Slashdot Mirror
FAA Could Extend Property Rights On the Moon Through Regulation
MarkWhittington writes When the Outer Space Treaty which, among other things, forbade claims of national sovereignty on other worlds, was signed and ratified by the United States in 1967, little thought was given to the idea of private property rights. Now, with companies like Moon Express and Bigelow Aerospace contemplating private lunar operations, that question has become a concern. According to Reuters, the FAA may have discovered a way to enforce private property rights on the moon without, it is hoped, violating the Outer Space Treaty. The idea is to extend the FAA's current launch licensing authority to cover commercial activities on the moon. The agency would license, for example, a helium 3 mining facility, giving the company running it control over it and as much adjoining territory as necessary to run the operation. The size of that territory, for which a particular company would hold property and mineral rights, could be considerable.
I wasn't aware the US owned the Moon or the rights to it...
Well, if the FAA says so, I'm sure the rest of the world will respect it.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Following this to its logical conclusion, this means that one day the moon could be entirely controlled by corporations, but not governments. I can't decide if this is a good thing or not...
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
FAA can do anything they fucking want; nobody else in the world will give a shit. Do you really think if the Russian, Indian, or Chinese equivalent of the FAA pulled this that the US would take it in stride? Of course not. We'd claim they still don't have any right to reserve property on the moon.
And it would come down to who had the guns and is willing to use them. Which, to be honest, is all property rights really is anyway.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Where the Fedzilla Government has dominion over everything, from the bedroom to the moon. Im sure there is a Federal Government, INC. flag at the bottom of the marianas trench.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
If you live in the US, you're already used to this...
How did it get there?
Come on, MST3k fans, you wanted to say this.
We do have corporate property rights. That's most important in Corpero-America!
Providing we could actually send people & machines up to the moon to do crap, it would be just like the colonies. Remember that? Remember how all the countries left the New World alone since "Columbus" discovered it? Oh wait, I didn't get that text book, if I recall correctly, there was a lot of fighting over this new land.
So yes, let's fight over the moon also, because we have run out of things to fight over here on earth.
Be seeing you...
Really? You think you can create a utopia on Earth? Knock it off, just knock it off. The Earth will always have problems. Any place with humans will always have problems.
I am still confused why people think the dominiation of corporations in American life is somehow better than the domination of Government. In life in the USA right now they are at BEST the exact same thing. Personally I think an "elected" offical determine the course of my life is slightly preferable than a CEO whose main thought is cash grabbing. Actually NEITHER should be happening.
A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure...
why would you even want to stay here, right?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Most of the US is engaged in battle to do NOTHING while still looking like they are caring.
Another great example of this is school testing. It does absolutely nothing but it makes looks something is being done. 98% of all US politics is an effort to kiss corporate ass, and keeping the status quo is the best way to kiss corporate ass right now.
First of all, how do you "mine" Helium-3? Isn't it a gaz? That's like the old joke "How do you mine for fish?".
Secondly, I think I saw that movie.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
I am persuaded by your friendly and intelligent argument.
Your shining example of the beauty of humanity has convinced me that all people in America are inferior.
Thank you.
There is a way around anybody's law, regulation, or treaty. IMHO, the only reason the FAA is getting involved in this is to make money in the same way that the only reason the FCC is weighing in on net-neutrality is because they have figured out a way to make money off of it, initially in regulatory fees (which will be passed on to the consumer) or in a few years some sort of national internet sales tax.
In 10 years we are going to be living in rubble down here. It's already starting.
I have no problem with companies having property on the moon, as long as they realize that they have precisely zero ability to actually enforce any property rights or hold anyone personally accountable for violating any such rights unless there is somebody who is personally there, or at least until they personally return to the earth.
In general, such ownership rights should immediately dissolve when nobody who represents said ownership is living there, only becoming permanent once large enough permanent settlements are built on the moon that a 24/7 law-enforcement infrastructure can be implemented to enforce such property rights.
