Renegotiating the Outer Space Treaty

ILunar Colony Concept Courtesy NASA

Why is it so difficult to motivate politicians to appropriate sufficient money to explore space? The current space exploration effort, which is supposed to return astronaut explorers to the Moon by 2020, was been short changed by President George W. Bush from the moment he proposed it in 2004. Indications are, especially in the wake of proposals by the Augustine Committee, are that President Obama will do the same, but more so, abandoning the Moon goal to visit an asteroid.

Jim Prevor, in an article in this week’s Weekly Standard, believes that he has found the answer. The Outer Space Treaty, negotiated and signed in the mid 1960s, has a clause that forbids its signatories from claiming territory in space. Neil Armstrong “came in peace for all mankind” and did not claim the Moon for the United States.

The problem is that if a country cannot own anything in space, it has little incentive to send explorers out into space. Moreover, a claims of national sovereignty is the traditional way that a nation state defends property rights for private people and companies. If one wanted to—say—build a Helium 3 mine on the Moon, one would not own the land upon which it sits nor, likely, would one have the right to mine the Helium 3 to start with that terrestrial nations would recognize.

Jim Prevor suggests renegotiating the non sovereignty clause of the Outer Space Treaty with a view to create an international regime regulating the acquisition of extra terrestrial territory and private property rights in space. The principle might be a requirement to “homestead” a piece of space property, such as a portion of the Moon or a mineral rich asteroid, and prove that one is able to develop it to acquire title.

Jim Prevor is likely correct that such a regime would jump start space efforts all over the world, as a scramble would take place to lay claim to parts of the Moon, for example, to economically develop. Unfortunately the current administration is about as likely to go along with a revision of the Outer Space Treaty as it is to go along with the elimination of the tax on capital gains.

Still, the issue of the Outer Space Treaty as a relic of the Cold War and as a disincentive to the exploration and development of the high frontier of space might be something that one or more of President Obama’s political opponents could take up.

Will free market capitalism be extended to the heavens? Or will space be closed off to economic development?