Outer Space Treaty

On 22 May 2006 10:02:43 -0700, "neo" wrote:

Is it true that outer space treaty is applicable to governments and not
to organizations and individuals?


This is true, but not in the way I'm guessing you want it to be true.

According to the Outer Space Treaty, and to international law generally,
all space ships, stations, travellers, etc, are government space ships,
stations, travellers, etc. If you personally want to go and homestead
Mars, either you do so as an Agent of the (I'm guessing) United States
Government, or you do so as a Space Pirate.

If you homestead Mars as an Agent of the United States Government, the
United States Government is required to ensure that your actions do not
violate the Outer Space Treaty. This is probably not a problem; the
provisions of the OST do not seem to prohibit or even substantially
hinder anyone's near-term homesteading of Mars, and the United States
Government in particular will probably sign off on the "Agent of the
United States Government" part as a formality, with comiserate griping
about those damn fool socialists at the UN.

You will have to abide by US Government regulations ensuring that you
do not e.g. recklessly endanger the people living under the flight path
of the rocket you fly to Mars, or carve out a Martian Empire, that sort
of thing, and there will be paperwork involved. Deal with it. Plenty
of commercial satellite operators have proven that it can be done.


If you decide to homestead Mars as a Space Pirate, well, the OST is
kind of vague about what happens next. Vagueness like that, means
pretty much every government on Earth is going to say, "Space Pirate,
huh? Interesting. We'd rather you not launch your Space Pirate Ship
from our territory, of course, or build it from parts you bought here,
or organize or finance the effort from here. Could cause trouble for
us, so go somewhere else".

There won't be a "somewhere else" with a supply of rocket parts from
which you can build your ship, so you won't be getting to Mars.


If you're a purist who insists on being able to carve out your very
own sovereign chunk of territory on Mars without any government having
any say-so in the operation, then you're out of luck. If you just
want to go live on Mars and mind your own business and maybe make a
fortune in the process, that can be arranged with a bit of effort.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

On Wed, 24 May 2006 03:43:03 +0200, Pascal Bourguignon
wrote:

John Schilling writes:

If you're a purist who insists on being able to carve out your very
own sovereign chunk of territory on Mars without any government having
any say-so in the operation, then you're out of luck. If you just
want to go live on Mars and mind your own business and maybe make a
fortune in the process, that can be arranged with a bit of effort.

Minding my own business means I don't bother with the paperwork and
redtape, so I'll go as a space pirate.

No, you won't go at all. No ship will carry you.

You cannot singlehandedly build your own spaceship. You cannot get
together with a small group of like-minded people and build a spaceship
without using parts whose purchase, anywhere on Earth, requires lots of
paperwork, including the various "I am not a Space Pirate, and I can
prove it" forms. And if you were to assemble a group of people so
large and diversely talented as to be able to build a spaceship from
scratch, or from freely available commodities, you will find that mass
of humanity to be wholly unmanageable without lots of internal
paperwork. Plus, you'll need police and lawyers and courts to keep the
more larcenous members of the team (hello, band of wannabe *space
pirates*) from just walking off to parts unknown with the better part
of your budget.

And if you try to buy passage on someone else's ship, you will find
that they, in the course of figuring out how to actually build a
spaceship, have gone and filled out the paperwork. Specifically
including the, "None of my customers are Space Pirates, and I can
prove it", forms.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

Is it true that outer space treaty is applicable to governments and not
to organizations and individuals?

It closes the frontier for you, by preventing your nation from
expanding.

http://spacebombardment.blogspot.com...ng-of-new.html

In article .com,
neo wrote:
Is it true that outer space treaty is applicable to governments and not
to organizations and individuals?

"Organization"? "Individual"? What are those? :-) International law
barely recognizes the existence of anything other than governments; it's
a very collectivist world view. An organization or individual is the
property of some government, and has rights only insofar as that
government feels like granting him/her/it some. Article VI of the
treaty says (among other things):

The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space... shall
require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate
State Party to the Treaty.

