I never said it was a completely good idea. Hence the [Madness] tag. But someone might try it.
In the Boskone-era, the benefits are more obvious - less chance of being caught up in an ongoing conflict. But I suppose the benefit is the ability to mine the thing without all the specialist hardware you'd need for space operations. Strip-mine it, Earth style. Life-support and transportation costs are minimised because you only have to move one rock with a spindizzy. You also gain some prime valuable offshore real-estate - and depending on the country, an extension to the EEZ which brings in even more oil, gas and fisheries into your sphere of influence. Or for that matter, somewhere utterly beyond national laws where you can do what you will with it without regard to the environment, or even plant your own flag on it.
It's definitely a novel one for the UN to sort out. If a nationally flagged corporation - or even a nationalised company - lands something in the water and plants a flag on it, what're the ramifications for international relations?
What if China lands an asteroid in the middle of the South China Sea?
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
In the Boskone-era, the benefits are more obvious - less chance of being caught up in an ongoing conflict. But I suppose the benefit is the ability to mine the thing without all the specialist hardware you'd need for space operations. Strip-mine it, Earth style. Life-support and transportation costs are minimised because you only have to move one rock with a spindizzy. You also gain some prime valuable offshore real-estate - and depending on the country, an extension to the EEZ which brings in even more oil, gas and fisheries into your sphere of influence. Or for that matter, somewhere utterly beyond national laws where you can do what you will with it without regard to the environment, or even plant your own flag on it.
It's definitely a novel one for the UN to sort out. If a nationally flagged corporation - or even a nationalised company - lands something in the water and plants a flag on it, what're the ramifications for international relations?
What if China lands an asteroid in the middle of the South China Sea?
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?