Until that time, if you mess around with property that belongs to somebody else on the moon when nobody who represents them is there to physically stop you, without authorization from the company that owned it, you would probably encounter a lot of difficulties when you returned to earth, unless you happened to live in a nation that didn't respect the laws of the country that the company belonged to anyways.
The entire notion of property is a consequence of civilization, and if you don't have a civilization living there, then you can't really have any permanent property there either.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I can imagine it now. "Right, so we can't claim sovereignty over the moon. What now?" "We're a republic." "So?" "We have no sovereign, and we sold off the national reserve, so there's no gold sovereigns either." (Open champagne, toast to sell...regulating the moon.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
...and when the "FAA-decreed" property rights conflict with, say, the property rights "granted" by Putin to his oligarch friends, or that Beijing gave to the company in China that'a a front for the PLA?
At least we'll finally see what combat in space looks like.
-Styopa
sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays!
Corporations DONT dominate life in the US; wherever you are getting your information is apparently a huge fan of hyperbole.
"The government" has also been responsible for uncountably more suffering even in the last 50 years than any corporation you could call to mind.
All the government can do is to put me in jail, tax me or force me out of the country.
Zuckerberg could shut off my Facebook access.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
So long as it's run by a single clone and his AI robot assistant, I got no problem with this.
(and if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.)
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Space lawyer here, writing in personal capacity hence posting as AC.
The OST already has provisions guaranteeing a right to non-interference with legal activities in space (as opposed to say militarization, which is illegal under the OST).
What the FAA is proposing is merely a mechanism to enforce these existing rights under current regulatory regimes. There are no cops, courts, or administrative agencies in space - in fact there is no room under current treaty regimes for such entities to exist, since they all would entail claims of sovereignty, which are strictly forbidden. And even if such things were theoretically possible, they are impracticable for the foreseeable future.
So what we are left with is a situation where any jurisdictional claims and regulatory authority are explicitly tied to and derive from the citizenship of the people in space, the ownership of man-made objects launched into space, and the licensing authority of the states from which spacecraft are launched.
In the U.S., the FAA already is the regulatory body charged with licensing space launches. In the absence of an explicitly-defined specialized body in charge of enforcement of U.S. laws/regulations, including treaty-derived ones, with respect to space activities under US authority, the FAA has said that they will step in and leverage their existing status as the U.S. launch regulation authority to also fill this role in space as well.
Whether the FAA making this claim is appropriate or allowable under U.S. administrative law is a separate question from whether the U.S. has the authority to regulate its citizens and property in this way, which it certainly does. In fact, nothing is to stop the U.S. from writing laws that allow it to fine or otherwise punish strictly foreign entities, provided they interfere with activities that do fall under U.S. jurisdiction. Of course these would have to be enforced in American courts, but given the extremely international nature of most private organizations operating in space, that is not necessarily a huge barrier. As far as interference committed by one completely non-U.S. entity against another non-U.S. entity, the U.S. would likely have zero jurisdiction or authority, except the remote possibility that they would entertain such a private tort suit between them under the Alien Tort Statute - pun not intended!
As it stands, the FAA's main weapon to enforce these kinds of claims would be to merely deny launch licenses to entities it saw as violating the right to non-interference. This is by no means a trivial weapon, since it effectively denies any assistance from U.S.-regulated satellite companies, ground control, etc. etc., and most countries would be disinclined to pick a fight with the agency that could in theory cut off all of their air traffic to and from the U.S. But this is nothing resembling an attempt to create property rights in space. It's merely a clever way to enforce already existing and widely-recognized rights in absence of a better enforcement mechanism. And really, who else is there to do this kind of thing currently? NASA? They are in the exploration business, not the regulatory business. Until Cognress steps in to clear things up, the FAA is the logical choice to handle this kind of thing.
Incidentally, this is not a new idea - we discussed this very idea at length in a space law seminar I attended at a very well-known D.C. law school I attended few years ago. Frankly, I'm rather surprised that it's taken this long for the FAA to publicly articulate it.
Ahh kats and your eternal wisdom.
