Dead Drop: January 31

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF A LEGAL KIND: The folks at Georgetown University Law School took to twitter recently to post a short video with Professor David Koplow, who is part of a small international group assembled by NASA to think about the legal ramifications of an asteroid headed for earth.  We’ve heard folks speculate in the past about the impact of an asteroid strike – that’s what killed off the dinosaurs, right? But we hadn’t lost much sleep about its impact on lawyers.  Turns out the concern is real:  if we see an asteroid approaching and try to divert it by hitting it with a space-based nuke – we would be violating international treaties banning the use of nukes in space.  And if we are only partially successful in changing its path and instead of landing in “country A” it lands in “country B” – there are likely to be some astronomical lawsuits going on…assuming the lawyers survive.

SEAL OF APPROVAL:  Speaking of space, the twittersphere launched into orbit late last week when the President announced the design of the official seal of the new U.S. Space Force. Turns out the design is nearly a dead ringer for the one used by Star Trek’s Starfleet Command. Nearly identical delta shapes in the middle, a dot orbiting the design…and stars in the outer quadrants. But the Space Force had the last laugh. They posted on Facebook a statement pointing out that the design was based on elements first used by the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1942 and that bits and pieces of the logo have been found to be the right stuff on Air Force space organization emblems going back to 1961.  So, the Space Force didn’t rip off Star Trek – if anything, it was the other way around.

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