Comments on: Space junkies ask 'who owns the moon?'

A NASA working group hosts a discussion this week to ask: who owns the moon? The answer, of course, is no one. Property rights could get sticky, however.

[markblogger]

Any individual who invests the time, money and effort to make part of it habitable owns that part. Then he has the right to sell the part that he habituates on a free market to whoever is willing to pay the price he asks. His government on earth will then be responsible for protecting his right to his property on the moon, but until protection is absolutely necessary, his habituation there will be under the condition: at your own risk.

Well Said.

[markblogger]

Any individual who invests the time, money and effort to make part of it habitable owns that part. Then he has the right to sell the part that he habituates on a free market to whoever is willing to pay the price he asks. His government on earth will then be responsible for protecting his right to his property on the moon, but until protection is absolutely necessary, his habituation there will be under the condition: at your own risk.

[Ramon366]

People may be jumping to conclusions on the ownership issue. The National Enquirer has published extensive articles reporting on the base camps that aliens have built on "our" moon, to say nothing of the possibility of remnant populations thoroughly featured in American documentaries such as "Missile to the Moon" and "Catwomen on the Moon". Jules Verne published an exhaustive work in his 19th century, "From the Earth to the Moon". Greed is clouding our better judgment, and we should learn from the mistakes of our sordid colonial past.

[elliottdp]

Just the nature of this article shows how limited and greedy humans still are. With the ideals that Star Trek have conveyed over the past decades people, agencies, and governments are still selfish and limited with their views towards the human race.

Last time I checked, we all were the same species and race. Could be wrong though........

Maybe those individuals making policy and directing agencies are de-evolving into a past genus?
Right now the space race just displays how fast we are going towards future conflict that should have been resolved in the past.

I'm just not sure anymore

[Penguinisto]

This issue has been chewed on ever since Robert Heinlein wrote "The Man Who Sold The Moon".

His answer was to set up dummy companies in every country that the moon literally passes over (basically within a 20-some-odd degree arc from each side of the equator), and buy the rights to own the moon in every one (in the story, this was had for dirt cheap). This makes the moon essentially private property.

OTOH, you could simply have the UN declare that the Moon become its own sovereign nation, and the inhabitants can write their own laws, rules, etc.

As far as ownership, well... whoever parks a house/lab/whatever on the Moon, owns only that spot of it, and maybe a small buffer of land around it, with no "claims" being held as legal unless the owner of that claim actually lives there or has built a habitable presence there. Also, make it so that no claim can extend for larger than structure-plus-some reasonable buffer.

Coming up with a solution is fairly easy... it's the enforcement of a reasonable solution that's a raging pain in the butt.

[vinylblitzkrieg]

I ALREADY own some acreage on the moon. I bought it on Ebay. You land on my property and you have to pay me rent and parking fees.

[LancerEQ]

You have to prove I was there :-P

[howard_nyc]

Space, the financial frontier...

These are the voyages of Free Enterprise...

Its mission, boldly go where no sniveling Harvard MBA would dare...

There?s been money made for decades from intel gathered from satellites parked in LEO and GEO. . .

But what there was never a lot of, was mass, and now we are finally gotta get all we need of oxygen, aluminum, and soil begging for seeding . . . food for factory personnel, factories to manufacture consumer goods where there is no environmental impact (no atmosphere, no environment, no impact)

Sure, that first dish washer is gonna cost a billion dollars, but then the price for #2 thru #10,000,000 slides to about a buck. . .

Many problems stand in the way, but most of the engineering ones are skull sweat. . . it is the others that will delay "saving the world". . . not least of which is keeping greedy governments and jealous fief protective bureaucracies from tripping up those willing to risk all to make something new

The trick is in accepting there are going to be winners, losers, thieves, nut cases, et al, and all the way from that Second Wave until there is a Bicentennial Planning Committee to celebrate the boredom of too much civilized settlement we are gonna have to figure out who is who. . .

[GastroGnome]

It looks like John McCain at least owns a chunk of the moon.

http://www.lunarinternational.com/pages/mccain-moon-property.html

In all seriousness, private ownership of lunar real estate seems to be a reasonable answer for the question of who owns the moon. Why turn this over to governments? They'll just manage to somehow screw this up.

[No Man]

It's all well and good to idealize about how we should go about lunar colonization. But truth be told, it will probably end up looking a lot like any large scale colonization has looked throughout the history of the Earth: your claim is only as good as you or your government's ability (or willingness) to physically defend it. This will lead to an utter free-for-all, probably several violent confrontations and/or wars, and ultimately resolving in someone issuing the lunar equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine, closing it to further colonization by threat of force.

[hucklebee]

I believe the fix is to establish a mandate stating that your grass must be mowed every two weeks minimum. Any part of your acreage that is not well or tended lawn must be tomato plants, blacktopped, or of course, your trailer itself. Sorry, NO PETS.

[Drpixelphd2]

"last time I checked we were all the same species and race"

Okay, the species part is partially correct but the race part is ummm, WRONG! Check again please!

[Drpixelphd2]

"One of those people is Steve Durst, a director on the board of the International Lunar Observatory (ILO) and owner of the Space Age Publishing Co. He's linked to one of the Google Lunar competitors Odyssey Moon, and he said during the talk that he hopes to scratch out his initials on one of the legs of a lunar rover and "claim his acre."