America thinks they have this all figured out but eventually somebody set us up the bomb.
That's an incredibly ignorant comment. The Outer Space Treaty fairly explicitly recognizes the right for a nation to enforce the property and activity rights of its citizens in space. It's one of the primary reasons for the treaty existing at all. The FAA isn't saying Americans will own parts of the moon. It is saying that if I spend a billion dollars to build a mining company up there, it's not going to let someone else mine in the exact same place while my operations are actively going on, since it might damage my investment up there and discourage further exploration or development. And once I've pulled up stakes, anyone can move in there.
It's a pretty damn sensible approach, actually.
From the article; "However, for the system to work, a lot of legal and diplomatic work has to be undertaken so that other countries would agree to such an arrangement and participate in it. "
In other words... the FAA has an idea. It needs lots more in the way of international treaties to *work*, but they have an *idea*.
Trifle not with Dragons, for you are crunchy - and go well with catsup.
They think they not only own the world now, but all other worlds. Truly the Ferengi of human society...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"As usual, somehow an American agency has decided they have jurisdiction to claim/enforce property rights on something which international treaty forbids."
Any international treaty is worth just as much (ie jack shit) unless the international body ( I guess the UN) has spaceships and space marines to enforce the treaty.
The motivations of corporations are typically a bit simpler and can often be compatible with the interests of the people. In a nutshell, corporations just want to make money, while governments want to have control. Corporations can make money from mutually beneficial voluntary transactions. However, the control so often sought by those in government doesn't tend to have an alternative. The fact that corporations generally can't assault, arrest, or kill me is a pretty big difference.
However, the real villain is the amalgamation of both into a single entity, which we effectively have in a lot of cases. Governments are used as muscle for corporations, and corporations are used to get around the restrictions on government, creating an unstoppable monster.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm not sure how the FAA will regulate anyone whose on the moon, with say, that Helium 3 mining facility. It seems it would be terribly costly to send inspectors, and if they're not a US-based company, how will they ever have any hope of having jurisdiction with regulations? It seems like a crazy idea to me.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Damnit, now they're gonna bring down the Nazis living on the moon.
Let's read the treaty, shall we?
Article I
[...] Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies. [...]
Article II
Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.
Article VI States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non- governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. [...]
There's a lot more to it, but let's look at these three parts:
Article I: The Moon is free for every country and state to use.
Article II: No country or state can claim the moon in any way
Article VI: Every country is responsible for what its people do. You can't sneak around articles I and II by claiming that it technically wasn't the government that claimed the moon and tried to interdict access to large parts of it. It it's your people doing it, then you're responsible for them.
This would be a lot clearer if the USA had signed The Moon Treaty, but it seems quite clear that if Bigelow Airspace wants to land on the Moon and claim part of it for themselves then the USA would be responsible for their actions there and Bigelow would be unable to do anything that the government of the USA could not also do under the Outer Space Treaty.
The only loophole that I can see is the usual one, which is "I know I'm breaking the rules that we all agreed to, but you can't stop me."
basically *every* private entity or public entity, be it the FAA or some guy selling property fall under the sovereignty of a nation state, which fall under the moon treaty. Checkmate. Trying to redefine term by saying "yeah but I am not a sovereign natioN" fail the litmus test : you are a sub entity, belonging to a sovereign nation. You are not an independent entity in a vacuum.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
When the existing treaty was drafted nearly 50 years ago, space flight was still in its infancy, and realistic scenarios envisioned today hadn't yet been dreamed of. Perhaps it's time to revise the existing treaty, or negotiate a new one?
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Let me know when a corporation legally exterminates millions of people based on the whim of the CEO or when I'm forced by law to deal with them; then I might agree. AHA was a step in the wrong direction for putting companies in charge by forcing people to deal with companies, but overall individual companies have very little control of your life that you don't willingly cede.
Alls I knows is I like the idea of the Old Planet trying to control the New Planet for its own benefit!
Hmmm, "planet" sounds clumsy. Maybe "world".
