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Lawyers In Space...
colonist writes "The Christian Science Monitor presents an interesting overview of space law. Some want space to be shared by all: 'Outer space is a province of all mankind. There is not, and should not be, any privatization of outer space. It is a common thing that should belong to all.' Some people have claimed parts of the moon or Mars. In response, a lawyer has claimed the sun, 'to show how ridiculous a property-rights system in outer space would be if it were based solely on claims unsubstantiated by any actual possession.' The Space Settlement Initiative wants official recognition of land claims made by those who establish human settlements on the moon or Mars."
Even hinting that property and commercial enterprise is not going to be possible in space is a sure way to cripple space exploration. All large scale exploration is done for either commericial or military gain, take your pick.
For the near future though, exerting property rights over anything you can not "meaningfully control" goes against all the common law up to this point.
10 years ago there was a real question over ownership of "cyberspace." Some of us thought it should be an apolitical place where real-world laws need not apply. Want to register the domain name McDomalds.com for yourself? Why not? Who ever said copyrights applied to the Internet? Now it's hard to remember how that made sense.
I predict that in 500 years, today's questioning whether property rights should hold in space will seem just as quaint and hard to understand. People never fail to fence things off and keep them for themselves if they can.
Property 'ownership' should be on physical presence basis. If business A spends $20 billion to create a sustained colony on Mars, then their buildings/development should be respected. If the colony discovers something like oil, they have rights to that oil since they spent the money/effort to get there (Hallimartian - CEO: Dick Cheney's head).
This does not mean the entire planet is theirs.
The sun cannot be 'owned' by anyone (that's 1 helluva Nomex suit if someone can land on the Sun).
One the other hand, if there are indigenous inhabitants (future-speak) found on a planet, they trump the visitors.
You can't claim anything until you set foot out there, and put some reasonable limit on how much land each individual can claim when there is a shortage.
How about this:
1) If you land on an object <100km on its longest axis and remain for one year, it's yours in perpetuity. If you leave before then, the object becomes unowned.
2) If you land on an object >100km on its longest axis and remain for one year, a circle around your landing spot 100km in diameter is yours in perpetuity. No-one else may land in your circle during your first year for the purpose of claiming ownership (tho' they can of course visit if you let them) and if you leave, the land becomes unowned.
3) If you land on an object on which insufficient land remains for your 100km circle, and you remain for one year, you get the largest possible circle without overlapping anyone elses around your landing point. If you feel hard done by, you should've picked something else to stake your claim on.
There, property rights in space solved.
You know, you are so right. Lawyers shouldn't be able to make laws. Anyone who has spent time studying the law, obviously knows too much to be able to write a good law. We need more amature law makers. I'm sure they would do a much better job.
You idea has so much merit that I think we should extend it further. Computers are very difficult to understand for people who know anything about how computers work. I think we need to pass a constitutional ammendment that prevents those have studied computer science or engineering from designing computers. It should make for much better computers that everyone can understand.
Perhpas we should extend this to doctors and writers as well. I don't want complex medical advice. I wouldn't want to read a book by someone who has studied writing.
Ok, enough with the sarcasm. It's just that your idea is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
Lawyers are not allowed to hold public office
This kind of thinking causes big problems!
Follow me here... Politicians are people who (a) WRITE LAWS and (b) ENFORCE LAWS. I very much like it that my legislators, who we put there to write good laws, see inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement within existing and proposed laws, and create the legal framework for our society.
Further, when we have wiener-politicians who don't understand the law either create or enforce them, they end up causing lots of problems for both the public and the courts.
So, PLEASE elect lawyers as politicians, that's one thing they're good for. Further, please elect experienced lawyers that know their way around case law so they don't have to get on-the-job experience at taxpayer expense (where expense is measured in the human terms of suffering under misworded statutes).
Of course, everyone in a legislature doesn't have to be a lawyer, just so there's enough of them there to point out when something is jurisprudentially incorrect.
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