Bigelow: Moon Property rights would help create a lunar industry

[RonM]

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.

OST doesn't cover the land a company claims, but as long as there is some sort of international agreement that protects companies legal rights to that land, that could work.

Now if the major powers agree on dividing up the Moon, don't be surprised if they require mining rights payments or taxes on operations in their zones.

Smaller governments will complain, but what can the do? Space colonialism, brings back fond memories of the 1800s. 

[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.

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.

Of course, but the goal is that companies outbid each other such that maximum revenue goes to the state.

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.

The US defends its interests like any other power in world history.

Space colonialism, brings back fond memories of the 1800s. 

Fond memories? You must have missed what colonialism actually meant for many people on this planet.
 

[R7]

Space colonialism, brings back fond memories of the 1800s. 

Fond memories? You must have missed what colonialism actually meant for many people on this planet.

Pretty sure Ron intended sarcasm there. But lunar colonialism is bound to morally fare much better simply because there isn't indigenous people for the mining companies to oppress.

[Jcc]

IMO there isn't really anything to argue about until companies or nations actually go there and start to mine.

It will cost a huge amount of money to get set up on the moon, even if it is done by the private sector or a lower cost country like China and India, and there is nothing yet that they could mine and bring back that would pay for it. Moon rocks will become cheap if they bring back tons of them, and fusion power plants are a long way off. God forbid  they use the tritium to build hydrogen bombs, there are too many of those already.

So, I don't think there is really much risk of a "gold rush" or mining companies reaping huge profits in the next 50 years. The time frame could become shorter if space transport gets a lot cheaper, and if they do find minerals that are valuable enough.

In the near term, I think the craters with ice and possible organics at the poles are interesting places to set up a base, and that real estate is in short supply.

[JBF]

IMO there isn't really anything to argue about until companies or nations actually go there and start to mine.

It will cost a huge amount of money to get set up on the moon, even if it is done by the private sector or a lower cost country like China and India, and there is nothing yet that they could mine and bring back that would pay for it. Moon rocks will become cheap if they bring back tons of them, and fusion power plants are a long way off. God forbid  they use the tritium to build hydrogen bombs, there are too many of those already.

So, I don't think there is really much risk of a "gold rush" or mining companies reaping huge profits in the next 50 years. The time frame could become shorter if space transport gets a lot cheaper, and if they do find minerals that are valuable enough.

In the near term, I think the craters with ice and possible organics at the poles are interesting places to set up a base, and that real estate is in short supply.

And we are back to the original problem.  Companies won't invest unless they have the right to the profit, if any, from their investment.

[KelvinZero]

And we are back to the original problem.  Companies won't invest unless they have the right to the profit, if any, from their investment.

These threads tend to add to my confusion. My understanding was that the current laws did allow mining and profit, that this had already occured with moon rocks, and also had principles that would prevent one party parking so close to another as to interfere with their activities.. but that also came from one of these threads.

[joek]

 Methinks this insistence on extraterrestrial property rights is a lot overblown, putting the cart years before the horse, and a thinly veiled attempt to get the government to help fund or support dubious ventures.   Let's posit that tomorrow we have international agreement on ET property rights that fit the norm of sovereign property rights.*  Would that produce a significant infusion of private capital any time in the foreseeable future?  Extremely doubtful ...

*Poof* Your ET  property rights wish is granted.  What are you going to do with it?  You think it will produce copious private investment any time in the foreseeable future?  The zillions needed to first do the prospecting to determine what resources are of value (if any), and where?  The additional zillions needed to exploit those resources?  Fat chance.  Instead, you'll turn to the government for those zillions, and you will use those property rights as a tactic to pressure the government into funding dubious ventures on the basis that "If We don't claim it, They will."

The current international treaties and norms do not preclude profiting from you endeavors; they do not preclude transferring operations (if not property land); they preclude "interference".  What more are property rights advocates looking for, what additional value do they expect those rights will bring, and what if any problems do they believe those rights will mitigate?

In short, let's talk about the appropriate "property rights" and the framework needed to make them work; "property" is one way of framing those "rights", but is it necessarily the only or most appropriate way?


