Some Thoughts On Space Business
Benjamin T Solomon
Thanks Dave for the article. I'm a strong supporter of private property rights in outer space. I like what Space Settlement Institute is doing.
Here are some of my thoughts on Alan Wasser’s paper in the Journal of Air Law and Commerce paper and the Boston Globe article:
1. First, Wasser’s paper is much better than the Boston Globe article’s summary of it.
2. Ownership has to be real. Only real ownership is good enough. Lease or enterprise rights is not the way to go.
3. Alaskan sized pieces with open bidding for sub-lots is a brilliant idea. Limited size will be a key to future international agreements.
4. I don’t think a claim should be associated with anything else except for a prior human or robotic physical occupation. Yes, rides may imply physical occupation, but it is not as clear and direct as ‘physical occupation’.
Wasser’s paper reaffirms my view that we are ready to move forward operationally. To this end there are three key operational issues,
1. Jurisdiction: It is apparent that jurisdiction will evolve from de facto civil law. Thus,
a. The ‘who’ that has the jurisdiction to recognize a sale or a claim is less important than the ability to make the claim (my interpretation).
b. With a view to the future, the claim registering authority/council should become an Earth-independent ‘native’ council of that planetary body. So transfer of authority from Earth-based legal system to planet-based authority should be built in. This will prevent Earth-based wars over space-based property rights.
c. We need to start claim registration that is open to all Earth citizens.
i. Could the Google Lunar X-Prize contest be a way to piggy-back this claim registration process into reality? The real prize is an Alaskan sized parcel on the moon, and the first claimant or group of claimants, spins-off the claim registry for that entire outer space body.
ii. I would recommend that the initial claims be bounded by a planet’s longitudinal and latitudinal lines. This will be a lot less messy. Clear and easy demarcations are vital for peaceful settlement.
iii. All planet or satellite property right claims be available on the Internet.
iv. Very clear rules and guidelines be published in several languages for all Earth citizens to comment on and then abide by – a de facto civil law implementation - before outer space property right claims are executed.
2. Appropriate Treatment: Do we treat planetary bodies differently from asteroid-like objects, or even the stars? For example,
a. Planetary bodies need be parceled. Surface, subterranean, mineral and water rights. Water rights are vital in Colorado and the Western States, and will be critical on some planets and not on others. Should there be other rights like open space parks?
b. Asteroid-like bodies can or should be claimed whole.
c. How does one claim property rights on gas planets like Jupiter?
d. Similarly, would commercial ‘mining’ of energy from a star require property claims?
e. Obviously there is the need for fairly sophisticated property rights registry software system.
3. Fair For All: How does one prevent in a legitimate manner a single entity from claiming everything in sight, and at the same time how does one enable as many participants as possible?
a. I think that a ‘single entity claiming everything in sight’ is the fear of all nations.
b. Permitting robotic occupation to claim finite-sized outer space property rights will enable many participants from many nations to participate in the creation of wealth from outer space, and thus build momentum towards and facilitate a de facto civil law property rights claim.
c. How ironic, as this would also prevent ‘humanity’ as a single entity from claiming outer space as belonging to all humans! Everything belongs to everyone is worse than nothing belongs to nobody.
d. I think this is the key to the Alaskan sized parcels. It gives enough to the occupant-owner to enable risk taking while at the same time providing enough left over for the late comers.
e. As Wasser has stated that the subsequent resale of sub-lots enables everyone to participate, even if they do not yet have the technology to ride to these destinations.
In my opinion the Homestead Act was a huge success because it enabled people with no wealth to claim property rights – by physical occupation - and then create new wealth from these occupied property rights. This I believe should be the primary thrust of space-based property rights, that people with negligible wealth (i.e. most of us) are enabled to create new wealth from their finite-sized space-based property rights.
If you would like to be a member of my gravity modification mailing list please see below, and I’ll be posting this to this group.
