who's moon is it anyway?
A recent article on Space.com wonders who owns the Moon. No, really. To who does a celestial object really belong? During a previous interview with Dr. Ian O’Neill, this was a topic that came up several times and according to current laws, nobody really owns the Moon or any of the planets. There are discoverer’s rights, but there’s no explicit, internationally defined ownership of an extraterrestrial body. These laws are about to be put to the test as Japan, China, India and the United States set their sights on the Moon.
It’s entirely plausible that the Moon will be divided into territories owned by different countries and each territory would then be leased to a company that wants to mine valuable minerals on the lunar surface and is willing to pay for it. The big worry is whether owning territory on other worlds means that there has to be a military presence there and according to Dr. O’Neill, that could be a death knell to mining and R&D work. After all, who in his or her right mind will want to set up a multi-billion dollar infrastructure on the Moon while missiles fly overhead?
An interesting tangent to this are the lunar land plots supposedly being sold by small agencies around the world to private customers. If you bought one of those lunar plot certificates, you should call and ask for your money back as there seems to be no law allowing these agencies to enforce the certificates’ powers or defend your claim on the Moon. For anyone to own any piece of our natural satellite, the land has to be first claimed by a nation and then allowed to be sold off by that nation’s government.
What do you think? Who really owns the Moon? Is it even right to own a celestial object to begin with? Would you buy lunar real estate if you could?
The moon belongs to whoever lands and sets up a system to prevent others from landing first. All comers after that must either negotiate with the first party or destroy their ability to control who lands.
@ikkonoishi That assumes some ability to fight battles in space, I’m guessing it will be a fairly peaceful process, at least at first, since no one has any gun ships up there as of yet. Until we do if someone lands up there and sets up a station there really wouldn’t be anything anyone else could do about it.
Who does the *Earth* belong to? Nobody.
You can only own the moon as long as you are physically on it. And no country may own it, a person or individual lunar government should. If they want something, they’ll have to negotiate with the people on Earth. Not one country, the whole Earth.
I own the moon. End of.
The moon belongs to whoever lands and sets up a system to prevent others from landing first.
It’s all fun and games until somebody picks up the long range missiles with kinetic kill vehicles and starts shooting them at the property of other nations. Of course an attack in space could trigger a real war on Earth since you’re attacking the property of a sovereign nation state. That’s an act of war, legally speaking.
That assumes some ability to fight battles in space…
And that’s going to be a lot harder than it seems. Most of the weapons we have are very ill suited to be used in the vacuum of space since we rely on explosives and their shockwaves to do the most damage. There’s a reason why the US and China fired missiles that destroy their target with sheer momentum. Anything else would be ineffective.
Who owns the stars? Who owns the internet? Well, like ikk mentioned, whoever sets up base there with enough bite to deter other landers. that’s a tall order though, with any forseeable technology, it doesn’t seem like moon dwellers could be self sufficient. And there lies the bargaining power of any other entity who would challenge such a claim.
If push came to shove, i think battles for celestial bodies would be waged on earth. as with politics, there exists a whole range of bargaining tools aside from firepower.
ikkonoishis’ approach seems logical for celestial bodies much further out of grasp. Though due to the moons proximity, I imagine any conflict would take place on Earth.