Space property rights

I found an interesting article on "thespacereview.com" concerning
something which eventually will become something of a concern. I do
not doubt it myself that once people actually begin to live in space,
there will arise the need for some type of a spacepolice. The question
then will be 'who should own that agency'? A UN spacepolice or should
each powerful spacenation create theyr own? Food for though.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1002/1
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"Space property rights and the 3:10 to Yuma
by Jonathan Card
Monday, November 19, 2007

Ever since I started reading about the emerging (and, surprisingly,
pre-existing) legal regime in outer space, first in Glenn Reynolds'
and Robert Merges' Outer Space, then in David Livingston's "The
Business of Commercializing Space", and The Cato Institute's Space:
The Free-Market Frontier, it seems to me that the whole business is
founded on some pretty foolish ideas.

The big one--the almost humorous one--is the idea that, when various
nations signed the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, it included phrases
that say, in essence, that space is for use by The People but not for
nations to claim as territories. Some people have got it into their
heads that this means that we can have property rights without the
territory being claimed by a nation, including the movement of any
military into space, for use against earth or other extraterrestrial
presence.
The concern over international war is the first concern of
civilization; it is the last concern of the frontier.

I'm a very simple man, and here's my simple understanding of property
law: say I'm a solar-farmer on the moon, just selling my electrical
output to them city-folk across the ridge at the spaceport. Pirates,
who've mutinied against the captain of their spaceship, land on my
farm, kill my sons, rape my daughters, and take over my collector to
recharge their batteries, becoming their new illicit base to spread
their range of plundering and villainy. Who shoots them? If it's the
government, then I have property rights; if it's me, then I might as
well fly my own flag and call my 40 acres "Cardopolis", a petty king
of a petty city-state; if it's nobody, this scenario will surely come
to pass. Every advance in transportation has led to equivalent
advances in piracy and I don't expect space travel to be much
different. I pitched this idea past a friend recently, and her
response was, "But there's nothing in space to build a ship out of; in
the Carribean, there were trees." I did my best to remain polite when
I pointed out that Black Beard probably never built a ship himself; he
bought them, or took them, from mutineers.

Defenders of this idea frequently cite Antarctica as a good precedent
for how we should extend property rights in space. The problem is that
nobody wants to go to Antarctica; it's really cold. In all honesty,
it's probably easier to live in space than in Antarctica, and there's
no money to be made in Antarctica that isn't easier to make elsewhere.
That's just a bad precedent.

Some also cite the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). This
is an international agency that "prohibits the ownership of
frequencies or orbital locations," according to James E. Dunstan in
Space: The Free-Market Frontier. However, they do allocate orbital
slots and frequencies to individuals or companies, who can then use
them, not use them, or sell them to other people, who then use them or
not use them or sell them. I don't know about you, but that sounds
like a deed registry to me. The only difference, it seems, is that a
deed registry admits that the property that it's deeding is in its own
territory; the UN seems not to want to admit that they want to be the
territorial governors of Outer Space. This, again, is a bad precedent,
this time not because it's irrelevant, but because it's completely
wrong.

The opponents of extending national territories into space focus on
the risk that competition over territory may lead to war between the
nations. This is not invalid, but the concern over international war
is the first concern of civilization; it is the last concern of the
frontier. This is where the recent movie 3:10 to Yuma becomes a great
illustration. From local cattle barons, to the railroad, to weak and
ineffectual lawmen, to the poverty of the people themselves, every
villain of the western genre made an appearance. In fact, natives made
barely any appearance. There were two good people in the whole film
and they don't both survive. And I figure the odds on that are
probably pretty reflective of humanity, on Earth and off. The first
concern, regarding violence, of the frontier is not international
conflict, but extra-legal conflict. That is, murder from bandits and
pillaging from pirates. It's not even clear to me that police forces
will be seen as non-military, so even flagging an orbiting colony as a
United States vessel, which is currently expected to indicate that it
is subject to United States law in the same way that a flagged vessel
in international waters is under United States law, will be relevant
or even desirable. If the goal of space colonization is permanent
residence, the current laws that apply to oil derricks may not be very
good precedent and standing law enforcement will be necessary. If the
law can't be enforced, what's the point of subjecting yourself to it?
In fact, the nation may well discourage it, since the nation is
responsible for damage and havoc done by any vessel under its flag.
Laws, institutions, and societies advance like any other technology,
but what's important to remember is that human beings don't. To force
humanity to go to into a new frontier without the benefit of these
advances is like requiring we go without any of our technology.