Best,
Ben
iSETI LLC
P.O. Box 831
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Author of An Introduction to Gravity Modification: A Guide to Using Laithwaite’s and Podkletnov’s Experiments and the Physics of Forces for Empirical Results, March 2008, Universal Publishers, ISBN 978-1-59942-922-2 (paperback), 396 pages, $29.95, First 25 pages free at http://www.bookpump.com/upb/pdf-b/9429926b.pdf Ranked #1 (April 30, 2008) on Amazon's 'Science/Physics/Gravity' category.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Brett Wasser [mailto:Dave...@austin.rr.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2008 11:44 AM
To: ben.t....@gmail.com
Subject: Lunar Real Estate - In the news
There is a new paper in the Journal of Air Law and Commerce,
and a new article in the Boston Globe, that I want to bring to your
attention. They deal with the following topic: Can real estate on the
Moon be legally claimed, owned, and resold here on earth, without
violating international laws?
As you may know, this is an incredibly important issue because
real estate would be a catalyst for privately funded space development.
Without the ownership of Lunar real estate there is little economic
incentive for private industry to invest the billions of dollars to get
there - and stay there.
The article, entitled "Space Settlements, Property Rights, and
International Law: Could a Lunar Settlement Claim the Lunar Real
Estate It Needs to Survive?" appears in this week's issue of the SMU
Journal of Air Law and Commerce:
http://www.space-settlement-institute.org/Articles/jal73-1Wasser.pdf
If you don't have time to read the paper, here is the Boston Globe
article...
Dave Wasser
Space Settlement Institute
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/05/18/my_space/
My Space
If we really want to explore space, maybe we should sell it off to the highest
bidders
By Drake Bennett
The Boston Globe
May 18, 2008
IF THE PAST few years have taught us anything, it is to not underestimate the
intoxicating allure of property. Real estate, it turns out, brings out the
adventurer in all of us. It's unsurprising, then, that a few enterprising
thinkers are hoping to harness that power in a more exotic neighborhood: space.
No one, of course, owns space - not even the relatively tiny portion of it
within humankind's reach. While the space race may have been kicked off by Cold
War politics, its rhetoric has always been fastidiously communal, eschewing
talk of ownership. "We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge
to be gained and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the
progress of all people," President Kennedy intoned in a famous 1962 speech
laying out the rationale for putting a man on the moon. In other words, while
exploring space has been a race, a mission, and an adventure, it has never been
a business
Recently, however, there's been growing interest in changing that. In the small
community of people who think seriously about space exploration, a few are
arguing that exporting the idea of private property into space is exactly what
we need to do to launch a bold new space race.
Space exploration remains a very risky, complex, and expensive endeavor. And
while the number of at least nominal space nations looks to grow in coming
years, here in the United States there's a sense among space exploration
enthusiasts that the government just isn't willing to spend the money necessary
to make projects like a permanent moon base or manned Mars expeditions succeed.
Better, some suggest, to rely on individual avarice to spur exploration, by
allowing private explorers to stake a claim, like celestial Sooners, to the
lands they reach. Giving extraterrestrial property rights could be a powerful
force, not only for exploration, but for the efficient development of the
discovered and undiscovered resources of space. Celestial bodies such as the
moon and the thousands of near-Earth asteroids may prove to be highly lucrative
pieces of property - as sources of minerals and clean energy, venues for
scientific experimentation and high-end tourism, or simply as open space for
refugees from an increasingly crowded planet.
"Property rights will provide the only economic incentive that will possibly
justify entrepreneurial space exploration," says Alan Wasser, chairman of the
Space Settlement Institute and the former CEO of the National Space Society.
The exploration and settlement of space "benefits all mankind, but all mankind
doesn't want to put up the money."
Already, space is becoming the province of the private sector: hundreds of
private satellites now orbit the planet. And within a few years, private space
travel has gone from concept to near-reality. Virgin Galactic's SpaceshipTwo
suborbital spacecraft is already taking reservations from aspiring space
tourists, and hopes to start flights by 2010. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's own
space tourism craft is on a similar timeline. The prototype of Las Vegas hotel
billionaire Robert Bigelow's "space hotel," a private space station that he
envisions could be rented out to everyone from wealthy vacationers to national
space programs, has been in orbit since July 2006.