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And it would come down to who had the guns and is willing to use them. Which, to be honest, is all property rights really is anyway.
If all claimants to property agree* to respect a common set of laws and legally-enforceable dispute resolution procedures and where those dispute-resolution procedures are functioning well, then property rights are a matter of law.
If they do not, then it can easily become a matter of which party has the biggest guns and is willing to use them and/or which party has the sovereign or non-sovereign backer with the biggest guns and who is willing to use them.
* "agree" can be read "are compelled to, under penalty of being sanctioned by a government which has a means of enforcing its will." For example, I "agree" to respect local no-trespassing and no-filing-false-land-title laws if for no other reason than I don't want to go to jail.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'd much rather have my rights stomped on by a corporation than by government. A corporation does not have the authority to take your rights, except where your beloved government allows it. Government, can forcibly take your money, property, freedom, & life.
For a corporation to get your money without your permission, they must sue you and get the government to agree. The government can just tax you.
For a corporation to get your property without your permission, same thing. The government calls it eminent domain.
I can't think of any situation where it's legal for a corporation to take your freedom and/or life. The government has prisons for this.
Oh, I'm sorry did I not show enough concern for the details of your multilayered legal maneuvering? Should I pay more attention to your Federal Lawyers and Corporate Lawyers.giving each other handjobs over coffee? Because for a second there I thought we were actually talking about EATING AWAY AT THE FUCKING MOON.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Why can't we just settle this like the five year olds we are. Just be the first to lick it and no one else will want it anyway.
As someone who is hip-deep in the school testing battle, I've got to disagree. The high pressure standardized tests do exactly what they were designed to do: Show that kids are failing so that corporations like Pearson can make more money "helping kids succeed." (And government officials can keep getting their lobbyist cash to help the corporations help themselves to our kids.) In New York State (and in many other places), the tests are also used as "proof" that public school teachers are universally horrible and all public schools should be closed to make way for company-owned charter schools. (Our governor has gone so far as to claim widespread instances of public school teachers having inappropriate sexual relations with their students but being allowed to remain in the classroom.)
What the testing doesn't do is help kids or teachers in any way.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
>>Technically the US does since we landed people on it first
Technically North America is owned by the american natives ( also called Indians)
So if the USA is owned by the indians, and the moon is owned by the USA,
then the moon is owned by the Indians.
aaaaaaa
I can see from your attitude you're from Quebec.
They can put you to death as well you iggit.
It'll be the same old rules: If you can keep it, it's yours.
What right has FAA to say anything about the moon.. NONE... If I go to the moon and claim a piece of property, it's mine and there's nothing FAA can do about it.. But then again, getting to the moon is the culprit now...
Just reclassify the moon as an Inner-Space region
what I was thinking was more like a non-recoil pistol, since I would be flung back unless I had my back up against a rock
Currently, what you want is the HK G11. It has a rotating breech using caseless ammo so that it gets rid of the issue of angular momentum caused by ejecting shells. The recoil in the direction of the firing can be handled with training to fire from the hip and center of mass but is minor compared to other gun operations that will cause the firer to spin along an additional axis. Of course, HK never moved the gun to full production, but of course, countries don't already have moon based either (no matter what conspiracy theorists will tell you).
Then we can all meet in an international court to show that what the FAA wants doesn't mean shit.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
All the government can do is to put me in jail, tax me or force me out of the country.
Zuckerberg could shut off my Facebook access.
He could also file a SLAPP lawsuit against you to make you life hell and bury you in litigation costs, ruining you financially, with his pocket change. And he could pay any number of anonymous individuals to harass you in many ways: anonymous death threats, have strangers follow you and your family around taking pictures (see how Brown & Williamson harassed Jeffrey Wigand), exhaustively research your background and publicize any "dirt" they can find. It doesn't even have to be real dirt - lots of things can be made to look bad, and they have a super-loud megaphone (that money=speech thing) that will drown you out as you try to clear your name.
Unscrupulous people with vast wealth at their disposal can destroy you if they choose.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
They'll have an active moon base by 2019 and it won't matter what the US, a third world country, says.
