Samiul Bashar Samin
For all that ‘province of all mankind’ talk, space travel has always been shaped by acquisitive impulses, though historically these have been national rather than private. You might have noticed the American flags on the Moon; the American country musician Brad Paisley has an American song called American Flag on the Moon (2014). In 1969, Congress stipulated that ‘the flag of the United States, and no other flag’ could be planted on any planet by any wholly federal space mission.
Ten years after the first lunar landing, the Moon Treaty aimed to settle the question in favour of collectivism. Its restrictions were broad: that no celestial surface within the Solar System, ‘nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any state, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organisation, national organisation or non-governmental entity, or of any natural person’.
Deep Space Industries, one of that firm’s competitors, sees itself mining metals within the next decade. Moon miners are even more bullish; in September, Moon Express signed a launch contract that will put three of the company’s landers on the body starting in 2017. Given the pace at which international law accretes, it’s hard to believe much – legally – will stand in their enterprising way. There comes a point at which Earthbound opinions hardly matter.
The push for space property rights supplements that language with a more grounded vocabulary. Bother because you can make a buck. Bother because, at the right price point, space travel could be as sensible as it is seductive. Bother because the market’s clear. If that sounds ignoble, well, appeals to nobility have so far failed. By most accounts, the state of public-sector space travel is not good. ‘I’ve had to accept that the political will to keep spaceflight going just doesn’t exist anymore, hasn’t for a long time. Now the game has changed to actually living there.