Bigelow: Moon Property rights would help create a lunar industry

[yg1968]

I spoke to Mike Gold about this op-ed, he said that he thinks that it's unlikely that AST will punt on their payload request given its responsability for safety in space:
http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/39294space-property-rights-it%E2%80%99s-time-and-here%E2%80%99s-where-to-start

[A_M_Swallow]

{snip}
Bigelow really wants to be able to engage in land speculation without actually having a presence there. Unfortunately, in our society, ownership of land requires (implicitly) the ability to control the land, which implies presence, or the ability to extend a virtual presence.

Cite?

Bigelow Areospace is a manufacture of space buildings.  It is owned by a builder of hotels.  It is more likely that Mr Bigelow wants to make money by becoming the Moon's first landlord.

If he can land a 20 tonne building then he can land a 5 tonne rover containing people.

edit : grammar

[RocketmanUS]

Lunar Area Uses:
1 ) Exploration ( temp sites )
2 ) Mining Colony ( crew for a four year tour, not permanent living )
3 ) Manufacturing Colony ( crew for a four year tour not, permanent living )
4 ) Telescopes
5 ) Green house(s) Food Production

Permits to occupy for a given period of time.
Board to decide what the site is best used for at a given time and use type could change after a tenant leaves.

No NASA does not need to be the anchor tenant for Bigelow modules. It could and should be commercial.

Edit:
Modules will only last for so long till they need replacing. So tenants to a site rather than own ( property ). Mining rights is different than owning a piece of land. I don't think we will see people living on the moon for 10 to 20 or more years in the next 100 years. And most of the moon would still be untouched in a 100 years.

[TrevorMonty]

Great articles.

 The property rights issue deserves a thread of its own.

Nice to see progress with Bigelows station, but still needs CC vehicle.

[natebrau]

Great articles.

 The property rights issue deserves a thread of its own.

Agreed- where's the appropriate forum?  I'd like to bring up Hernando de Soto's work on property rights enabling the generation of wealth.

[yg1968]

Has there been any hard numbers how much "property" Bigelow would want around it's lunar Habitat?

Great work, yg1968. I'm glad we're far enough along to be asking this question, here. IIRC a recent TheSpaceShow (Tumlinson?) had a long segment on property rights, including something about how sea floor mining faced a similar fork in the road, and the 'wrong' fork was chosen.

Are you talking about this show:
http://www.thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=2183

For the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS III favours the common heritage of mankind principle which is the same principle as the one that is found in the Moon Treaty. Under such a principle, commercial property rights do not exist in the deep seabed. However, you are allowed to extract ressources from the deep seabed provided you pay a royalty to a supra-national body. The United States Senate has yet to ratify UNCLOS III but most other countries (including Canada) have ratified the Convention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_heritage_of_mankind

See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_commons

[A_M_Swallow]

{snip}
However, you are allowed to extract ressources from the deep seabed provided you pay a royalty to a supra-national body.
{snip}

That is not an act of conscience but an act of avarice.  An undisguised method of exploiting the workers.  The excuse is paper thin.  The politicians want the money without doing any of the work.

[R7]

Btw if Bigelow would be granted a US-entities-do-not-enter zone around it's habitats that would put those entities at a peculiar disadvantage compared to entities of other OST states. Article XII provides the latter rights to visit any stations, installations, equipment and space vehicles (requiring sufficient prenotice and reciprocity). So when taikonaut comes knocking on the door Bigelow must let him/her in.

[yg1968]

Michael J. Listner says he is skeptical but he still re-tweeted the article:
https://twitter.com/ponder68/status/434690561728323584

His skepticism is explained in this op-ed ("The Time is Not Ripe To Tackle Space Property Rights"):
http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/38561the-time-is-not-ripe-to-tackle-space-property-rights

[yg1968]

Great articles.

 The property rights issue deserves a thread of its own.

Agreed- where's the appropriate forum?  I'd like to bring up Hernando de Soto's work on property rights enabling the generation of wealth.

It's on topic for this thread in my opinion.

