Ted Cruz is having a hearing on it tomorrow. Mark Sundahl warns against outright withdrawal, or ignoring the positive aspects of it.
I’m probably going to be at the Space Tech Expo in Pasadena, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to stream it.
11 thoughts on “The Outer Space Treaty”
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Mark Sundahl wrote a good article, but of course I have some nits to pick.
First is that treaties don’t ‘preserve’ anything. They are simply a framework that will either be acknowledge or ignored depending on real world realities. Everything depends on the threat of force.
They can be useful as a restraint on countries which have regard for rule of law. The one major [huge and under appreciated] benefit of the OST is to ban sovereign claims. This has huge implications for commerce since private ownership (which is not banned) is THE engine of growth and investment.
I do not trust the ‘leaders’ of this world. I’d hate to see them throw out the major value of the OST in order to gain control and taxes and regulation of peoples lives. I have much more trust in the self interest of billions of deplorable people.
Nations that have ratified the treaty have the right to modify it once the exploitation of resources begins. But the people of the Earth are the recognized owners of the Moon and they should be– financially compensated– when lunar exploitation begins– just as citizens in Alaska are financially compensated when private companies drill for oil on Federal lands.
Marcel
My moon title must have gotten lost in the mail.
Recognized by whom? The prior owners?
Face it, whoever gets resources from the moon is going to own them. Water is fungible. And whoever doesn’t invest isn’t going to get a return on investment.
The real question is, “Which States’ oligarchies will allow the largest number of their citizens to invest, and get back a profit?” They, and many of those who voice concern over space resources, know quite well that this change in total wealth available to human beings will likely upset every social hierarchy on this planet. It will continue to do so for several centuries, while new resources are identified.
They want to remain on top of their social hierarchy. They must try to gauge whether they can do so under conditions the US will propose under Ted Cruz’s push from the Senate. Those who most demand to know what the results will be, are going to want the strongest restrictions on individual actors, because the more actors in the markets, the more chaotic they become, …and the more productive, accelerating exactly those changes they fear.
Nations that have ratified the OST also have the right to modify it before exploitation of resources begins. That’s what’s at issue here.
The idea that every single person on Earth deserves some form of “compensation” when extraterrestrial resources begin to be exploited is the sort of socialist nonsense that got us the Moon Treaty and the Law of the Sea treaty. One is owed compensation when one is injured. The current and future residents of the Grasshutistans of the world are not injured in any way as a consequence of developed nations exploiting space resources. The Law of the Sea treaty mandates such “compensation” anent seabed mining. That’s why there has been no seabed mining. That particular mistake need not be made again.
That point about “compensation” applies equally to the citizens of Alaska. None of them are injured by virtue of oil being pumped from the North Slope. Citizens of Alaska get their yearly oil checks because the political establishment of Alaska decided to buy votes with money taxed from national and international oil companies. If the conditions imposed for lifting oil in Alaska had been as onerous as those imposed by the Seabed Mining Authority anent seabed mining, there would be no Alaska Pipeline and no annual oil revenue checks being delivered to Alaska’s citizenry.
One thing that’s glaring to me is how economic development is reduced to mining in many people’s perspective. This view blinds them to the greater economic realities. As Bill Whittle point’s out… where did present day Los Angeles get it’s wealth? (Starting from a hundred years ago, for example.) Less than a single percent (much less, it isn’t even close) came out of the ground.
“One thing that’s glaring to me is how economic development is reduced to mining in many people’s perspective. . . .”
Ken – You’re right. But I think it’s a question of timing, as in mining first and for some time, then manufacturing and so on.
Investors and entrepreneurs aim for the minimal thing they can focus on, just to break even, get the business going. Right now that seems like mining water ice for export for propellants, since the processing needed is less than for other activities.
Timing is an excellent point so let’s think about it…
mining first and for some time, then manufacturing and so on
So what is the point of mining? It’s not just a process of accumulating stuff. It’s part of a bigger process. Manufacturing is a pipeline. Stuff goes in, is processed, new stuff comes out. While sequential it’s not discrete but continuous. Manufacturing (and many other things) happen concurrently (including incremental improvements and increasing of scale) with mining. Which means focusing on mining causes blindness to the big picture. It’s not strictly sequential either, mostly it’s processes going on in parallel that reinforce each other.
Mining is really just a minor part of the big picture; just easier to quantify (suggesting a sort of economic laziness.)
It’s just so important to understand where wealth comes from. “From the ground” is the wrong answer because it neglects the more important aspects of wealth creation. Focusing on mining is like the guy looking for his keys under the street lamp because the lighting is better than where he dropped them. Note I’m not saying mining is not important. It is a critical element. It just misses the important story.
Watching yesterday’s hearing now. Searching for the youtube got me an ‘American Frontier’ video that made an interesting observation. While the frontier colonist did the hard work of establishing towns in the west, colonial govt politicians claimed the new towns as their own property (without themselves ever leaving the east) forcing the settlers to continue moving west out of the reach of the govt.
Nothing, of course, has changed.
I should have included these links…
part 1 – Walter Cunningham
Can’t include the other 5 parts because it’s filtered as “too spammy” but the first links to the rest.