gaulle created the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) as a "public administration with industrial and commercial purpose" under the French Ministries of Defence and Research. CNES was established to focus on five areas of interest: access to space, civil applications of space, sustainable development, science and technology research, security and defense. France was the third nation to achieve access to space after the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
