Talk:Outer Space Treaty

Space Preservation Treaty was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 19 April 2012 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Outer Space Treaty. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

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Which senate

Which senate? Clarify. SD6-Agent 12:26, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Outer Space Treaty

Inserting an interpretation that treaty did not mention "all other weapons" ("not just the placement or use of weapons in orbit") and not necessarily capable of being or is weapons of mass destruction. How about defining "peaceful purposes" ?

I also wish to suggest a paragraph relating to whether or not there will be sovereignty of space and/or domestic/local jurisdictions of governance who claims interests in space. Thoughts of this should be looked at in the light of international waters.

POV

This article is extremely POV, and i am about to fix it. I know a bit about the subject from the selling space article, and there are some factual ommissions and inaccuracies too. THE KING 07:18, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Removing POV seems to have made this page the subject of a low-level edit war. What is a practical way to calm this down? Anonymous--11:39, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I want to suggest removing the link http://www.moonestates.com/cat_Questions.asp from this article, because I am regarding it as unethical to sell property which isn't owned by anyone. Consequently, I find this FAQ highly questionable, and imho it doesn't add to the plausibility of said article. Digital Dan 08/07/2006, 22:07 (UTC + 1)

You are absolutely correct; I have removed the link. siafu 21:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Legend

The colour of the legend for 'signed and ratified' countries has been changed from light green to green, on account of the former's closeness to the grey used for countries that are not signatories. It is still a bit too dark, but requires someone with a better knowledge of the colours used in the legend template to simulate the green in the diagram better. -- Sasuke Sarutobi 03:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Countries

What countries signed the outer space treaty? Did all the countries of the UN sign it?

   That information is available here: http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/5181.htm

The above link is invalid NJackson300 (talk) 22:49, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Date

The entry for 1967 has two different dates for the signing of the treaty, 27 Jan and 27 Feb. Which is it, someone who knows? Thanks. --Myke Cuthbert 15:34, 31 May 2006 (UTC) For which countr(y/ies)? Did all signatories sign it at once? MrZaius^talk 18:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The treaty was completed on January 27, 1967, but did not come into force until October 10, 1967. This is according to the footnote in Prof. Wayne White's The Legal Regime for Private Activities in Outer Space. siafu 18:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peaceful Purposes

The article says "However, the Treaty does not expressly prohibit the placement or use of weapons in orbit, so long as they are for peaceful purposes." What exactly is considered a peaceful purpose for a space weapon? The terms seem contradictory. Kevin 00:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Laser broom for an example of that one. 84.92.175.243 15:05, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's the first time I stumble on this page and I'm correcting a few mistakes, and this is one of them: the treaty forbids nuclear weapons and WMD's in orbit, but not anything else, and as far as peaceful purposes go, this seems to be restricted to the moon and celestial bodies. This was drafted in the light of allowing eg military personel on a scientific base. BatistPaklons (talk) 18:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

to destroy incoming asteroids that would obliterate humanity? 69.140.35.147 (talk) 23:42, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Giant Helium-filled bananas.

"A test (of sorts) of the Outer Space Treaty is being put forward by Canadian artist Cesar Saez's project to float a giant helium-filled banana over Texas in 2008, a very serious project supported by the Canada and Quebec Arts Councils. The Michigan consulting firm of nearSpace Technology is also involved in the project.[1]"

The above is copied from the article. Can someone explain to me in what way floating a giant Helium-filled banana over Texas constitutes a contravention of this treaty? Is it considered a weapon of mass destruction? Or is this paragraph just an attempt to publicise an un-related arts project? ColourSarge 12:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

lol, I think its just to see if they would bother with something so silly 69.140.35.147 (talk) 23:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copying

much of this article is copied from this site http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/5181.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.163.209 (talk) 00:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is a copyright-free U.S. government article so it is alright to use here. Rmhermen (talk) 04:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Map

North Korea signed and ratified the treaty earlier this month.[1] 203.7.140.3 (talk) 01:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. I edited the image page and this article to point that out. I'm not sure how to edit the image itself, though. Esn (talk) 09:10, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

external link went 404

removed from article http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/SpaceLaw/treaties.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mt1955 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

common heritage of mankind vs. res communis omnium

According to Currie, the words "for the benefit and in the interests of all countries" does not mean that outer space is "common heritage of mankind", but rather "res communis omnium" (communal use of all). I've noticed quite a view articles that come up on Google use the two concepts interchangeably. Can someone clarify this?

Reference: Curie, John H. Public International Law, Toronto: Irwin Law Inc., 2001. pp. 285-286, 287 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.47.237.130 (talk) 12:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

or, in simpler terms, the moon is UN territory 69.140.35.147 (talk) 23:37, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More like, the treaty purports that mankind as a whole owns the entire universe. Which would be awkward if we find that other planets are inhabited. 75.76.213.161 (talk) 07:14, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Outer space & res communis

I deleted the section "Effect of the Outer Space Treaty." You can see the text of the section here: [diff]. The content amounted to some guy's (or gal's) opinions on the treaty -- that all outer space territories should be public property and belong to everyone without any one nation actually having rights or claim over it. That all sounds great, but Wikipedia isn't the place for writing legal or philosophical or legal/philosophical essays on res communis (i.e. public domain) and its applications in the realm of outer space. Similarly, the articles U.N. Convention on Law of the Sea and Admiralty law aren't the places to expound upon whether there should be national rights/claim over the sea. If there's a source-able debate on this among legal/maritime law/international relations professionals, then write about it, and document it. Otherwise, this material can't be kept. From a scholarly perspective, there is certainly legitimate philosophical argument to be made; I just don't think the actual parties -- the representatives of governments around the world who negotiate with one another -- actually care about scholarly, philosophical arguments. Furthermore, any "scholarly argument" needs sourcing and to pass a notability litmus test. This one didn't. ask123 (talk) 03:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's our Newt!

Wouldn't Newt Gingrich's future Moon state violate the Outer Space Treaty? I think so, but I am not blessed with the intellect of Newter, he of the inevitable Presidency.--172.190.57.14 (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- You do realize the treaty isn't worth the paper its written on right? The instant that any nation obtains practical and cheap space flight is going to withdraw from both the outer space treaty and moon treaty. All Newt did was show the truthful future position that we will see.

Number of parties

The article claims that there are 100 parties, as at October 2011, citing this resource: [2]. That page links to [3] which states that there are 101 parties, as at 1 January 2011. The same website also provides a database[4] but it doesn't seem to be working correctly so I cannot check when the last signatory was added.

Can anyone illuminate the discrepancy? I would be bold and update the figure, except that the article claims the data to be accurate to October 2011 which was after the source says it was updated. —sroc (talk) 15:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Private parties

What about private parties, are they subject to the Outer Space Treaty? --JorisvS (talk) 12:49, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ethics/Terraforming

(This question is a continuation of this question, but since there's a shift in topic, I've split it.)

Does the treaty address what is to be done if, say, one superpower wants to terraform Mars, and another doesn't?

And (this is going slightly sci-fi, but it could happen, you never know, so I'll ask it anyway) in a similar vein, does the treaty address what is to be done if we meet intelligent life - i.e. does the treaty specifically forbid any one superpower from taking it upon themselves to speak for the entirety of humanity? Thanks! BigSteve (talk) 19:39, 13 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]