[meteorite-list] A New Question

[Mike Bandli]

David,

Here is a great post made by Frank P. in 2002 regarding the topic:

http://www.mail-archive.com/meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com/msg05261.html

Cheers,

Mike Bandli

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: mexicodoug at aim.com

> "Does anyone know What is the reasoning behind the ban?"

> 

> Hi David,

> 

> There is no "ban".  Interested collectors from many nations have been 

> obviously stocking up collections for years with Antarctic meteorites.

> 

> Anyone (including commercial tour operators) can put together a 

> scientific plan for collecting Antarctic meteorites - at your co$$$t- 

> and apply for a permit.  You cannot b denied the permit in your 

> jurisdiction as long as you can make convincing guarantees as judged by 

> administrators that you can provide at your cost, the required 

> scientific care in collecting, curating and furnishing the meteorites 

> basically free, to bonafide researchers for scientific studies, with 

> the caveat that if any time during the perpetuity that follows you can 

> no longer do this, you must transfer everything to an entity that 

> properly can.

> 

> The reason is simple, the Antarctic is a scientific preserve where the 

> natural resources are protected, like, say, the Old Faithful Geyser in 

> Yellowstone Park.  If someone decided to drill out and cap the geyser 

> and pipe out the hot water for commercial use, how would that play on 

> your sense of morality?  I think it would bother me...  The scientific 

> preserve creation is a lucky windfall for environmentalists.  The real 

> motivation behind this government collaboration is the worry that 

> brazen nations (and there is never a shortage of these) might abuse 

> this "no-man's land" while other "well behaved nations" stood by and 

> got jealous, disadvantaged, or had their security threatened.  So the 

> countries agreed that military, disposal or commercial (i.e., mining, 

> harvesting flora or fauna) acivities by any treaty signatories was 

> mutually prohibited.

> 

> This is the "ban" you mention, no commercial meteorite hunters may 

> apply unless they plan on shouldering all the trip and collection 

> expenses by themselves and then giving away the meteorites to qualified 

> scientific interests only under the perpetually self-financed curating 

> scheme already mentioned.  If this non-commercial ban were not in 

> effect, anyone could go to this frozen paradise and dump toxic wastes, 

> drill for oil and leave their holes uncovered, tear down the mountains 

> to make cement, colonize the place ignoring the unclear set of prior 

> claims of souvreinty (which others put on hold with promises that no 

> one else could ever jump their claim) and put explosive mines and guns 

> pointed everywhere (like big boy nations do anyway with their floating 

> and flying fleets on our polluted deep oceans).  So politicians sided 

> with Greenpeace once this past millenia and decided that making it a 

> place to observe but not disturb was the only way to go.

> 

> Today, Antarctica is a pristine, white, wonderland, teaming with a 

> unique spectrum of life, a veritable fantasyland but for real, a 

> fragile window into an environment that is just as much Earth as the 

> Amazon jungle - which very few will every have the opportunity to 

> admire in person, unless they seriously take up a career in the 

> sciences and make contributions to society from studues there.  It is 

> not a live battlefield subject where children are forced to work the 

> mines for $0.25 per day without medical care for all the fingers and 

> toes lost to frostbite, just so we can buy disposible containers with 

> Coca Cola's lithographed logotype.

> 

> I don't know, but I would think it is not impossible to get meteorites 

>  from permitted curating institutions in trades for special material 

> with perfect provenance traced back to its orientation on the ice.  

> However, good luck trading as I don't think anyone wants to have to 

> justify to administrators who always manage to attack with hindsight - 

> why they made a dumb trade of material that has been cataloged and 

> never unfrozen, and acts as a control as well as a variable, since the 

> day it was found.  Had Tagish Lake happened in Alaska and collecting 

> been done like a space mission by private individuals, we could put the 

> concept to a real test.

> 

> Put another way, the parties realized there is no such thing as putting 

> it half-way in and not making other suitors jealous.

> 

> Best wishes

> Doug

> P.S. This is the only place I know where governments consider costs to 

> be incremental costs (and don't even give you credit for your meteorite 

> scale cube or double baggies).  Everywhere else governments seem to 

> have a concept of cost that includes all the fat that they produce.  

> Ah...human governance...

> 

> PPS The Antarctic is but a coming attraction of what is to come in 

> Space... Probably it will be immoral to mine an asteroid in the 

> "Federation National Parks of the Asteroid Belt" at some point ...

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: David & Kitt Deyarmin <bobadebt at ec.rr.com>

> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com

> Sent: Tue, 13 May 2008 5:04 pm

> Subject: [meteorite-list] A New Question

> 

> 

> Does anyone know What is the reasoning behind the ban?Â