What Shall We Do with the Moon Once We Get There?
One Idea for Enabling a Lunar Settlement
The return to the Moon effort has even become part of American Presidential politics as the various candidates have taken positions for or against the undertaking, Shall we proceed to the Moon or shall we, once again, draw back?
And another question has arisen. What shall we do with the Moon once we get there?
Ideas ranging from scientific exploration, commercial exploitation, and training for future exploration, say of Mars, abound. These are all excellent ideas, but they imply something beyond short term forays as occurred during the Apollo program. They imply a permanent residency of humans on the Moon or, in other words, a lunar settlement.
A lunar settlement, probably located at one of the lunar poles where scientists believe ice exists in permanently shadowed craters, would be a center of science and commerce. Lunar geologists and astronomers would work cheek to jowl with helium 3 miners and lunar tour guides. There would even be a government of some kind, with lawyers and bureaucrats, to sort out disputes and to pass and supervise laws and regulations.
However, if the lunar settlement is to be more than just an Antarctica style science base, some provision would have to be made about private property rights. And there is the rub.
The Outer Space Treaty, which currently governs national activities in space, is silent about private property rights. The treaty does, however, forbid nations from making sovereign claims on territory on other worlds. National sovereignty is the traditional mechanism for guaranteeing private property.
However, in a recent article in the Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Alan Wasser and Douglas Jobes suggested a way around this ambiguity. Wasser and Jobes propose that certain countries recognize in advance the right of a privately built and owned lunar settlement to dispose of private property at and around the site of the settlement and to promise to maintain and defend that right.
This arrangement would allow for a private lunar settlement to earn back the initial investment required to build the settlement by selling lunar real estate around the settlement. It would provide a powerful incentive, claim the authors of the article, for private, commercial development on the Moon.
Current NASA planning suggests a four person lunar base to be more or less permanently occupied by around 2025 or so. The idea advanced by Wasser and Jobes is of a grander scale entirely. Instead of a tiny research station situated on the edge of the Aitkin Basin at the lunar South Pole, they suggest the possibility of a community, a town if you will on the Moon, with all the implications of such an undertaking.
One of the criticisms of NASA's return to the Moon effort is that it seems to be little more than a continuation of Apollo, with only highly trained, government paid astronauts allowed to directly participate. But if a private lunar settlement could be enabled, along the lines Wasser and Jobe suggest, the pool of possible lunar settlers would be widened considerably. NASA astronauts will surely still lead the way, but they will be followed by university scientists, business entrepreneurs, fortunate seekers, and people just dreaming of a better, more prosperous life on the high frontier.
The drafting, negotiation, signing, and then ratifying of a Space Settlement Treaty, in which the parties promise to protect the property rights of space settlers, could be an arduous undertaking, but it is one that could be started now. Then something will happen that hitherto has only happened in science fiction; the first beachhead of human civilization beyond the Earth.
The late President Reagan used to quote John Winthrop's sermon of the "City on the Hill", referring to America. A lunar settlement would be the ultimate city on the hill, the hill being the one that can only be surmounted by escaping the grip of gravity. It would be a city that everyone will be able to see, in any clear, night sky, an inspiration and a testament to what human beings can do when they set their minds to it.
Source: SPACE SETTLEMENTS, PROPERTY RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: COULD A LUNAR SETTLEMENT CLAIM THE LUNAR REAL ESTATE IT NEEDS TO SURVIVE?, Alan Wasser and Douglas Jobes, Journal of Air Law and Commerce.
Published by Mark Whittington
Mark R. Whittington is a writer residing in Houston, Texas. He is the author of The Last Moonwalker, Children of Apollo, Dark Sanction, and Nocturne. He has written numerous articles, some for the Washington... View profile
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7 Comments
Post a CommentOwnership of land may well be a key to settlement, but it need not suffer from the Outer Space Treaty dilemma - FIrst team to establish a settlement (a facility that supports 4 or more people for at least seven lunar days) should declare independence as a free Lunar republic and annex the territory around their facility, set up a governing council, establish a constitution and charge an immigration fee.
They can't claim the whole moon, and they can't stop other teams from establishing their own lunar republics. Eventually, there "city states" will likely want to band together - for trade, defense, and development, possibly creating the United Lunar States.
I believe we need to put of a toll booth so that we can charge admission to China and India. Also, they need to receive the pamphet that outlines the rules that the US has applied to the moon (having arrived in 1969). Rule # 3 allows them a five minute photo opportunity with their country's flag...but a fine will be levied if they it behind. Clean up fees and the like. A golf safety course will be offered to any interested visitors.
Garrison Keilor will, sporadically, be available to read selections from his latest work... "Tell Mission Control it's Roquefort."
Upon reading this article, the first question that i had was why it would take till the end of the next decade for there to be another lunar landing? Why is it so hard for us to go there now when we were able to do it back in 1969 with less sophisticated technology? And as for a lunar vehicle, the first one drove on the moon in 1971 without any major problems. Since those rovers are still on the moon, why not use them again? Are we saying that with all our advances in computers and technology, the men and women who worked on the space program nearly 40 years ago were better equipped to handle the moon. If we want to go back to the moon, I'm sure that NASA still has the blueprints for the lunar lander sitting somewhere.
Look for Elvis!
I think the only workable property rights solution at the moment, when there are no Lunar nations, is an extension of the law of salvage and of finds, whereby a piece of lunar territory becomes a homestead on the basis of human usage.
It is after all, the basis for the Mabu verdict in Australia concerning the rights of the Australian aboriginals to their property - ie, they found the land, they made use of it for well over forty thousand years, therefore they were the original owners; even better, it forces the wanna-be owners of the Moon to focus on actually getting there in the first place; and it prohibits the abhorrent "absentee landlord" phenomenon, which is guaranteed to stifle any utilization of outer space in its cradle. (Mark my words, the instant any state gets a throttle-hold on Earth Orbit access a la the SDI of not-so-distant memory, utilization of Earth Orbit and Outer Space collapses - the one with the throttle-hold in particular, because it doesn't have to compete.)
Build a telescope.
What few seem to be focusing on is WHY the current lunar program seems to be going in the wrong direction. Sadly, the entire set of 10 major vehicle components used on each lunar mission would be thrown away. We had a golden chance to build at least a partly re-usable lunar transport system, but NASA is refusing to move even an inch in that direction. There are no plans to even allow the current designs to be converted later into re-usable vehicles. This will make each new lunar mission cost billions of dollars, comparable to the cost of Apollo missions. It would also put lunar crews at risk, since there would be no backup module if there was a failure during ascent to lunar orbit from the surface.
Any lunar settlement, (vs a government science base), cannot exist without income. To produce income, you need to make a profit on something. No profit-making lunar-based economy can possibly exist based on all expendable boosters and space vehicles.