Alternative History
Register
Advertisement

The League of Nations Authority for Space Operations (LoNASO) is an organization under League of Nations control. The task of the LoNASO is to coordinate and supervise any and all global activity related to space exploration.

TASR[]

The legal basis for the LoNASO's authority is the multilateral Treaty for Astronomical and Space Research (TASR), also known as the "Guyane Treaty" referring to the location where the decisive negotiations took place in November and December 2008. The TASR is partially based on the former Outer Space Treaty (1967) of the United Nations.

TASR was primarily negotiated between the LoN High Council members, the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand, the South American Confederation, the Atlantic Defense Community and the Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics.

Consolidation[]

The idea of coordinating and supervising spaceflight and missile launch capabilities as well as the technologies was not new. Already back in 1989 there where first tries originating from the ANZUS members, trying to safeguard technological knowledge as well as any related hardware in order to prevent terrorists or other interested people from gaining control of these resources. This especially applied to the Chinese and Soviet capacities, which were in unknown hands.

As the ANZUS-Pact and its associates as well as many surviving European Governments (now assembled in the Atlantic Defense Community) achieved their goal in safeguarding much of the old NATO know-how and hardware in the years following Doomsday, they then laid their focus on preventing the USSR and Chinese capacities from spreading around the world.

Cooperation[]

Early in 1988 Australia tried to convince the USSR to help secure the remains of pre-Doomsday USSR know-how. These talks were not successful due to resentment felt by the Siberian leadership regarding their interest zones in Alaska. Talks were not re-established until 1994. These talks were not successful as the USSR refused cooperate with a foreign government in securing access to their own technology.

Though fearful that these negotiations were meant to re-establish American/Anglophonic strength, the new USSR leader Aman Tuleyev in 2001 restarted the talks, having been "motivated" by the rising influence of the Green Movement in the population, having spread to Siberia just recently.

After not advancing for two further years, finally in November 2004 the ANZC and the USSR signed a bilateral agreement. This established a joint and coordinated strategy to secure remaining resources related to missile, spacefaring and satellite systems. In exchange for providing technical help in the maintenance and funds to the USSR installations, the ANZC was granted access to USSR installations. One commentator stated that world leader should be "proud of having overcome old West-East antipathy".

Constitution[]

The treaty caused divided reactions especially amongst the SAC and to a lesser extent the European nations, though it was generally seen as a good step forward. Already cooperating in the operation of the Guiana Space Centre, the SAC and the European remainder governments rapidly offered to start talks about a global treaty concerning space exploration. Welcomed by the Global Green & Peace Movement (aiming at disposing everything that might cause a new Doomsday) detailed talks started in January 2006.

After several suspensions following government changes in diverse countries and "new" nations demanding to being heard, the talks were transferred to secret and integrated into the League of Nations talks. Within this negotiating structure, and being kept largely out of public discussion, soon advances were made. The basic and most important decisions made reflected the delicacy and complexity of the issue.

  • A new agency would be founded within the LoN called the "Authority for Space Operations." Its seat would be at Kourou, Guyane.
  • Each of the four main actors would focus its spaceflight and related activities to one location within it's territory. Those areas would be put under the authority of the ASO, though officially remaining part of the host nation. With respect to the USSR there is until now no definition if "all" activities includes all eventually existing military installations and programs as well. Talks about this are still ongoing and prove extremely difficult.
    • Socialist Siberia: The Vostochny Cosmodrom, built in the Amur Oblast in 1998. Plans included building the planned Mir space station, launching the GLONASS (Russian: ГЛОНАСС, abbreviation of ГЛОбальная НАвигационная Спутниковая Система; tr.: GLObal'naya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema; "GLObal NAvigation Satellite System" in English) satellite network and other ambitious scientific projects.
    • Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand: The Cape York Space Center is currently used to launch all satellites of the ANZC and its allies.
    • The South American Confederation & Atlantic Defense Community (1983: Doomsday): The Guiana Space Centre in Kourou acts as the main launch site for the Confederate Commission for Space Research and the Atlantic Space Agency. The first launch of the new-generation "Odyssey" rocket jointly built by several South American and European states on January 1st, 2001 marked a milestone in Post-Doomsday spacefaring. Plans of building a secondary complex in either the Azores are being discussed.
  • Commercial, private activity related to will be put under strict authority and control by the LoNASO to secure no know-how will spread uncontrolled.

Current programs[]

GLONASS[]

The current program the organization has been working on is the GLONASS positioning system which would greatly help in navigation. Additionally, the system will also be used to help the REM network in its operations. The launches will be done in four phases, with the first and second already complete. There will be two launches from Siberia, two from the ANZC and two from Guyana during each cycle. The launch phases will take place every six months and the projected last launch is in December 2011.

Advertisement