Other clauses of that Article say that the government in question is
responsible for what such entities do. In other words, the treaty most
definitely applies to organizations and individuals, via the appropriate
government, and there is always some appropriate government (although
determining which one may be tricky).
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

bombardmentforce wrote:
It closes the frontier for you, by preventing your nation from
expanding.

It also removes the potential for a showdown over some piece of
property. Given the situation during the 60's it strikes me as
sensible.
It prevents territorial claims by nations, but - and this is the
important part - it doesn't prevent exploitation of resources. There
are token provisions on informing the UN and "sharing" the wealth. So
if you want to set a base, mine a region or have 10Gallon hatted
Rangers INSIDE you base knock yourself off.

http://spacebombardment.blogspot.com...ng-of-new.html

You seem to confuse UNANIMITY with "adopted without vote" (quote from
UR blog).
u-na-nim-i-ty (yue nuh nim'i tee) n.
1. the state or quality of being unanimous;
a consensus or undivided opinion.
It means everybody voted yes (or YEA if U prefer).

Some links:
http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/BH766.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law

Art.11, p.5 & 6 - Moon Treaty (1984)
5. States Parties to this Agreement hereby undertake to establish an
international rgime, including appropriate procedures, to govern the
exploitation of the natural resources of the moon as such exploitation
is
about to become feasible. This provision shall be implemented in
accordance with article 18 of this Agreement.

6. In order to facilitate the establishment of the international regime
referred to in paragraph 5 of this article, States Parties shall inform
the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and
the
international scientific community, to the greatest extent feasible and
practicable, of any natural resources they may discover on the
moon..blogspot.com/2005/11/jfk-and-sharing-of-new.html

"Hyper" wrote in news:1148343976.951333.166590
@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

You seem to confuse UNANIMITY with "adopted without vote" (quote from
UR blog).
u-na-nim-i-ty (yue nuh nim'i tee) n.
1. the state or quality of being unanimous;
a consensus or undivided opinion.
It means everybody voted yes (or YEA if U prefer).

Some links:
http://www.islandone.org/Treaties/BH766.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law

Art.11, p.5 & 6 - Moon Treaty (1984)
5. States Parties to this Agreement hereby undertake to establish an
international rgime, including appropriate procedures, to govern the
exploitation of the natural resources of the moon as such exploitation
is
about to become feasible. This provision shall be implemented in
accordance with article 18 of this Agreement.

You seem to confuse the Outer Space Treaty with the Moon Treaty. The two
are not the same. The US has ratified the former but not the latter. The
Moon Treaty is practically a dead letter as far as international space law
is concerned.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Any major investment in RLV's might as well hand any
research over to the AST (Associate Administrator for
Commercial Space Transportation) if they have received
contracts from any government funded organization(s)
to help them perform either:

(i) technical discussions and activities, including

the design, development, operation, maintenance,

modification, and repair of satellites, satellite
components, missiles, other equipment, launch
facilities, and launch vehicles;

(ii) satellite processing and launch activities,

including launch preparation, satellite transportation,
integration of the satellite with the launch vehicle,
testing and checkout prior to launch, satellite launch,
and return of equipment to the United States;

(iii) activities relating to launch failure, delay, or

cancellation, including post-launch failure investi-
gations; and

(iv) all other aspects of the launch.

(under U.S. Congress, Strom Thurmond National Defense
Authorization Act, 1999, Subtitle B-Satellite Export
Controls, SEC. 1514. NATIONAL SECURITY CONTROLS ON
SATELLITE EXPORT LICENSING).

However, any organization involved in private research
and development must either perform their research in
secret, or not be located within the United States* in
order to develop space technology. The AST is becoming
deeply involved in Human Safety issues w.r.t.
regulation for risk development, liability, financial
responsibility requirements, mission assurance,
environmental risk, flight control, preflight analysis,
system performance, accurate simulation of ground
testing and flight conditions, passenger safety
requirements, public safety requirements, and safety
of the crew. All of these items present potential
conflicts with private enterprise in that a consid-
erable amount of time is spent on procuring documents,
contacting FAA regional flight centers, and requesting
licenses, permits, and approvals in order to achieve
flight status. Not only must a space business contend
with bureaucratic protocols, but conflicts between
agencies and potential conflicts between departments
within each agency can increase the cost of operation
for a space business.