These successes have suggested to some space exploration proponents that
private efforts, given the right incentives, might be capable of meeting far
more ambitious goals, bringing new technologies, lower costs, and a
swashbuckling attitude to a field traditionally dominated by public
bureaucracies.
There's a variety of opinion as to how extensive extraterrestrial property
rights should be - whether to allow, for example, the outright buying and
selling of land, or whether to forbid ownership and instead rely on leases,
trusts, and easements - but there's nonetheless a growing consensus that some
form of space property is inevitable and necessary. In 2004, President Bush's
Commission on Implementation of United States Space Exploration Policy
announced that a key component of the exploration of the solar system was
assuring "appropriate property rights for those who seek to develop space
resources and infrastructure."
The debate is playing out among the growing number of lawyers who have
dedicated themselves to the once obscure field of "space law," a specialty that
covers everything from space tourism liability issues to import and export
restrictions on satellite parts.
And while the question of property on the moon remains, for the time being, an
abstract one, for space property proponents it's far from frivolous. Whether
it's 16th-century English privateer-explorers or the Dutch East India Company,
19th-century American homesteaders or the building of the Transcontinental
Railroad, privatization has a long history as a catalyst for discovery,
development, and settlement. Now, some say, it's time to look up.
One of the more straightforward models for celestial private property has been
put forward by Wasser. He made his case most recently in an article in the
winter issue of the Journal of Air Law and Commerce: The United States and
other national governments, he argues, should pass what he calls "land claim
recognition" legislation. Under such laws, courts would recognize private
property claims on the moon or other celestial bodies so long as the claimant
has established a settlement there. Wasser proposes limiting lunar
property-holders to plots the size of Alaska - that leaves plenty for others,
but also is big enough that selling it off would turn a profit even after what
are sure to be the enormous expenses incurred getting to the moon in the first
place.
After that, Wasser argues, the process becomes self-perpetuating. Land sales
pay for the cost of developing safe transport and that encourages further
settlement, which drives up land prices even more. A key stipulation, though,
would be that space property ownership deeds would require the owners to sell
people rides to whatever celestial body the property was on - thereby speeding
up the process of settlement and spreading around the benefits of whatever
space-travel breakthroughs had been arrived at by the property holder.
"The point of all this is to open the frontier for everyone," Wasser says, "and
obviously being willing to sell rides to the settlement would be a way of
accomplishing that."
Another model, proposed by the Houston-based lawyer Wayne White, would make
ownership contingent on physical occupation. A company could claim ownership of
a piece of space only as big as its employees could physically occupy, and only
so long as they were actually there. Such a limitation would, he has argued,
prevent people from claiming more property than they could develop.
A third model tries to ensure that the most advanced national and private
programs wouldn't scoop up all the available celestial property as soon as it
became accessible. The extraterrestrial property regime envisioned by Glenn
Reynolds, a professor and space law specialist at the University of Tennessee
Law School, and Robert Merges, a professor at the University of California at
Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, would be, in most ways, a basic
first-come, first-served system. But it would have one key condition: A portion
of the total available property would be set aside for a period of time to give
developing nations a chance to catch up and to bid once they'd reached the
point at which they were technologically and financially able.
It is far too early to know how valuable such property claims would be, but
scientists and engineers point to a few potential sources of value in the
celestial bodies currently within our reach. A medium-sized asteroid, for
example, can contain trillions of dollars of gold, platinum, iron, zinc, and
aluminum - enough that whoever figured out how to profitably extract it and get
it to Earth would single-handedly collapse world prices for those metals and
still make out like Croesus. The California-based company SpaceDev, a producer
of rocket engines and small satellites, has been trying to figure out how to
make asteroid mining viable for nearly a decade.
Speculation about the moon's riches has focused on helium-3. Some physicists
see the isotope, which is abundant on the moon and all but nonexistent on
Earth, as a potential nuclear fusion fuel. And nuclear fusion, while it has
proven frustratingly difficult to control, is a sort of holy grail of energy
technology, promising vast amounts of power with almost no waste. And the metal
that traps the helium-3 on the moon's surface is titanium, valuable in its own
right.
