The Space Settlement Initiative

Hey, I'd been meaning to respond to this one (it was still in my inbox)
and had forgotten... Thanks for the reminder, VT :-) Did anybody from
spacesettlement.org (Dave Brett?) ever respond?

>No to all of the above. The actors in the International system are
>nation-states, thus there is no mention of private interest in
>treaties, for each nation is responsible for the conduct of it's
>citizens. Hence, TransOrbital had to receive US Gov't permission
>for their private lunar mission.
>
Actually, this is a good argument, and one I would have used, before I
started talking to space lawyers :-)
I'm quite familiar with what TransOrbital had to go through to get
permission. Most of the licensing involved things on Earth (like
satisfying the State Department that they wouldn't be giving any
technology secrets to the Russians); the NOAA license was closest to a
"permit" for the mission, but the main purpose of that was the rules for
handling images of Earth taken from space (there's a lot of
international legalese on "remote sensing" you have to wade through),
not really much to do with what they did on the Moon. NOAA did ask for
some assurance that they wouldn't disturb the Apollo landing sites; I
assume on the basis that the equipment there is still US property. So
yes, they did need to get permission, but it mainly involved things on
Earth, not really having anything to do with the Moon - a comm sat
launched outside the US would have to go through almost exactly the same
process.

>You seem to have invested a lot of energy in your website, so I'm
>surprised that you haven't invested a few thousand dollars and gone
>to a lawyer specializing in International Law and had a legal
>opinion drafted that you could use to buttress your argument.
>
I don't know what Alan Wasser and Dave Brett on the spacesettlement.org
site have done in talking with lawyers - I know there's been some
connections made, certainly.

But the last year or so I've chatted with Wayne White and Joanne
Gabrynowicz of the space law center at U. Mississippi -
http://www.spacelaw.olemiss.edu/ - with Amanda Moore who is the NSS
representative to the United Nations, with Declan O'Donnell (Colorado
space lawyer), and with Larry Roberts, who runs the "Archimedes
Institute" which has its own little space property claims registry - see
http://www.permanent.com/archimedes/.

There seems to be a general consensus among these people who know the
history of the UN space treaties inside and out, that the language of
the Outer Space Treaty, despite what it may seem to say about
nation-state responsibility, does NOT preclude private property claims,
or at best leaves the situation very legally ambiguous. In contrast, the
language of the Moon Treaty, which the US did not ratify (only 9 nations
did, so it's not considered to be in force) did clearly preclude private
ownership. These guys are lawyers and don't provide their legal opinions
free on the web as far as I can see (though Larry Roberts makes his
opinions pretty clear in the discussion forum on his site), but in
verbal discussion I've been pretty convinced. I expect they have been
publishing their opinions in law journals though. Now maybe there's
another contingent of space lawyers somewhere that disagrees, and I just
haven't met one of them yet. It probably would be worth paying for some
sort of statement along those lines though (Alan or Dave, you listening?)

>You state that no government has to claim sovereignty over the moon,
>they just have to recognize private ownership. Well private
>ownership can't exist without sovereignty. Without law and order,
>how are property rights protected?
>
The best analogies I see are to patent, trademark, and copyright
ownership, and to ownership of segments of airwave "spectrum". The
relevant sovereignty is here on Earth, governing the economic activities
of the sponsors of any space development project. If it's a US company
selling titles to lunar land, the US has sovereignty over the economic
activities of that company. But not over the lunar land itself, just as
the US cannot claim sovereignty over all patentable ideas - ever country
has an equal claim to recognize (or not) rights to a piece of
intellectual property, and the same goes for celestial property.

>Next, you're calling on the US Gov't to pass legislation prohibiting
>title recognition until transport is offered.
>
I'm not sure "prohibit" is quite the right word; but if the US
Government adopted this specific proposal then yes, the title would not
be fully recognized without the transport requirement. On the other
hand, what use is a title without transportation?

>[...]
>Question 5: You're having the US State department assuring other
>nations that your scheme isn't a US land grab; that's exactly what
>it is. The legislation is passed by the US Congress, recognition is
>from the US Executive, adjudication is addressed by the US legal
>system, the State Department is advocating it to other countries,
>other nation's claims aren't recognized, but US claims are.
>
It's not a claim by a nation, it's a claim by a private individual or
corporation. Just as with a patent, they can make the claim in as many
countries as they wish to - luckily we now have a World Trade
Organization that tries to synchronize the claims process across
international boundaries, but the laws are all still slightly different.
In practice this doesn't seem to have been too much a problem with
intellectual property; hopefully we'll have learned from that experience
and do even better when celestial property looks for international
recognition.

>A last word of hope - if you are really looking for an "out" from
>the Outer Space Treaty, then look to the creation of a wholly new
>state, which for your purposes would claim the Moon. Such a State
>would not be a signatory to the OST, and wouldn't be bound by its
>provisions.
>
Such a state would be completely dependent on supplies from Earth for
decades, at a minimum, and would be rather easy to bend to the will of
the nations of the Earth - you don't want your new lunar nation
suffering under a UN trade embargo, do you? Legal clarity beforehand is
a much better solution. Probably the only one that will bring in big
investors.

Arthur Smith