Part of the problem is the insistence of space law theorists to treat
property on a celestial body the same as territory in orbit or deep
space. A better analog, to me, is to treat orbit, up to some multiple
of geosynchronous orbit, around a body as "belonging" to that body (or
some joint organization representing that body, like the ITU)
analogous to territorial waters in maritime law, deep space as
international waters, and territories on celestial bodies as terra
nullius, land that's as yet unclaimed (see "Still crazy after four
decades: The case for withdrawing from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty",
The Space Review, September 24, 2007). I'm not proposing that we
should ignore the real threat of war between nations over territories
in space. But there are other solutions. There are a lot of solutions
on how to allocate terra nullius; these solutions are discussed in
Outer Space, starting on page 165. I don't see why some such
alternatives couldn't be extended to the claims of national territory.
For example: a limited degree of claiming land by an individual,
similar to the current regime, with jurisdiction over the property
subject to the country represented by the flag on the vessel or
settlement. After some period of time, that property becomes the
territory of the country of origin, provided continuous (or overall)
profitability of the enterprise, conditional on no, or limited, direct
subsidization by the government. An additional caveat could be
presented where unclaimed territory, surrounded on four sides by
territory governed by one government, becomes territory of that
government. The purpose of this is to promote the growth of law and
order in extraterrestrial territory, but also to slow down a land rush
into space that could result in blocking still-developing countries
from an opportunity to grow in that direction.

Laws, institutions, and societies advance like any other technology,
but what's important to remember is that human beings don't. Humanity
is not getting better; our civilizations are getting better. I walk to
McDonalds after dark safely in Greenwood Village, Colorado, not
because the people of Colorado are better than the people of
Mogadishu, but because our governments, laws, and institutions are
better. To force humanity to go to into a new frontier without the
benefit of these advances is like requiring we go without any of our
technology, like Man vs. Wild in the cold indifference of vacuum. I
can't imagine that working; why would we ask for the other?

Jonathan Card has been consulting with Fortune 100 companies on
enterprise server system development and architecture since his
graduation from Northwestern University's McCormick School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences five years ago. He's an avid follower
of the NewSpace movement and the legal and policy obstacles that
businesses must confront in order to establish profitable habitats in
space."
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Einar

"Einar" wrote in message
...
I found an interesting article on "thespacereview.com" concerning
something which eventually will become something of a concern. I do
not doubt it myself that once people actually begin to live in space,
there will arise the need for some type of a spacepolice. The question
then will be 'who should own that agency'? A UN spacepolice or should
each powerful spacenation create theyr own? Food for though.

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1002/1


If I had my druthers, that's the field of law I would practice. I don't
have my druthers.

My mind works over time coming up with great hypotheticals for my space law
class exam.

I'd wear a nice tweed jacket with elbow patches and pose surly Socratic
moronic questions to moronic first year students.

Mr. Hart! That is the most intelligent thing you've said all day. You may
take your seat. But Mr. Hart floats continues to float around the oom.
Speak louder, Mr. Hart! Fill the room with your intelligence and your
carbon dioxide!
Mister Hart, here is a quatloo. Take it, call your mother, and tell her
there is serious doubt about you ever becoming a space lawyer.
Can you beat an adverse possession claim by saying that your neighbor just
floated into your quadrant every so often and he never really was open,
notorious and continuous in his floating
And that rule of perpetuities takes on a whole new meaning in space.

mk5000

"Walks in to the room
Feels like a big balloon
I said "Hey girl, you are beautiful."
Diet Coke and a pizza please "--Mika, Big Girl