We strongly support private property rights in space. And we believe in the power of private enterprise and are convinced that only entrepreneurship can lower the cost of doing business enough to fuel a space-based economy. On these important points we agree with Rand Simberg.
But we disagree completely on the path America should take to achieve space property rights.
The basic idea is nothing new. In his book Unreal Estate: The Men Who Sold the Moon, Virgil Pop tracked hundreds of outer-space property rights claims over thousands of years, from individuals, kings, and countries, under various theories of law. All have failed the test of time.
The negotiators of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty knew that such claims would never stop unless the countries agreed once and for all that: “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.”
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