General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSaskia Vermeylen: Who owns the moon?
Eventually, extraterrestrial sovereignty and property rights will become a huge issue. We need to start thinking this through now.
This principle can be found back in Article II of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which clearly forbids national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, means of use or occupation by any other means. It has been widely accepted: no one complains the various moon landings or satellites in space have infringed their sovereignty.
However, legal commentators disagree over whether this prohibition is also valid for private appropriation. Some space lawyers have argued for the recognition of real property rights on the basis of jurisdiction rather than territorial sovereignty.
Historical records of the Space Treaty negotiations clearly indicate people were against private appropriations at the time, but an explicit prohibition never made it into Article II. Lessons have been learned from this omission and the ban was far more explicit in the subsequent Moon Agreement of 1979. However only 16 countries signed the agreement, none of which were involved in manned space exploration, leaving it somewhat meaningless as an international standard.
MORE HERE: http://wonkynewsnerd.com/saskia-vermeylen-owns-moon/
zappaman
(20,605 posts)It's our flag.
And fuck Ron Paul!
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)Silent3
(15,018 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)csziggy
(34,119 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon#Plot
The other aspect is that the only ones who will really own the Moon are the ones who manage to take possession. In 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas tried to split the Americas between Spain and Portugal along an arbitrary line, ignoring not only the rights of natives already living there, but also ignoring the interests of other countries willing to invade the "New World." The treaty didn't last thirty years.
In practice, the land ended up belonging to those who could hold it, no matter what historical rights might have existed if the Europeans had been willing to accept any claims of the Native Americans who remained after the plagues from the Old World and the extermination by the invaders.
I expect that if we ever get around to colonizing the Moon or Mars, while governments or corporations on Earth may try to take the territory, the people who actually live on those places will have the ultimate claims on it. (Now thinking about "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress"!)
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Unfortunately I have little faith in our political systems and leaders to be remotely capable of getting in front of this stuff. I suspect the explorers and technologists will lead the way.
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)Like I give a shit who "owns" the moon.
Looking forward to Christopher Nolans Interstellar. Seems to be about the very exploration you are talking about...
Buns_of_Fire
(17,119 posts)The guy at 54th and Broadway also tried to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge, but I was too smart to fall for THAT one. Yup, yup.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)shenmue
(38,501 posts)Avalux
(35,015 posts)How silly of us humans think a person or a group can actually own the moon. We'll all be gone and the moon will still be there. Unless someone blows it up before we go extinct.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)God owns the Earth, too, so I guess that makes private property a blasphemy.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Istanbul not Constantinople.
hunter
(38,263 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_on_the_Moon
Seriously, I don't believe ownership of the moon will ever be a meaningful question. We will either be extinct as a space faring civilization, or we will have organized our society in cooperative ways such that national territories and traditional "property rights" no longer exist.
From the looks of things now, we are not going to get our shit together enough to have any significant human presence in space before the sky falls in on us.
We seem to have forgotten that nature can still kick humanity's ass. Increasingly, people will have plenty enough trouble surviving on earth to go looking for greater troubles on the moon.
When and if "we" become a space faring civilization, I don't think space travelers will be recognizably human. We will have adapted ourselves to the harsh environment of space, or passed on our inquisitive nature to our intellectual children, science fiction androids if you wish, who will not be human in any biological way.
It will suck to be us if these technologies are a consequence of war.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2317225