Space Property Law

Who owns space? No one right now, because of the Outer Space Treaty Of 1967. It bans nuclear weapons from space as well as denying national claims to space property. At the time, it was mostly academic and designed to make sure no one could claim space, but we are moving into an era of independent entrepreneurial space travel. How are we going to adjudicate claims? [Link]

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."