28 thoughts on “The Lunar Yellow Peril”

  1. Interesting article, but I find this interesting.

    [[[If there is such a concern, one way to preempt it might be to pass the Space Settlement Prize Act, which would force a recognition of private, but not governmental, claims and prevent anyone from claiming an entire body.]]]

    The problem is that the U.S. government could only recognize private claims if it had a claim to sovereignty on Celestial Bodies, but it does not have such a claim under the Outer Space Treaty. So unless the U.S. first withdrew from the Outer Space Treaty such an Act would not only have no legal impact on the claim, but would be in violation of Federal Law, since treaties, once ratified by the Senate become part of Federal Law.

    1. What advantage to the US people was gained by signing the OST? It ended the space race in the late 60s, sure, but that was just avoiding the downside.. what about the lost opportunity? The lost prizes.

        1. The U.S. doesn’t belong to the LOS, and there is nothing stopping a U.S. firm from mining the ocean floor legally. Since the U.S. never ratified the LOS the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act is still in effect and governs the mining of seafloor deposits by U.S. nationals.

          http://www.gc.noaa.gov/documents/gcil_dsm_regs.pdf

          You may apply for a license tomorrow if you want. The problem is the business case is just not there for mining the seafloor. And neither is there a business case for sea floor cities, since even in the case of deep ocean oil rigs its far cheaper to ferry workers from shore, or use telebotic systems, then to build cities in the ocean, or under it. That is why it will be interesting to see if the scheme for building offshore oceanic cities for IT work will close a business case successfully.

        2. So, I guess the United States Navy can’t protect the property rights of US shipowners on the high seas. Otherwise, Tom Matula will beat them with a wet noodle. 🙂

          1. Gee, Edward, you really have no understanding about foreign policy or law do you? No wonder Ron Paul does the opposite of what you advise him to do when you visit him.

            One purpose of the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act was that President Reagen wanted send to the rest of the world the message that the U.S. government, including the Navy, would indeed be protecting U.S. seafloor mining firms since it stated both their legal rights to do and why doing so was in the national security interests of the United States.

            If space advocates, you know, folks like you, were really interested in sending a message to the world that U.S. firms had a legal right to mine the Moon, and not just interested in getting rich over the lunar land deeds you bought from the “Head Cheese”, you would be advocating its amendment to include space resources instead of trying to get the U.S. to break the OST by recognizing the lunar land deeds space advocates bought. A simple last minute amendment to some other piece of legislation would work since no appropriations are involved and its an existing part of the U.S. Code.

      2. To understand why the U.S. proposed as well as signed the OST you need to look at U.S. foreign policy regarding territorial claims going back to the 1920’s. In 1924, under the Coolidge Administration, the U.S. rejected any claims over foreign lands with no settlements in 1924.

        http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/antarct/usaphist.jsp

        Following WWII and the establishment of the UN, the U.S. starting pushing for international trusteeship of the Antarctic, especially after Argentina and Chile nearly went to war over it. The U.S. used the IGY to finally establish the Antarctic Treaty System in 1961.

        Celestial Bodies, especially the Moon, were seen by the U.S. as a place for science like Antarctica and so the U.S., driven by the science community, pushed for a similar treaty status for it. The DOD supported it because it wanted unrestricted access to near Earth space for space assets, like recon sats, comsats, etc. And DOD did not want the Soviet Union to base nuclear bombs in orbit to drop with little notice on targets in the U.S., something it was threatening at the time.

        So what the U.S. got out of the OST was unrestricted access for its scientists and increased national security.

        The belief in space as a place for science, as well as fears that opening the Moon up to turf wars between nations trying to crave it up for colonies, as they did the New World, Africa and China, is why you will see a reluctance for any land claims on the Moon except under a UN treaty like the Moon Treaty, which will be as big a mess as the LOS. And that is great as you DO NOT need ownership of the land to exploit its wealth for space settlements. Space is NOT the American West and the models of the wild west frontier that groups promote simply won’t work in space. You need a bit more then a burro full of tools to crave out a Martian homestead or start a lunar mine 🙂

        1. The OST/Moon Treaty make perfect sense from the perspective of the Law Of The Sea Treaty additions in the 60s.. and those make perfect sense when you recognize the democrats were in power. In short, the world was war tired and just wanted to ignore the two new colonial frontiers that had been identified. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

          1. Trent,

            You forget that Republicans like President Eisenhower and Nixon also had a big role in the process 🙂

          2. The Outer Space Treaty dates from 1967, years after Eisenhower left office and over a year before Nixon took office.

          3. Larry,

            But the other treaties that build on it don’t. And Treaties DO need to be ratified by the Senate as well so the minority party has the ability to filibuster against it if they really don’t agree with it.

