Post by Brent George on Sept 13, 2020 19:58:47 GMT
Back in 1980, a former ventriloquist and car salesman named Dennis Hope was out of work, going through a divorce and struggling to make ends meet. As he tells it, he was driving along wondering what he could do for cash flow when he looked through the car window, saw the moon and thought: “Now there’s a lot of property.”
Hope did some research in a college library and discovered the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, a pact in which dozens of nations, including the United States, laid out the basic legal guidelines for dealing with celestial bodies. Hope thought he saw a loophole: The treaty declares that no nation can assert sovereignty over the moon, but it fails to say clearly that individuals can’t. Politico: 3-June-2019
This may be an old story, but a report on RNZ National this morning concerning mining for moon rocks has once again brought the "property rights" question back into the moonlight:-
NASA is in the market for moon rocks. The US space agency has launched an initiative whereby a company mining on the moon would collect lunar rocks to sell to NASA - without having to bring the resources back to Earth. The idea is to eventually create a commercially viable operation capable of sustaining long-term lunar missions. But there are questions about whether humanity can sensibly and fairly exploit the moon's resources. Joanne Gabrynowicz is professor emeritus in space law at the University of Mississippi, and the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Space Law.
Radio NZ National: 14-Sept-2020
Hope did some research in a college library and discovered the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, a pact in which dozens of nations, including the United States, laid out the basic legal guidelines for dealing with celestial bodies. Hope thought he saw a loophole: The treaty declares that no nation can assert sovereignty over the moon, but it fails to say clearly that individuals can’t. Politico: 3-June-2019
This may be an old story, but a report on RNZ National this morning concerning mining for moon rocks has once again brought the "property rights" question back into the moonlight:-
NASA is in the market for moon rocks. The US space agency has launched an initiative whereby a company mining on the moon would collect lunar rocks to sell to NASA - without having to bring the resources back to Earth. The idea is to eventually create a commercially viable operation capable of sustaining long-term lunar missions. But there are questions about whether humanity can sensibly and fairly exploit the moon's resources. Joanne Gabrynowicz is professor emeritus in space law at the University of Mississippi, and the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Space Law.
Radio NZ National: 14-Sept-2020