Re: Space law
Randall Clague <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.technology.erps |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
At 06:34 PM 8/6/2004 -0400, Michael Mealling wrote: >Any idea on what legal basis they're making that claim? I can see making >the claim of "national treasures" when it comes to rocks that _Apollo_ >brought back. But that assumes that they're claiming some sort of >'ownership' over them to begin with. Sure. They're only claiming the ones Apollo brought back, AFAIK. And that's fine; NASA retrieved them, so NASA owned them. But they (NASA) gave some of them away, and now they (USG) want them back, claiming "national treasures." If Uncle Sam wants to buy privately held moon rocks, acquired perfectly legally, then Uncle Sam should pay fair market value for them. If the owners don't want to sell, and most of them don't (would you?) then Uncle Sam should go fish. Of course, if Uncle Sam wants some *new* moon rocks, rocks they've never seen before, and they're willing to pay for them, we can talk. That's encouraging, facilitating, and promoting commercial space transportation. That's what Uncle Sam *should* be doing. -R Randall Clague Government Liaison XCOR Aerospace [email protected] 661-824-4714 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.730 / Virus Database: 485 - Release Date: 7/28/2004 _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [email protected] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list