Could Legal 'Loophole' Lead to Land Claims on Other Worlds?

I worked for ARAMCo in the '70s to '80s. ARAMCO (and Saudi Arabia in general) had certain rules in place to protect workers (it was the only way they could get people to commit to working in such a barren environment). One of those was that the worker would be given free airfare to their point of hire, should they depart employment for any reason.
If I was employed on the moon, I'd want my air, water, food, shelter and basic medical care included, as part of my compensation(water, food, shelter and med care WAS a part of the ARAMCO contract, at least when I worked in the desert). I would also want free transport back to my point of hire.
This might evolve into a state sponsored edict, that ANYONE living in space be a recipient of this largess. A form of minimalist socialism might thus be the best way to ensure the survival of humans in space.

Hi Everyone,

If national governments don't have jurisdiction, couldn't an agency to handle off-planet property rights be set up through the U.N.? Such an agency could draft rules that would avoid appearances of bias between claims, and nations, and an additional branch of the international court of justice at The Hague could be established to adjudicate disputes.

Given that any off planet colony will only be viable if it can extract material from its immediate environment, perhaps some sort of a 3-D homestead rule would be best. EG. any off planet colony would be granted all volume within 5000 meters of established, permanent shirtsleeve environment with a carrying capacity of 10 people, title to lapse to the public domain, if environment not maintained. I know, as a potential colonist, I would not want to be more than 5000 m from maintained pressure, liquid water, food supplies, and a comfortable temperature, no matter how good my space suit.

on second thought, 5000m may be too much. How far would YOU want to have to go, if your space suit sprang a leak? Maybe 500 meters?

Nice thing about such a proposal, is it would tie property rights to colonist worker safety, and, god knows, something like that will be required, if colonization is to be viable. And it would establish the precedent that Human beings must be able to survive anywhere that is to be claimed as human property; a precedent that would prevent many abuses.

How about we even add that to all private property claims here on Earth, and start re-connecting duty and responsibility to property rights? It would be simple on Earth. Just build and maintain a hut with emergency rations, and a water tank, every km across a land holding, and every km along any mine tunnel, with emergency air tanks, in case of tunnel collapse. Surely this represents the minimum standard of care for public safety that we should expect of any land owner? Note: the survival services don't have to be provided for free. I expect all space colonists will have to pay, somehow, for the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they eat. I would only insist that the land owner make minimal survival provisions for anyone in his volume. Accidental trespass happens. we just don't want anyone to die from it.
Two very good modellings of workable socio-ecomomic customs, for solar system colonization, can be found in the Robert A Heinlein Novels, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", and "The Cat who Walks through Walls."

If we can't invent laws and customs for space colonists AT LEAST as well thought out as the ones in those stories, I fear our off-planet colonization attempts will be as messy as the history of earth colonization by Europo-American people was. We commit enough atrocity at home. Let's take our best nature into space, not our worst.

All the Best

Doug

>
> > I expect, if someone(probably a nation/state) goes to all the trouble to
> > establish a lunar colony, THEN we'll see some serious scrabbling around
> > in international courts to establish and define property rights in space.
>
> No doubt, but if we could get some legal clarity beforehand, then such a
> colony is likely to happen sooner (possibly much sooner).
>
> We already know Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. If he knew he could
> claim 9.3 million km^2 by establishing a permanent base there, and that
> claim would hold up in court, I'm pretty sure he would find a way to do
> it (even if it meant selling off 9 million km^2 of it as soon as the
> claim was recognized).
>
> Let's just do some quick BOEs... an acre of land in Arizona costs
> somewhere around $100k. Martian land would have to be steeply
> discounted, of course. Let's suppose he can sell it for just $1000 an
> acre. That's $247k per km^2, or ... holy cows... $2.3 trillion for the
> whole 9.3 million km^2.
>
> And who among us wouldn't plunk down a couple $1000 for an acre of Mars,
> if there were already a working permanent base there and a clear legal
> claim behind it?
>
> But the "let them build first, and THEN sort out what's legal" approach
> doesn't work nearly as well. Investors loathe uncertainty, especially
> legal uncertainty. So who's going to fund such a colony? Governments?
> Seems unlikely to me.
>

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