* Interestingly, The Outer Space Treaty lets nations do
their own governing regarding space mining activities,
because territorial sovereignty is prohibited by
Article II. Any construction activity in a non-
geosynchronous orbit may be regarded as outside the
territorial sovereignty of any country. Private ownership
is therefore provided under the natural law theory of
property rights. Under Article VIII, property rights
are conferred and recognized by any country outside of
territorial sovereignty. These rights include the
following:

1) The right to exclude others from space facilities
and safety zones,

2) The right to be free of interference from others,

3) The right to control the activities of all natural
persons and legal entities within the owner's space
facility and and safety zone(s),

4) The right to direct the activities of space
vehicles and persons inside those vehicles while
the vehicle is in the space facility and its related
safety zone, and

5) The exclusive right to appropriate resources
within the space facility and its related safety
zone, and

6) The right to sell property rights.

Under the Outer Space Treaty, property rights are
subject to the following limitations:

1) if the owner of the space facility or safety
zone(s) stops using his property for peaceful purposes,
the rights shall immediately terminate;

2) if the owner of the space facility or safety
zone(s) abandons the property for a period of two
years or more, the rights shall terminate;

3) If the owner of an orbital facility deviates
from the registered orbital parameters by more than
[a percentage to be defined when the treaty is
negotiated], for a period of one month or more,
then rights shall immediately terminate;

4) owners may not establish property rights that
would prevent others from having free access to outer
space and celestial bodies;

5) owners shall have the right to direct the
activities of space vehicles on the registry of other
states, and the persons inside those vehicles, only to
the extent necessary to protect the safety of other
space objects and persons within the owner(s) space
facility and safety zone(s);

6) owners shall not have the right to exclude
persons who come to inspect the owner's space facility,
on the basis of reciprrocity, pursuant to article XII
of the Outer Space Treaty.

Regarding prospecting for precious metals and the like,
the doctrine of pedis possessio says that occupation
of a territory (i.e., asteroid) for the purpose of
mining is treated as a licensee or tenant at will;
of course, radiometric detection of precious metals
using synthetic aperture radar does not require
terrestrial mining because erosion does not take
place on an asteroid. The location and recording of
data regarding surface scans of an asteroid would be
difficult to ascertain without first retrieving a
sample extraction for proof of telepresence. Thus
remote sensing and telerobotics are vital to securing
pedis possessio under the General Mining Law.

For information concerning House Approval of H.R.
3752, The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of
2004 see:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:h.r.03752:

You seem to confuse UNANIMITY with "adopted without vote"

U.N.Resolution 1721 preceeded the Outer Space Treaty, which was
Johnson's sin, not JFK's.


Art.11, p.5 & 6 - Moon Treaty (1984)

Is not binding on the U.S. and not the fault of American leaders.

it doesn't prevent exploitation of resources

Both Antartica and Space are underdeveloped, my thesis is that similar
bad law is responsible.

mine a region

Mining and sharing are not compatible.

International law barely recognizes the existence of anything other
than governments; it's a very collectivist world view. An
organization or individual is the property of some government, and has
rights only insofar as that government feels like granting him/her/it
some.

Hmm, in my previous post I was sort of fuzzing the question of whether
the government grants the rights to the individuals, or whether the
individuals set up the governments (as a practical matter,
international law is more relevant if it applies even when governments
don't agree on concepts like "rights", although I suppose even
authoritarian governments may give lip service - if not any
implementation - to rights these days).

But yeah, it is probably a stretch to really read the situation as
"the citizens of my country set up a government to protect my rights,
and that government sets up treaties to protect those rights vis-a-vis
encroachment by other governments".

In either case, though, international law is about
government-to-government relations. Will this change (with people
trying to come up with legal bases for things like international
intervention in Darfur, Rwanda, etc)? Dunno, but it hasn't changed
yet...