* E.g., a permanent settlement or operation is granted some area of exclusive operation and can sell, transfer or exchange that area with others.

[Warren Platts]

My take on it is that there already is a property "rights" regime on the Moon. Historically, there have been two approaches: (1) where there is a sovereign (e.g., the Queen of England) who owns everything, and then deeds out little chunks to the worthy; and (2) the concept where nobody owns anything, until someone goes out and "mixes" their labor with the land, and thereby retains ownership rights.

The Moon is under a sort of hybrid system: under the OST, the "sovereign" is humanity as a whole; IOW, the Moon is res communis, rather than terra nullius. (In fact, the only terra nullius left in the entire universe are a few places on Planet Earth.) So the Moon is already owned--by all of us collectively. The question is can anybody obtain an exclusive "right" to a chunk of land.

According to Article VIII: "Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth."

Thus artifacts constructed on the Moon are owned. And indeed the NASA has claimed that even footprints are artifacts, and are therefore subject to ownership. Whereas landers toss debris over large areas, such debris can affect such artifacts, including footprints, and would thus cause interference, any installation on the Moon would have a wide exclusion zone from which other landers would be prohibited.

In this regard, there is a further distinction between "imperium" and "dominium". The former is a chunk of land that is part of the sovereign territory of a nation-state; dominium is when a nation-state (or private entity) exercises control or ownership over a chunk of land. E.g., so-called insular area of the US. So it's possible even for nation-states to exercise ownership over chunks of land. Any private installations are under the jurisdiction of whatever nation-state's flag they launched under; any crimes or whatever would be tried under the laws of that state.

[Jcc]

And what if the first company to set up a mine is China's socialist state mining company, with profits going to the government and the PLA?

Just for the sake of argument....

[billh]

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.

In the United States the property owner also owns all the natural resources in or under his property.

[Hauerg]

And what if the first company to set up a mine is China's socialist state mining company, with profits going to the government and the PLA?

Just for the sake of argument....

Profits may be very far away yet. Which makes it even more likely the first mine, or the first hundred, might be chinese.)

[Warren Platts]

And what if the first company to set up a mine is China's socialist state mining company, with profits going to the government and the PLA?

Just for the sake of argument....

IMO there's nothing in the OST that would prevent them from doing that. The Chinese government would own the mine, but it would not count as a "national appropriation" since the mine would not be part of China per se. That is, sovereignty is still retained by humanity as a whole.

[Warren Platts]

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.

It depends on the government I think. E.g., in a place like Venezuela you're probably going to have to pay royalties to the government even if well or mine is on private land. In the US, they take royalties for minerals developed on public lands, but not from privately held lands (but of course they still get stuck with corporate income taxes).

Since under the OST space resources are collectively owned, it is an interesting question whether royalties could be charged. I guess there is nothing in principle that would prevent the collection of royalties from space mining. Presumably, they would go to the UN, thus reducing the contributions that the world's taxpayer's pay for the UN's upkeep.

The thing is royalties must be figured into the equation by a company contemplating opening a mine. If the royalties are too high, the company may not decide to proceed. However, right now, under the OST (in contrast to the Moon Treaty) there is no formal mechanism for charging royalties--thus maximally incentivizing would-be space miners. This is yet another argument for not monkeying with the OST.

In the United States the property owner also owns all the natural resources in or under his property.

lol! Not all the time.... I once ran into this guy in a bar in Pennsylvania who's family had a farm--but not the mineral rights under the farm. So a coal company came in and strip mined the entire place except for a little pedestal where they lived in their farm house. 

[laszlo]

Is anyone else amused by the irony of this issue?

It's the entire Universe out there, everything except the planet Earth, and we're fighting about how to divide up infinity among, say, 10 billion people. Infinite space, infinite resources, infinite energy.

If the capitalist system can't make sense of it, maybe it's a sign that capitalism is not the appropriate system for a truly space-based society.

Not saying that capitalism didn't work in the past, just that when all of outer space is available, it may be getting set to pass into history, like the Divine Right of Kings.

