House passes bill that attempts to protect Apollo Moon sites
The House today passed a bill that would require any American business planning a Moon mission to agree to not disturb the Apollo lunar landing sites.
[The bill] requires any federal agency that issues a license to conduct a lunar activity to require the applicant to agree to abide by recommendations in the 2011 NASA report “NASA’s Recommendations to Space-Faring Entities: How to Protect and Preserve the Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Artifacts” and any successor recommendations, guidelines or principles issued by NASA.
All well and good, but this does nothing to stop other nations from touching those sites. Moreover, making all of those sites and whatever the astronauts did there totally sacrosanct is not reasonable. On the later Apollo landings the astronauts used a rover to travel considerable distances. Should every spot the astronauts visited by now considered holy? If anything, scientists will wish to return and gather more data at these locations to better understand the initial Apollo results.
Not that any of this really matters. In the long run the decision on how much these sites should be protected will be made by the people who live on the Moon. I suspect, as pioneers living on the edge of survival, they will have less interest in making memorials to past achievements and be more focused on getting things done, now.
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The House today passed a bill that would require any American business planning a Moon mission to agree to not disturb the Apollo lunar landing sites.
[The bill] requires any federal agency that issues a license to conduct a lunar activity to require the applicant to agree to abide by recommendations in the 2011 NASA report “NASA’s Recommendations to Space-Faring Entities: How to Protect and Preserve the Historic and Scientific Value of U.S. Government Artifacts” and any successor recommendations, guidelines or principles issued by NASA.
All well and good, but this does nothing to stop other nations from touching those sites. Moreover, making all of those sites and whatever the astronauts did there totally sacrosanct is not reasonable. On the later Apollo landings the astronauts used a rover to travel considerable distances. Should every spot the astronauts visited by now considered holy? If anything, scientists will wish to return and gather more data at these locations to better understand the initial Apollo results.
Not that any of this really matters. In the long run the decision on how much these sites should be protected will be made by the people who live on the Moon. I suspect, as pioneers living on the edge of survival, they will have less interest in making memorials to past achievements and be more focused on getting things done, now.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
With privately commissiond rockets available, the one-of-a-kind artifacts will be worth far more than Luna rocks if you’re a billionaire private collector.
Expect the landing sites to be the objects of a “Gold rush” race to retrieve them first for the highest bidding. Especially now their value just went up.
I’m not saying this to be cruel or prophetic, One only needs to look at any ancient sites that have been excavated on earth to know that human nature is self fulfilling. (Do you have an Egyptian artifact? Do you want to buy one? Perhaps one from Pompeii?
Gates would want to “erase” the site to say the lunar landing never happened, Zuckerberg would target the site with graffiti, Bezos would put it on eBay. (China will make replicas so that everyone can have a piece of authenticated fake artifacts)
Take lots of photographs, there’s no way to secure a site like this. Hand slapping doesn’t work.
Wayne might know, wasn’t there a TV show in the 70s that was predicated on a junk man building a rocket to retrieve space junk from the moon for resale?
We had to deal with that during the GLXP. NASA coordinates procedures for approaching the protected sites (for landers and rovers), but they’re not too burdensome. And the heritage sites are so few and rather small that they won’t get in the way of other missions or settlers, unless one explicitly wants to visit them.
Whether other countries (or companies registered in them) will violate the wishes of the US will be seen. While it’s not legally binding for others, violating the sites might provoke diplomatic and other reactions.
” While it’s not legally binding for others, violating the sites might provoke diplomatic and other reactions.”
Did that stop ISIS or the Taliban”
Col Beausabre,
It’s still a difference whether rogue actors aim to attack Albanian or American property.
Max – That show you spoke of was “Salvage 1” that starred Andy Griffith. I remember it well.
From the Wiki listing:
Plot
The pilot centers on Harry Broderick (Andy Griffith) who owns the Jettison Scrap and Salvage Co. and is a specialist in reclaiming trash and junk to sell as scrap. His dream is to recover equipment left on the Moon during Apollo Program missions. In the show’s opening title narration, Harry states:
“I wanna build a spaceship, go to the Moon, salvage all the junk that’s up there, bring it back and sell it.”
The Vulture
Harry builds a spaceship dubbed Vulture, made completely from reclaimed salvage and powered by a chemical called monohydrazine. The main body of Vulture is composed of a Texaco gasoline semi-trailer tank truck with a cement mixer as the capsule. This is augmented with three shorter rocket boosters placed 120 degrees around the main tank.
Here is one guy’s remembrance. Lots of good history and backstory.
https://youtu.be/XdJu-dA5VZ4
(6:29)
Jeff, thanks. Brings back good memories of my childhood.