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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2491 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Are Curiosity's tracks landmarks?

    It's just a document, suggesting a path forward, but does not have buy-in from anyone, and the existing space treaties we have establish everything off-world as "community property".

This is one of those situations where anything beyond the existing documentation gets silly. I reckon an "international space monuments treaty" will happen about six months after some frat rat out from New Tycho tries to shove Alan Shepard's golf ball up his ass.

Which I think is a long goddamn way off. "Holy shit this is my boot in Buzz Aldrin's footprint" automatically makes your accomplishment subservient to Buzz Aldrin's. Set that aside for a minute though because precision landing in anything short of a Space Shuttle is still a pipe dream.

And the moon is larger than the British Empire ever was. There's a lot of it. And it takes an office building full of high explosives to get there. A Saturn V could get about 50,000 lb to TLI; a Long March 5 can get about 18,000. That's a one-way, which is really bad for international prestige.

I think we're a long way from this being an issue, and by the time we get there, the historical significance of moon tracks will be obvious and the historical significance of mars tracks will be moot.