alternatehistory.com

Been reading through the Horizon report, and found this neat little section on hypothetical US responses to Soviet political moves on the Moon. This is in 1959, so eight years before the Outer Space Treaty made things less testy...

(in parts, as the OCR text needs cleaning up)

The following specific problems have been submitted by members of the committee on the Army Study for Establishment of a Lunar Outpost for legal analysis:

Problem 1:
What affect would the following Russian claims have on a U.S. program to put man on the moon:
(a) The Russians hard-land a vehicle on the moon containing the USSR flag, document, or monument and, based on that, claim the entire lunar surface for the USSR?
(b) The Russians soft-land a vehicle containing the USSR flag, monument, radio transmitter or light and, based on that, claim the entire lunar surface for the USSR?
(c) Same as "(b)" above except the vehicle contained men?
(d) Same as "(c)" above except the USSR states that the Russians on the moon have the capability to destroy any aggressor and will do so?

Opinion:
The hard or soft landing of men or flags or even a ship bearing a flag would have no affect upon territorial claims to the lunar surface as a matter of law. Symbolic occupation has never been recognized in international law.

Based upon our experience in the Antarctic which has been described above, it is believed that we would not claim or recognize the claim of another based only upon any of the events set forth. Our position would seem to be that as a matter of law, nothing short of actual settlement or actual occupation would be cognizable and only to the extent that a particular surface was in fact held and actually settled.

We could, of course, in the face of the threat described in "(d)", do nothing at our peril, for then a new principle of lunar law might be postulated based on that experience, Whether the principle would be one which we would find so harsh as to feel that we would want to fight to establish its unacceptability would be a political decision leading to resolution of the issue by the ultimate arbiter, force.

www.history.army.mil/faq/horizon/Horizon_V1.pdf
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