-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tuesday 17 July 2001 11:05, David Honig wrote:
At 12:43 PM 7/17/01 +0100, Ken Brown wrote:
Of course, as someone else pointed out in the parallel thread, the diplomats thought of it as well, and limited airspace to a hundred somethings (can't remember what. Kilometres I assume. If it was miles some eccentric-orbit spy satellites might get into the airspace. Though it is hard to imagine the CIA paying their Iraqi taxbill for reconnaissance overflights).
Yes and 'territorial waters' are defined by the range of ship to shore artillery (of past). 100 km was once ununattainable, ergo indefensable, ergo written off by the 'diplomats'
Things change. There's rockets hitting rockets up there now.
Ummm, no. The diploments created the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, only two years before Apollo 11. There were plenty of satellites in orbit by then. The stated intention was to eliminate one source of tension between nations, particularly the US and the USSR, by making it illegal to claim territoriality of anything beyond Earth's atmosphere; therefore, the US could not claim the Moon. The reasoning was that if no one could claim the territoriy, no one could use it for military purposes. This was obviously false, since warships sail through international waters all the time, but what do you expect from diplomats. Now, where did you get the idea that territorial waters are defined by the range of ship to shore artillery? That makes no sense at all. Territorial waters were originally defined at 3 miles, in a time when battleships could fire shots 20 miles; even now, the limit is only 12 miles. - -- Matt Beland matt@rearviewmirror.org http://www.rearviewmirror.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7VLDXBxcVTa6Gy5wRAnSkAKCB5Yf1RgpzZqemSmWys1HoB2VmBgCgnsPD W5GiLO/kwqa6bfYmJM+ackQ= =FVv+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----