          4. Yes, Thomas, but you’re ignoring that fact that your claim of Eisenhower influening the Outer Space Treaty is obviously wrong. LBJ was the president and Democrats firmly controlled the Congress in 1967. Those other treaties (Moon, Law of the Sea) were not ratified by the Senate so what’s your point?

  3. What both government space agencies should fear is Bigelow and SpaceX establishing a lunar base, and rendering them both irrelevant.

    A great line, now let’s identify that fear…

    Instead of remolding NASA in an image of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets, they instead adopted a socialist model that retained government control.

    It’s all about government control. Face it, there no longer exists a nation that believes in individual freedom.

    Laws are enacted in an environment. Over 200 years ago we had a very unique environment that doesn’t exist today which is why they can make ludacris statements like outer space belongs to all of mankind. Historically, anything unowned becomes owned when a person makes a claim and defends it. Nothing but a bit of hardware here and there is owned in space at this point. Anybody can make claims and if done by agreement in groups (not nations but just people) they can be defended if they are reasonable.

    The space settlement Institute wants companies to make Alaska sized claims. This is not reasonable and has other ramifications. Their reasoning is based on a misunderstanding of value. They arbitrarily assign a value to real estate, then decide Alaska is the needed amount to fund a settlement. Value is only properly set by owners in trade. The space settlement institute requires governments to recognize their Alaska sized claims because those claims are unreasonable. One sq. km. claims by individuals of a group are both reasonable and capable of financing everything today. Because the value of that land will be close to it’s development costs and a sq. km. is large enough, but not too unreasonably large, to completely pay the cost (whatever current cost is) for the migration including profit to both the claimer and those that finance their migration.

    Not only is an Alaska sized claim not required, but it leads to a particular governmental structure… the corporate state. It’s totally unnecessary. More funding is actually available by going the individual liberty route and having a group recognize each others reasonable individual claims. This distributes wealth to the individual and wealth = freedom and liberty. Read Thomas Sowell on the issue of India’s property rights laws for a clearer understanding than I can provide here.

    Freedom and liberty are more important than financing. But we don’t have to choose. We have the opportunity to promote both at the same time if we only understand the issue and believe in it.

    Liberty or death was once a rally cry. It needs to be again.

    1. Ken,

      If you check you will see that all of those claims made 200 years ago were made in the name of a sovereign government. The UN Charter ended such claims for inhabited areas like the Antarctic Treaty, OST and LOS put an end to it for uninhabited areas. So yes, the world has changed greatly in that regard.

      1. If you check you will see that all of those claims made 200 years ago were made in the name of a sovereign government.

        If you check a bit further, you will find that the “sovereign government” was the monarch and the state was his personal property.

        That doesn’t mean that modern property claims must be in the name of George II or Barack I.

        1. Edward,

          You really don’t understand politics and history do you? If what you said was true then why do nations retain their identity as sovereign states even when there are major changes in the ruling family? Just look at the history of England over the last thousand years as an example.

      2. Forgive the hyperbole Thomas, but only you could focus on a handful of sovereign claims and totally ignore the millions of daily claims made on the American frontier (homesteading, mining, grazing, etc.)

        This may have also escaped your notice, but my proposal has nothing to do with claiming vs. unclaiming. Where ever people go to settle, they will make claims. There is no such thing as mining unclaimed property because any exploitation no matter how small is itself a claim.

        What I am surprised about is that in all the time I’ve brought up my ‘one sq. km.’ model, nobody has been interested in debating it’s actual merits verses other models such as the space settlement initiative. I can only assume it’s because my proposal has no merit in other eyes.

        One of the reasons (among many) for preferring mars over the moon is that I do believe that being a few days away it allows government and their anti liberty agenda to treat the moon as if it were Antarctica with the presumption that only ‘science’ and governments know best.

