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"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Communism in practice is a village commons that everyone owns, so no one owns it. This leads to everyone leaving their trash there, or exploiting it as much as possible. This isn't a problem with inexhaustable supplies, but the Central Problem of Economics is "Limited supplies being distributed to infinite wants".

My advocacy is simply for standard property rights laws, as exist now governing land, to be applied to oceanic areas as well as Space.

Historical precedent is that when a new island is found, someone or some government claims it. That claim takes precedent unless someone else comes in and lives on the land, or can make counterclaim to have other historical rights to it (it's in the center of an area they traditionally control, for instance). Whichever party invests the most time, effort, and/or capital in the land has a greater claim to it, thought this claim must be adjudicated and settled by a legal process or international negotiation (or war).

Such is the case with the Asteroid EROS. The legal arguments are fascinating. Link is here to the Eros Project.

-- Kevin

Seriously, when you consider their other project I'd say this is a hoax.

From the site:

Orbital Development is at the forefront of the critical issue of "Property Rights in Space." Since March, 2000 the firm has managed the "Eros Project" which is designed to bring the issue into a United States of America Federal Court for a difinitive decision on the new legal subject of "Space Property Law."

The Eros Project is primarily sponsored by Beefjerky.com. You can support this critial legal work in progress by trying some delicious "Final Frontier Jerky"

The company is Orbital Development.

Gregory Nemitz is an interesting character. I am a little skeptical about the deal since you are purchasing a "project" and not an actual mission. So there are very few guarantees attached, and you have limited authority of the project.

I think Nemitz's more interesting project is the most credible attempt to assert ownership over an extraterrestrial body. Specifically, he is asserting his claim over the near earth asteroid Eros.

On his website you can see legal correspondence between him and NASA as he gives them an invoice for a parking fee for their NEAR spacecraft that crash landed on the asteroid. Also available is his explanation of what he is doing and why he is doing. A very interesting read, and it gives some in-depth analysis of the nature of property ownership.

The company is Orbital Development.

Gregory Nemitz is an interesting character. I am a little skeptical about the deal since you are purchasing a "project" and not an actual mission. So there are very few guarantees attached, and you have limited authority of the project.

I think Nemitz's more interesting project is the most credible attempt to assert ownership over an extraterrestrial body. Specifically, he is asserting his claim over the near earth asteroid Eros.

On his website you can see legal correspondence between him and NASA as he gives them an invoice for a parking fee for their NEAR spacecraft that crash landed on the asteroid. Also available is his explanation of what he is doing and why he is doing. A very interesting read, and it gives some in-depth analysis of the nature of property ownership.

The company is Orbital Development.

Gregory Nemitz is an interesting character. I am a little skeptical about the deal since you are purchasing a "project" and not an actual mission. So there are very few guarantees attached, and you have limited authority of the project.

I think Nemitz's more interesting project is the most credible attempt to assert ownership over an extraterrestrial body. Specifically, he is asserting his claim over the near earth asteroid Eros.

On his website you can see legal correspondence between him and NASA as he gives them an invoice for a parking fee for their NEAR spacecraft that crash landed on the asteroid. Also available is his explanation of what he is doing and why he is doing. A very interesting read, and it gives some in-depth analysis of the nature of property ownership.

This is being offered by Orbital Development, the same whackos who want to charge NASA parking and storage fees for the NEAR Shoemaker probe on Eros. It wouldn't surprise me if the seller's feedback score becomes negative in the not-so distant future.

http://www.erosproject.com/

http://www.erosproject.com/

That doesn't match up to what OrbDev says and does: namely that while pointing and saying "it's mine" establishes the claim**, it's a pretty weak claim until one actually "mixes ones labor with it" and "improves it" (i.e. in this case, by going to the bother of publicising the claim, and defending it in court). This being the "one tenth of the law", in the absence of the "nine-tenths" that is posession. So this is less silly than it at first looks.

(**Claims have to relate to a specific thing, not a category, so you can't claim "all dark matter" or some such.)

Also, if you do look at the cited documents on the lunatic's website, they're misaligned scans of court documents. But this isn't simple incompetence, it's encryption! "These document scans are formated to hinder text capture. No portion may be saved or copied for any purpose whatsoever."

...on January 27, 1967, when they nationalized 99.9* percent of everything. The UN Outer Space Treaty purports to make the entirety of outer space off limits to property, held in trust for "mankind". Supposedly, Earth is the single oasis of individual ownership in the vast communist deeps. Yes, I said communist, and I meant it! What else do you call banning all private ownership - of nearly everthing in existence? Besides pure bloody minded hubris.

This treaty is the dragon that the Eros Project is trying to slay. They are attempting to creeate case law backing the natural right to claim, take, and use unowned frontier land - even in space.

If you support private space ventures such as X-Prize, you should also support OrbDev.

Maybe they just plan to move the probe from space 29 in Orbital Development's parking and storage facility to avoid any late fees (see their website).