Laszlo

[billh]

In the United States the property owner also owns all the natural resources in or under his property.

lol! Not all the time.... I once ran into this guy in a bar in Pennsylvania who's family had a farm--but not the mineral rights under the farm. So a coal company came in and strip mined the entire place except for a little pedestal where they lived in their farm house. 

True, you can sell the surface rights without selling the mineral rights, or vice versa. But the point I was making is that in the US the mineral rights are private property.

[rklaehn]

Is anyone else amused by the irony of this issue?

It's the entire Universe out there, everything except the planet Earth, and we're fighting about how to divide up infinity among, say, 10 billion people. Infinite space, infinite resources, infinite energy.

You have to wait with redistributing wealth before somebody finds a way to create it. Who's going to do that? The UN? "Mankind"? Or some wealthy individuals with a dream like Elon Musk, Robert Bigelow, Jeff Bezos... My money is on the latter.

If the capitalist system can't make sense of it, maybe it's a sign that capitalism is not the appropriate system for a truly space-based society.

There is not the slightest doubt that the capitalist system would work in space. The question is whether it will be allowed to work, or if private property in space will be outlawed and space will end up like Antarctica, a "heritage of all mankind": completely undisturbed and unexploited until mankind on earth wipes itself out somehow. These are the alternatives.

Not saying that capitalism didn't work in the past, just that when all of outer space is available, it may be getting set to pass into history, like the Divine Right of Kings.

Capitalism is a mechanism to manage scarcity. I don't see a lack of scarcity in space in the intermediate future. In fact, even things like air that we consider free on earth will be scarce.

[RonM]

Is anyone else amused by the irony of this issue?

It's the entire Universe out there, everything except the planet Earth, and we're fighting about how to divide up infinity among, say, 10 billion people. Infinite space, infinite resources, infinite energy.

If the capitalist system can't make sense of it, maybe it's a sign that capitalism is not the appropriate system for a truly space-based society.

Not saying that capitalism didn't work in the past, just that when all of outer space is available, it may be getting set to pass into history, like the Divine Right of Kings.

Laszlo

Yes and it is amusing, but has serious ramifications for the future.

That's what I love about NSF, interesting topics with intelligent comments and lots of members who are actually involved in spaceflight, science, engineering, etc.

As you wrote, we're talking about dividing up infinite resources. Near term, say the next hundred years, we'll only be able to reach a few places, so it is limited for awhile. Once we can easily access all of the solar system, we might need a different concept.

[Mader Levap]

It's the entire Universe out there, everything except the planet Earth, and we're fighting about how to divide up infinity among, say, 10 billion people. Infinite space, infinite resources, infinite energy.

Nonsense. We do not have access to that "infinite" resources. If you do think we have access to "infinite" resources of entire universe, then I have bridge acre on Moon to sell for you. Hell, make it whole Moon at once.

[Robert Thompson]

The protection of Apollo landing sites bill by Donna Edwards got a reception comparable to Gingrich's 51st state. It had sound principles if unsound language. So what if Moon Express just had to land near Change3? From a clean slate, that is a historic landmark for another nation, if not exactly a 'national park'. Change3 is active, using its solar panels, and we see that lunar environment/dust is a clear challenge. So how close could Moon Express land, rove or fly over without impacting Change3's operation? Now imagine that Bigelow had a change3 of heart and sold his lunar inflatable to the Chinese. So now how close could Moon Express land, rove or fly over without impacting the China Bigelow habitat's operation? Start from this end, and work back to the probably extensive exclusion zone you'll need for solar panels scaled to Bigelow inflatable power needs. Did the Apollo lunar landers have some kind of no-wake zone or exclusion zone for the rover? I'd be surprised if not.

http://www.space.com/22131-moon-landing-sites-bill-controversy.html

[Andy DC]

A good article, but the thread is painful to read. It's full of links to other sites and I have no idea what this is all about now. It's annoying to see people trip over their own feet to post links to other sites on subjects this site has already covered!

Example..

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/09/protecting-apollo-sites-future-visiting-vehicles-nasa-evaluation/