[Oli]

{snip}
However, you are allowed to extract ressources from the deep seabed provided you pay a royalty to a supra-national body.
{snip}

That is not an act of conscience but an act of avarice.  An undisguised method of exploiting the workers.  The excuse is paper thin.  The politicians want the money without doing any of the work.

What? Natural resources belong the everyone. In the nation state they belong to the nation and in international waters respectively outer space to mankind. So while private companies should obviously be paid for the mining the resources and the proceeds from selling them belong to the people, i.e. the state.

[rklaehn]

{snip}
However, you are allowed to extract ressources from the deep seabed provided you pay a royalty to a supra-national body.
{snip}

That is not an act of conscience but an act of avarice.  An undisguised method of exploiting the workers.  The excuse is paper thin.  The politicians want the money without doing any of the work.

What? Natural resources belong the everyone. In the nation state they belong to the nation and in international waters respectively outer space to mankind. So while private companies should obviously be paid for the mining the resources and the proceeds from selling them belong to the people, i.e. the state.

This would pretty much guarantee that exploitation of space resources will never happen. Why should somebody spend his entire lifetime working 12 hour days and risk his fortune to exploit space resources when he is only allowed to keep a tiny part of the gains? The rest will be managed by some corrupt UN bureaucrats that did not do productive work for a single day in their lives (in the interest of all mankind).

[RonM]

{snip}
However, you are allowed to extract ressources from the deep seabed provided you pay a royalty to a supra-national body.
{snip}

That is not an act of conscience but an act of avarice.  An undisguised method of exploiting the workers.  The excuse is paper thin.  The politicians want the money without doing any of the work.

What? Natural resources belong the everyone. In the nation state they belong to the nation and in international waters respectively outer space to mankind. So while private companies should obviously be paid for the mining the resources and the proceeds from selling them belong to the people, i.e. the state.

That's not exactly how it works. Private companies pay for the right to mine on public land. After that, whatever proceeds from selling the minerals goes to the company. Without a profit incentive, no one would waste their time mining.

The way it could work on the Moon is private companies would pay for mining rights to the UN. The funds from the sale of mining rights would go into the UN budget and proportionally reduce the dues nations pay to fund the UN.

The catch is to properly set the cost of mining rights. Too high, no one will do it. Too low, your giving it away.

[R7]

The way it could work on the Moon is private companies would pay for mining rights to the UN. The funds from the sale of mining rights would go into the UN budget and proportionally reduce the dues nations pay to fund the UN.

The UN doesn't own the Moon either so why would mining company have to pay it one dime for any mining rights. Hard to see especially republican politicians supporting this sort of global socialism.

IMO the resource utilization should be based on the principle of finders keepers instead of yet another semiveiled form of paying development aid (after UN bureucrats skim most of it).

[yg1968]

The way it could work on the Moon is private companies would pay for mining rights to the UN. The funds from the sale of mining rights would go into the UN budget and proportionally reduce the dues nations pay to fund the UN.

The UN doesn't own the Moon either so why would mining company have to pay it one dime for any mining rights. Hard to see especially republican politicians supporting this sort of global socialism.

IMO the resource utilization should be based on the principle of finders keepers instead of yet another semiveiled form of paying development aid (after UN bureucrats skim most of it).

That's exactly why Republican Senators have opposed UNCLOS III (i.e., the third UN Law of the Sea treaty). Their opposition relates to the common heritage of mankind principle. One of the reason Rumsfeld still opposes UNCLOS III is because he is affraid that this principle might be extended to outer space:

In his testimony, Mr. Rumsfeld argued against ratification, calling the royalties that U.S. companies would have to pay under the pact “a new idea of enormous consequence.” Under the treaty, industrialized countries pay royalties to less-developed nations for profits made while exploiting unclaimed energy resources, he said, adding that this type of wealth redistribution is a “novel principle that has, in my view, no clear limits” that “could become a precedent for the resources of outer space.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/14/rumsfeld-hits-law-of-sea-treaty/?page=all

In his book, "Who owns the moon?", Virgiliu Pop calls the common heritage of mankind: "reaping without sowing". He says that its principles comes from socialism.

