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Comment by goodbyesf | Hacker News Reader

> What supernatural being descended on earth and gave governments the supreme right to own the path from earth into space.

'Listen. Strange supernatural beings descending on earth is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses...'

> OK, so, if you could launch from a ship in the middle of the ocean you would be free to launch as you wish?

Couldn't that possibly be mistaken by countries around the world as an icbm launch. Given that danger, I'm pretty sure no private company would be allowed to launch rockets without government approval. But I'm just guessing.

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> Couldn't that possibly be mistaken by countries around the world as an icbm launch [?]

"Col Sanders, we've just detected an icbm launch from the middle of the pacific ocean!"

"Who launched it?"

"Err... no idea". <-- probably the important point ;)

At which point these theoretical observers would probably be trying to get some kind of visual on the object, plus likely trajectory, etc.

Barring some really unfortunately co-incidents / accidents, they'd hopefully realise it's not an icbm.

In 1995 a scientific sub-orbital rocket was launched from Andøya in Norway. It got a little bit out of planned course and for some reason the message informing the Russians about the launch had not reached the radar controllers which just saw a rocket heading for Russia on their screens. It was total chaos and the nuclear briefcase were brought to Jeltsin. Luckily the rocket fell in the ocean after a few minutes and nuclear war was averted.

Interesting anecdote, but doesn't seem like it really fits the situation of "launched from the middle of an ocean". :)

Uh, you are aware that one leg of the nuclear triad are submarine launched ICBMs. That's about as "launched from the middle of an ocean" with no idea who launched it as you can get. That would exactly look like an ICBM launch at first.

Heh. Yeah, didn't even occur to me before you wrote that. Oops. :D

Sorry I was a little harsh! Not everyone thinks too much about submarines.

It's no worries. Sub launched stuff isn't something I should have forgotten about anyway. :)

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