X-Message-Number: 7468
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 08:30:25 -0800
From:  (Rand Simberg)
Subject: Re: CryoNet #7454 - #7464

>The next Alcor Northern California cryonics meeting will be held on Sunday,
>January 12 at 4:00 PM followed by a potluck supper and socializing. We will
>celebrate Bedford Day, the 30th anniversary of the freezing of James
>Bedford, considered the first cryonic suspension. Bedford is still frozen
>and is currently stored at Alcor.

An interesting date.  It also happens to be the (fictional) literal date of
the "birth" of HAL (the computer from 2001).  Those who are familiar with
the movie may recall that "he" attained consciousness in Urbana, IL, at the
HAL labs on January 12, 1997.

>My unverified recollection is that under a UN Space Treaty, everything off
>Earth is "the common heritage of all mankind" and, like Antarctica and
>non-territorial ocean locations, unable to be owned by states or
>individuals.

Private property is not explicitly prohibited by the 1967 Outer Space
Treaty, though I believe that sovereignty is.  The 1979 Moon Treaty does
prohibit it, but the US never ratified it (though Peanut Jimmy did sign it).
It is technically in force, having been ratified by a sufficient number of
nations, none of which has ever launched so much as a small satellite, but
none of the space-faring powers (US, USSR now Russia, France, China, India,
et al) have signed on.  Some in the National Space Society and the Space
Frontier Foundation believe that we ought to stake some claims, to start
working the legal issues, and to make the real estate more valuable (hence
incentivizing private activities to homestead it).
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