With its long days, lack of an atmosphere, and wide-open spaces, the moon would
also make an ideal place to put massive solar power plants, say some
proponents. The solar arrays could be built from materials readily available on
the moon and the power beamed to Earth via microwaves. Wasser also envisions a
thriving lunar tourist industry, lunar laboratories for scientists wanting to
run experiments in low-gravity conditions, even televised novelty sporting
events like "flying football."
There is, though, a surprising lack of consensus over the question of whether
private citizens can today own property in space. The closest thing that space
has to a constitution is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, and while it forbids
claims of national sovereignty in space, it doesn't mention ownership by
private citizens.
Because the treaty holds nations responsible for the activities of their
citizens in space, however, several space law scholars argue that it
effectively bans private property as well. Rosanna Sattler, a partner and space
law specialist at the Boston law firm Posternak, Blankstein & Lund, and the
author of a 2005 article in the Chicago Journal of International Law about
space property rights, takes this position. Even if an aspiring lunar real
estate speculator could get to the moon, she says, any attempt to sell
celestial property "is like me selling you a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there have already been efforts to claim
extraterrestrial property. A Nevada-based company called the Lunar Embassy
sells deeds to one-acre "prime view" moon plots for $19.99 - founder Dennis
Hope claims to have sold more than $10 million worth of lunar real estate so
far. In 2001, also in Nevada, a man named Gregory Nemitz sued NASA for $20 in
parking and storage fees when the agency's robotic spacecraft landed on the
asteroid Eros, which Nemitz had claimed the year before. The case was dismissed
by a federal district judge on the grounds that Nemitz's claim had "absolutely
no legal basis."
The Outer Space Treaty could, with enough political will, be changed, but some
space lawyers believe that would be a dangerous thing to do. The international
space law regime may be outdated, says Leslie Tennen, a Phoenix-based lawyer
who consults with government and industry on space law questions, but the
system has been successful in its main goal: keeping space peaceful. Allowing
private ownership claims in space has the potential to change that. In space
there is no sovereign government to resolve competing territorial claims, and
if the claimants are from different countries, he says, there's a good chance
their respective governments would feel compelled to get involved. "You're
going to export all of the problems that have plagued us on Earth regarding
defending title, and all the innumerable wars that has led to," says Tennen.
Other space law scholars argue that because small oversights in space can
easily have lethal consequences, it is not the place for a freewheeling system
of competing private approaches. "The space environment is one in which you
throw out one screw and it goes flying around the globe at tens of thousands of
kilometers an hour - that does not happen on Earth," points out Ram Jakhu, an
associate professor of air and space law at McGill University. The growing
amount of human-generated space debris is already a serious threat to
satellites and spacecraft in the near-Earth region of space.
Better, say Tennen, Jakhu, and others, to set up a lease or license system. In
one version of this, an international body would have the authority to award
leases to - and then keep an eye on - those private parties hoping to develop
parts of the moon or mine platinum from asteroids. Unlike in traditional
terrestrial leases, however, the land would remain unowned, even by the
governmental body itself. (Tennen calls such instruments not leases but
"enterprise rights" to remove any whiff of ownership.) It's a system similar to
how we award mining rights beneath the oceans, which, like space, are
off-limits to national ownership.
To law professor Glenn Reynolds, these concerns are overblown, and ignore what
to him is the great value of the property right: people take better care of
something if they own it. "If you give someone grazing rights on communally
owned land, well, that's the definition of the tragedy of the commons," he
says.
For thinkers like Wasser, celestial private property is important not simply
because of helium-3 mining or moon-based solar arrays, it's important because
it would allow for large-scale colonization. In such a future, Wasser believes,
it simply doesn't make sense not to have private property in space, any more
than it would make sense for people in the United States not to be able to buy
and sell and inherit their homes.
The colonization of space, in this model, would unfold as a sort of
interplanetary suburbanization, with the moon and other celestial bodies being
settled thanks to reliable transportation and the ready availability of private
plots of land. For all the technological marvels required to make this happen,
it's a story Americans are pretty familiar with.
Drake Bennett is the staff writer for Ideas. E-mail drbe...@globe.com.
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