Heck, the US can't even build high speed rail, they're that backwards, and their idea of fast Internet is 1/20th what real countries have.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Other countries with economic and military leverage might hold them to it.
Please tell us when you find any (with leverage against the U.S.).
The Russian military is no longer really a match for the U.S, and China is pretty much tied to U.S. interests because of heavy investment in the USD. In fact China would probably act to *protect* Americans seizing large swaths of the moon for commercial purposes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For a corporation to get your money without your permission, they must sue you and get the government to agree. The government can just tax you.
A corporation does not need to "get" your money to stomp on you, they merely need to deprive you of it. They can easily do that with lawsuits to bury you in legal costs. Such lawsuits are often meritless, but see if you can foot the bill to show this in a court of law.
And, no, the government cannot decide to levy an arbitrary tax on you as an individual. This sort of punitive private bill is covered under the constitutional ban on Bills of Attainder (which is interpreted more broadly in the U.S. than the meaning just of declaring someone guilty of a crime).
For a corporation to get your property without your permission, same thing. The government calls it eminent domain.
The government must pay you fair market value, not simply seize it.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
No, they're just offering to help US companies avoid conflict with other US companies (where by "US companies" I mean "entities that for whatever reason, whether launching from the US, using US-made vehicles, using US tracking stations, etc."). This doesn't prevent conflict with, say, a Chinese company. But it does establish a useful beginning for cooperation between orbital-capability nations, to jointly prevent conflicts between their respective companies.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Well there is hope. According to at least one economist, the potential availability of resources from space (including materials, information, energy, etc.) could improve the mean standard of living of everyone on Earth by a factor of 10 within 100 years.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
That's an incredibly ignorant comment. The Outer Space Treaty fairly explicitly recognizes the right for a nation to enforce the property and activity rights of its citizens in space. It's one of the primary reasons for the treaty existing at all. The FAA isn't saying Americans will own parts of the moon. It is saying that if I spend a billion dollars to build a mining company up there, it's not going to let someone else mine in the exact same place while my operations are actively going on, since it might damage my investment up there and discourage further exploration or development. And once I've pulled up stakes, anyone can move in there.
It's a pretty damn sensible approach, actually.
Correct. The OST gives nation states the power and the responsibility to apply their laws to the actions of their citizens in space.
Its been long enough after Apollo that I'm happy with anyone who wants to go to the moon doing any damn thing they want with it
In the end, I'm on the side of the guys with space travel.
Now that would really be something to see. (moon's gravity = 1/6 Earth's)
"I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate."
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Most of the comments seem to be focused on the paranoid idea (justifiable in a lot of cases) that the US is doing a land grab.
What about from the other way? you have a moon base (say Space X or such went there "because it's there") and China's rocket lands 10 feet away a few years later. They open the door and tell you to get off their land. Who do you go to to keep 'em from doing that?
Jurisdiction issues cut both ways.
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Corporations decide your worthiness to participate in our society: credit ratings, insurance scores, background checks, etc. It's not as bad as jail, but if you are blacklisted in some way, it's still pretty shitty.
Did any of you *read* the whole article?
"But the letter also points to more legal and diplomatic work that will have to be done to govern potential commercial development of the moon or other extraterrestrial bodies.
“It’s very much a wild west kind of mentality and approach right now,” said John Thornton, chief executive of private owned Astrobotic, a startup lunar transportation and services firm competing in a $30 million Google-backed moon exploration XPrize contest. "
They're basically saying that this might be a start at further international law to govern the issues of commercial development off the Earth, not the actual solution. And, frankly, I think it's a good thing to start doing. Off-Earth commercial development, not additional international law, that is. Of course, one will follow the other.
Oh, the trials and tribulations of a network geek! Read about them at: http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/
The real problem isn't the FAA or the US its the UN and the stupid Outer Space Treaty. If everyone were to use that treaty for the purposes it as written for and wiped their arses on it the problem would be solved. :D
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..