[cripplecreek]

The simple fact is that western nations will cling to the treaties they never signed and we’ll be left in the dust because we don’t have the stones to stand and take what should be ours.

Private industry won’t blow billions without being damn sure the courts won’t take their profit away.

[GonzoGOP]

The simple fact is that western nations will cling to the treaties they never signed and we’ll be left in the dust because we don’t have the stones to stand and take what should be ours.

The perfect example of this is the old Washington Naval Treaty. It limited Battleships to 35,000 tons and 16" guns and cruisers to 10,000 tons. Of course the Germans and Japanese cheated like crazy meaning that one for one their ships were better than ours at the beginning of the war. But once the cheating became obvious (before the war it should be pointed out) the US laid down the 45,000 Iowa class that smashed through the treaty limits like a 16" shell through a pane of glass. All the design work and blueprints for the Iowas was done before we renounced the treaty in 1939. And the only reason we stayed with 16" was that the 16"x50 of the Iowa had better armor piercing performance that the 18" guns the Japanese were using.

In summary we stayed with the treaty so long as doing so didn't matter. No private company is going to an asteroid anytime in the near future, so why argue about it. Once someone blows the treaty away nobody is going to pay attention to it any more.