[SpunkyEnigma]

What's really needed is just a county government on the moon.  Mutually agreed upon with the limited scope of recording claims and verifying that the claims are actively being improved or occupied.  A tiny property tax for running the minimal record-keeping and claim resolution.  Eventually you're going to have a lunar haulage road from a mining company and a power line from a power company that need to cross and boundaries and right-of-way type issues will need to be recorded and conflicts resolved.

Sphere's of influence will work for a while until you have enough people around to decide to self organize. 

An alternate more anarchy way could be that somebody like an ice mining company that is used for fuel/water by many/all participants would be able to enforce property rights through contract and a "my way or the highway" attitude to their customers.

The first two counties on the moon will be one at each pole.

Remember, a government formed on the moon would be a sovereign nation that is not a signatory of the Outer Space Treaty.

[RonM]

The way it could work on the Moon is private companies would pay for mining rights to the UN. The funds from the sale of mining rights would go into the UN budget and proportionally reduce the dues nations pay to fund the UN.

The UN doesn't own the Moon either so why would mining company have to pay it one dime for any mining rights. Hard to see especially republican politicians supporting this sort of global socialism.

IMO the resource utilization should be based on the principle of finders keepers instead of yet another semiveiled form of paying development aid (after UN bureucrats skim most of it).

Well, if the UN doesn't have the rights, then who does? The answer is nobody.

Without a legal structure to resolve issues, no private company would go into Lunar mining. Another company can jump your claim, stealing your mining facility (physically or by hacking if it is a robotic mine), and you would have no legal recourse because it is not under any jurisdiction. So unless you are ready for mercenary operations, there is nothing you can do.

Under those conditions, the only mining going on would be by an international government project similar to the ISS. Talk about socialism.

The other alternative is for nations to make claims and back them by force. The possibility of overlapping claims leading to the bombing of your mine is not good for business.

[yg1968]

The way it could work on the Moon is private companies would pay for mining rights to the UN. The funds from the sale of mining rights would go into the UN budget and proportionally reduce the dues nations pay to fund the UN.

The UN doesn't own the Moon either so why would mining company have to pay it one dime for any mining rights. Hard to see especially republican politicians supporting this sort of global socialism.

IMO the resource utilization should be based on the principle of finders keepers instead of yet another semiveiled form of paying development aid (after UN bureucrats skim most of it).

Well, if the UN doesn't have the rights, then who does? The answer is nobody.

Without a legal structure to resolve issues, no private company would go into Lunar mining. Another company can jump your claim, stealing your mining facility (physically or by hacking if it is a robotic mine), and you would have no legal recourse because it is not under any jurisdiction. So unless you are ready for mercenary operations, there is nothing you can do.

Under those conditions, the only mining going on would be by an international government project similar to the ISS. Talk about socialism.

The other alternative is for nations to make claims and back them by force. The possibility of overlapping claims leading to the bombing of your mine is not good for business.

Those aren't the only options. You could be allowed to extract resources from the Moon without paying any royalty to the UN. The zone of operation Bigelow is suggesting is also interesting.

[R7]

Without a legal structure to resolve issues, no private company would go into Lunar mining. Another company can jump your claim, stealing your mining facility (physically or by hacking if it is a robotic mine), and you would have no legal recourse because it is not under any jurisdiction. So unless you are ready for mercenary operations, there is nothing you can do.

There is legal structure in OST for ownership facilities etc. Article VIII states that what you launch, land or construct is yours, which is common sense.

There's also realpolitik to consider. For instance China won't risk terrestrial, probably nuclear war with US over some lunar ore vein and vice versa. From that some sort of mutually agreed zones are likely to emerge without involving all nations and paying UN for mining rights.

[TrevorMonty]

They could setup a UN lunar body to manage the moon. Mining and land titles would be leased so nobody actually owns land. Money this lunar body makes could be used to fund international lunar base and infrastructure.