Space & the universe
Who owns space? The coming fight over mining the Moon and asteroids
11 min
Companies and nations are preparing to extract water and metals from the Moon and asteroids, but the treaties governing space were written for a different era. Examine the unresolved law of who can claim and profit from what's out there.
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Show notes
The nineteen sixty-seven Outer Space Treaty prohibits nations from claiming sovereignty over any celestial body.
United States law allows private companies to own extracted minerals without claiming the land itself.
Water is currently more valuable than gold in space because it provides fuel for orbital travel.
The Artemis Accords use safety zones that may create de facto property rights for mining operations.
Russia and China argue that private space mining violates the principle of space as a common heritage.
NASA is establishing legal precedents by purchasing lunar soil directly from private commercial companies.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Cold War Foundation: The 1967 Outer Space Treaty2 min
- 3The Great Decoupling: Resources vs. Territory3 min
- 4The Geopolitical Friction: Russia and China's Counter-View3 min
- 5The Economic Reality: Water, Metals, and Trillionaires3 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Who Owns Space? The Legal Battle Brewing Over Asteroid Mining - Vanderbilt Law School | Vanderbilt Law School | Vanderbilt University
- Space Resource Extraction: Overview and Issues for Congress
- The Outer Space Treaty - UNOOSA
- Property, Sovereignty, and Customary Governance in Outer Space Resource Extraction
- Moon mining is getting closer to reality: Why we need global rules for extracting space resources
- Asteroid Mining and Ownership: Can Anyone Really Claim Space Resources? | New Space Economy
- Capitalism Beyond Earth: Legal and Moral Obstacles of Commercial Space Mining - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
- Who Owns the Sky? Property Rights, Resource Extraction, and the Ethics of Lunar and Asteroid Mining | New Space Economy
- The Space Review: The (not quite) definitive guide to the legal construct of “space resources”
- The 1967 Outer Space Treaty declares the moon 'the province of all mankind' and bans any nation from owning it — yet it created no court, no police and no referee anywhere off Earth to enforce the rule
- Outer Space Treaty
- Property Rights Over the Moon or On the Moon? The Legality of Space Resource Exploitation on Celestial Bodies
- Moon Agreement
- Past as Prologue: Roman Law and the Interpretation of International Space Law Governing the Use of the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies
- Bringing Space Law into the Commercial World: Property Rights without Sovereignty
- PROPERTY, SOVEREIGNTY, AND CUSTOMARY GOVERNANCE IN OUTER SPACE RESOURCE EXTRACTION
- Interpreting Article II of the Outer Space Treaty
- All Info - H.R.2262 - 114th Congress (2015-2016): U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
- U.S. COMMERCIAL SPACE LAUNCH
- One Small Step: the Impact of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 on the Exploration of Resources in Outer Space
- One Hundred Fourteenth Congress
- Space Resource Extraction: Overview and Issues for Congress - EveryCRSReport.com
- A Doctrinal, Economic and Ethical Analysis of Property Rights on Celestial Bodies
- A Space Age Stuck in the Past: Should Cold War Treaties Dictate Modern Space Law?
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