That's assuming we have been to the moon of course and there is a Lunar Rover parked there as they want us to believe. The Japanese Satellite in orbit there as we speak has already logged over 12,000 hi-res 3 meter resolution images of the moons surface. Since they can see large rocks clearly in these photos, are they going to show the world pictures of a Lunar Rover or the landing vehicles supposedly left behind? Being that they are Japanese, they should look to those areas first to discredit our claim to have visited the moon. Still, they have said nothing. Is NASA powerful enought to influence their findings? To maybe slip a few "Old file photos" they used in the 70's into the data stream coming from the *** sat? Where are Mulder & Scully when you need them?

[The_Decider]

How do you know the Japanese really have a satellite taking pictures?

[Imalittleteapot]

Well this is easy. Whoever wins the first game of paper, rock, scissors on the surface of the moon is obviously the owner. Best two out of three. Unless you prefer to see which country is the most efficient killing machine?

Of course America would just go in and topple all the crystal moon people statues and setup a democracy and give the moon back to the moon people. However, that would just upset the moon people because they're not individuals. They're all of one telepathically linked mind so they have no need for democracy. We've just made it harder because now they have to use paper ballots even though they all vote exactly the same way. They'll just get frustrated and just take it out on us by using their death ray.

See, maybe the moon people don?t have hands like us. Maybe they have suction cups or something. This is why I say paper, rock, scissors because there's a good chance it will give us a strategic advantage. Also, we may want to consider a high jump competition considering our current state of gravity.

Anyway, some other solutions are to divide it proportionally according to country or population density. Also, they could set up an independent council where nobody owns it, but the council decides who builds where.

You could divide the surface up evenly and sell the land off to whomever and collect the money in a world fund for world aid. Or whomever builds there keeps it until they sell it or get killed by someone bigger. Who knows?

[The_Decider]

Nobody should own it or build on it.

Do we really have to destroy everything we can reach?

[Imalittleteapot]

Yes, yes we do. Why do you hate the American way?

[mjd420nova]

Without going into all the organizations involved, the UN passed the outer space treaty in 1967 that prevented governments from owning any part of the moon. Several organizations submitted and were accepted by default that corporations and indiviuals could own land on the moon. Look up LUNAREMBASSY.COM. I hold a deed to one acre of land that also contains the chemical and mineral rights. It does state that I must allow passage or landings as long as they are for exploring purposes but can charge for other uses and others who build must pay rent. I doubt that it will ever be used by me, but will become part of my estate and passed on to my survivors.

[The_Decider]

That isn't worth the paper it is written on.

[Biff55]

Do you really want to know who owns the moon???? Do you want a real inside look to who THINKS they own the moon??? Here is a blog that deal with this specific topic. How very interesting and arrogant all at the same time! http://www.ootwo.com/blog/post/2008/05/Trespassing-on-the-Moon-and-other-celestial-bodies.aspx. Seriously, what the heck?

[odeleon]

Didn't Douglas Adams write up a spaceship for people concerned with this sort of thing?

[Dr_Zinj]

You own it if you develop it, or require it for resources and are willing to fight to defend your right of ownership, and succeed in defeating those who want to take it away from you.

Which is one reason why the native australians and north americans don't own their continents anymore.

[tribolumen]

In the long run, the Outer Space Treaty is moot. It's necessary to think beyond it, and most importantly, figure out how to enforce it.

For the moment, the Moon is the common heritage of all humankind. The international agreements laid out in the Outer Space Treaty are sufficient for the moment. Every nation knows what the rules are, which makes it easier for everyone to play nice.

However, if history is any guide, this state of affairs won't last.

The air was considered the common heritage of all humankind as recently as the early 20th century. As long as flying was difficult and expensive, there wasn't any point in claiming the skies. With just a few eccentrics flying in a whole lot of sky, ownership just wasn't worth worrying about. As the cost of flying dropped, the sky started getting more crowded, and it also became clear that aircraft had commercial and military value. When that happened, the concept of "airspace" began to develop.

One might argue that in a strict legal sense, claiming airspace isn't quite the same as claiming ownership of the air. But airspace is the property of the nation claiming it, in practice if not in law. Pilots straying into unfriendly airspace can expect to be escorted out at gunpoint, forced to land, or shot down. A nation's airspace is, in a real sense, the property of that nation.

A similar evolution is taking place even now regarding use of the ocean floor. It's beginning to be possible to get resources out of it, and nations are starting to talk seriously about claiming it.

As was true for flight a century ago, today doing anything on the Moon is both difficult and expensive. (Antarctica and Earth orbit likewise.) For now there's lots of moon, and hardly anyone or anything there to use it. As long as that stays true, the Moon can remain the common property of all humanity. Sooner or later, though, some nation or individual will figure out a way to use the Moon to gain an advantage. It may be profit or material resources, it could be military power, it might just be prestige. When that happens, the Moon will belong to whoever can defend a claim to it. Claims of ownership may be dressed up in pretty language, as with "airspace", but if events are left to themselves, someone will own the Moon eventually.

If you find that disturbing, see if you can come up with an alternative, and a mechanism to enforce it. Common property doesn't generally work well in the real world. Once the Moon becomes valuable, people and nations are going to claim it, unless there's something to stop them. Having a treaty is pointless if there's nothing to back it up.