        Wars are fought because of scarcity (among other reasons.) There is no scarcity of real estate on mars (144 million sq. km.) Settlements there will be widely dispersed with various settlement models. I suggest mine will grow faster and become dominant. I would truly enjoy hearing of another that would grow faster. Nothing grows faster than widely spread wealth among individuals pursuing their own personal goals. Give title to a sufficient amount of land to every individual is my modest proposal. Anyone have something better? I’m all ears.

        Regarding laws and treaties… The OST has the beneficial language to keep government sovereign claims off the table. However, a formal settlement charter would have the force of law being stronger the more people that agree to it’s terms and conditions. Terms which should be very simple and straight forward. I expect it could be written in about the same space as our constitution, but being very limited in scope have seriously less flaws.

  4. Until the distant future, claiming parts of the moon is unnecessary. Nobody is going there to sponge off some other country’s equipment or to pal around with potential competitors or enemies.

    Suppose you land at some spot and set up a base. Nobody who isn’t directly involved with the base will land anywhere near you because then they’d have to coordinate their activities with your activities, and more importantly you could then observe everything they do, including the screw ups and failures. More troublesome still, your onging activities would potentially be interfering with their own plans, and they’d have to spend half their time asking you if they could do this and that.

    During the early exploration phase of the Americas and the Pacific, explorers and settlers from different nations avoided each other because it didn’t make sense to skip over vast areas of virgin wilderness and set up right beside a competing settlement that was already logging everything. From a command perspective, such a decision would transform the intrepid leader of a brave expedition into a third wheel who has to run all his ideas past the established players who would like him to fail.

    The moon has room for lots and lots of isolated bases and it will take quite some time before any dispute would arise.

    1. Just landing repeatedly at your own lunar base is likely to cause problems. I did some rough calculations years ago and found that when the Apollo LM landed, the dust it kicked up could’ve traveled for miles in all directions. That dust is very coarse and abrasive so you’ll need to protect your equipment from it as best you can. Now, if you’re trying to land close to another country’s outpost, you could face the same issue. You’d want to coordinate with them to avoid damage to their equipment out of simple courtesy if nothing else.

      2. Larry J,

        Article 9 of the OST already has it covered.

        http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/space1.html

        [[[In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of co-operation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty. States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose. If a State Party to the Treaty has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by it or its nationals in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities of other States Parties in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, it shall undertake appropriate international consultations before proceeding with any such activity or experiment. A State Party to the Treaty which has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by another State Party in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment. ]]]

      3. I would assume the second landing in the same area would have less dust to throw around and preparing the site would mitigate that further. Plus, settlers would already be dealing with dust from other sources so it’s not quite like snow in Phoenix.

        It’s a great point and all these details need to be considered as much as is humanly possible before settlers head out. You always make good points.

        1. The second and subsequent landings might have less dust to contend with if they land in precisely the same spot. I don’t know how likely that would be. That lunar dust coming off at hundreds of MPH would be very abrasive. It’s a potential environmental hazard.

          I remember reading many years ago that some researchers (from Japan, IIRC) proved you could make a type of concrete from lunar materials. A good concrete landing pad could prove quite useful, especially if you could raise the edges to deflect the rocket exhaust gases up and away from ground equipment.

  5. Rand, can you talk more about your history with the “blue Shuttle”? Would this have simply been one of the original four Orbiters, transferred to USAF use, or would it be a fifth/new construction?

  6. Robert Zubrin commented on the original post at PJMedia. He warns of the military threat a moon base would present.

    I wonder if he’s pondered how useless an missile with a three-day flight time is in a modern war, especially since it’s almost entirely a direct ascent to install it there and return it, making a sub-launched ICBM the size of a Nova when departing Earth. Observationally, to get the same resolution as a spy satellite in LEO, the moon scope would need to be about 2 miles in diameter, and you’d still have a fixed target in darkness for two weeks a month.

  7. “And to me, the question is, how would they physically defend such a claim? The moon isn’t a small place (its surface area is equivalent to a significant fraction of that of earth’s continents). ”

    A good lunar location would be a cold trap with volatiles neighboring a constantly illuminated plateau.

    Not a whole lot of locations like that, certainly not acreage rivaling earth’s continents. Defending a claim on these locations is a lot more doable than defending a claim on the entire moon.

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