A new international law textbook contains an article on “Space Settlements, Property Rights, and International Law: Could a Lunar Settlement Claim the Lunar Real Estate it Needs to Survive?” by Alan Wasser and Douglas Jobes. Wasser, a former CEO of the National Space Society, argues in favor of “Land Claims Recognition” to help fund lunar settlements.
If and when the Moon and Mars are settled in the future through other incentives, the nations of Earth will eventually have to recognize these settlements’ authority over their own land. But to create an incentive now, governments would need to commit to recognizing that ownership in advance, rather than long after the fact.
Land claims recognition legislation would commit the Earth’s nations, in advance, to allowing a true private Lunar settlement to claim and sell (to people back on Earth) a reasonable amount of Lunar real estate in the area around the base, thus giving the founders of the Moon settlement a way to earn back the investment they made to establish the settlement.
The 42-page article was originally published in the Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Vol. 73, No. 1, 2008. The full article in PDF format is available on the NSS website as part of the NSS Lunar Bases and Settlement Library (”Additional Papers” section).
The textbook, International Law: Contemporary Issues and Future Developments, edited by Sanford R. Silverburg, was published in March 2011 by Westview Press.
Abstract: The United States spends approximately $4 million each year searching for near-Earth objects (NEOs). The objective is to detect those that may collide with Earth. The majority of this funding supports the operation of several observatories that scan the sky searching for NEOs. This, however, is insufficient in detecting the majority of NEOs that may present a tangible threat to humanity. A significantly smaller amount of funding supports ways to protect the Earth from such a potential collision or “mitigation.” In 2005, a Congressional mandate called for NASA to detect 90 percent of NEOs with diameters of 140 meters or greater by 2020. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies identifies the need for detection of objects as small as 30 to 50 meters as these can be highly destructive. The book explores four main types of mitigation including civil defense, “slow push” or “pull” methods, kinetic impactors and nuclear explosions. It also asserts that responding effectively to hazards posed by NEOs requires national and international cooperation. Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies is a useful guide for scientists, astronomers, policy makers and engineers.
