In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
On 10/27/2010 9:05 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
Since no terrestrial governments "own" (speaking legally rather
than practically) space wouldn't those letters of marque have to
come from the UN?-) Privateers would then be permitted to paint
their ships that lovely light blue color

Oh yeah, the UN space pirates: "Strike your flag or I'm going to
issue a strongly-worded letter." :-D

Hey, don't belittle it - the reader could get a nasty paper cut from
it

Since space law is primarily based on the law of the open sea, you
could indeed have two nations at war with each other trying to
either destroy or seize each other's space assets. The Soviets were
concerned we were going to send a Apollo mission to try and board
one of their Salyut stations, And I saw at lest one magazine
illustration back around 1974-75 of two Soyuz grabbing control of
Skylab after our final mission to it.

Is that why the ApolloSoyuz docking adaptor came with the Apollo?-)
Heck, if the Soviets had made one of their own and then boosted Skylab
once or twice they might have actually been doing us a favor
Assuming they didn't spill borscht everywhere. They could have left a
couple plastic bags of vodka as station-warming gifts for when Shuttle
finally got there.

It probably didn't help the Soviet's paranoia that minus its solar
arrays, a Salyut would fit in the Shuttle's cargo bay.

Let me guess - they thought it would launch from a secret site in a
volcano on a Japanese island?

rick jones
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