[AR] Re: starship abort?
- From: whitney bayourat.com <whitney@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2023 20:31:36 +0000
Interesting, So when the United States secretly recovered the Soviet submarine
K-129. They did so breaking international law? I wonder how that applies to spy
balloons? Did the recovery of the Chinese spy balloon break international law
as well? The fact that SpaceX admittingly said the rocket may not survive and
had no plans in place for superheavy booster recovery. Would that be construed
as throwing it away? Jetsam?
Whit
-----Original Message-----
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Henry Spencer
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2023 2:42 PM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AR] Re: starship abort?
On Fri, 21 Apr 2023, Ben Brockert wrote:
Citation needed.
"Salvage Law for Outer Space", Wayne N. White Jr., Proceedings of Space 92
(Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space III, ASCE 1992; vol.
2, p. 2412).
This is a debris-generating attempted space launch, not a cargo ship
lightening their load. And even if it was, the finder of jetsam “is
not required to return them to their rightful owner except...
Correct. A ship lightening its load is *abandoning* the stuff it throws
overboard. That's jetsam. The rules for it are, more or less, "finders
keepers". But that's not what we're talking about here.
Stuff lost *accidentally* is flotsam, not jetsam. It's not abandoned unless
the owner explicitly says so. (You don't get to *infer* that it's been
abandoned except in some fairly extreme situations.) This is a very different
case that follows entirely different rules. It *doesn't* become yours just
because you found it, any more than your wallet becomes legally mine if it
accidentally falls out of your pocket and I pick it up. (Not even if it
happened because your pocket suffered a catastrophic structural
failure!)
There *is* a bit of a lingering question mark because it was a space launch.
Maritime law doesn't automatically read over to space. But any result of that
uncertainty probably goes the other way, further strengthening the case for
continued ownership by the original owner.
"Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or
constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected
by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to
the Earth." -- Outer Space Treaty.
Henry
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