Would allowing countries to claim land in space encourage more space flight?

[brooksy125]

As stated above would removing the no claiming land clause of the outer space treaty boost competitiveness between countries and further human space flight?

There obviously would have to be some regulations on exactly how much you can claim and that you have to set foot there otherwise everyone would claim the universe without actually exploring it.

[Kerbface]

Can you really stop someone from owning land in space at this point in time?

Country A lands on Mars, claims it.

Country B: You can't do that!

A: Yes I can!

B: No you can't.

A: You don't own it!

B: That doesn't mean you can.

A: Sure it does! Come get it if you want it!

B: *grumble mumble waks off*

[Kryten]

International community B, you mean. Or perhaps countries B-Ω. Countries can't afford to simply ignore the wishes of the international community, even large ones; certainly not for the tiny amount of gain 'claiming' a celestial body could ever involve.

[leax256]

it would really start wars rather than help. Space needs to be politics free. this would allow more development of space science.

[Cryocasm]

It would be stupid, the colonists would hear of the developments hours later, and considering that the colonists are 8 MONTHS TRAVEL AWAY, it's not like 2 countries taking stabs at each other really accomplishes anything. If I were a colonist, I would simply not care, I would go about doing my work for mankind doing the science that I'm supposed to do on Mars. And if I was asked to give an opinion, I'd tell them "I really don't care and find space politics to be a waste of money."

Before mankind even returns to the Moon, mankind needs to unite as a species and not as a detrimental and self-destructive collection of sects that are greedy and exploitative.

As to space, how would you go about doing this? If I claim 1234567890 m³ above Earth, would they rotate with the Earth or not? If not, then I would exit my territory with my space station and other people would enter my territory with their space station during an orbit. How would one remain sovereign of one's space?

[karolus10]

No, claiming land only prevent others to use it (with no means of defending this claim), now everyone can put spacecraft and exploit resources anywhere if had capability to do this.

There would be not so much issues with shortages of free land for bases or asteroid mining (at least for long time), because there is a lot of them to pick - space is big, really.

Of course some of them are better than others in means of resource size or ÃŽâ€V required to get there, but this wouldn't be true problem for few centuries ;p.

EDIT_1:

Also, if Martians will ever attack Earth, they will be humans too .

Edited June 2, 2013 by karolus10

[Karriz]

I don't think any nation would be particularly interested in claiming territories in space at the moment. Mining for resources wouldn't be profitable, and manned colonies would be focused on science. Same thing already applies to Antarctic.

Space race worked because both US and Soviets wanted to prove their technological and ideological superiority. international cooperation would of course be preferable.

[Sᴄɪɴᴛɪʟʟᴀᴛᴏʀ]

To address this issue you first have to look at why land is claimed and defended on Earth. Land has value here and has multiple uses, the main ones being domestic property, industrial property and farmland.

None of those are currently profitable to do off of Earth. What good is a chunk of the Lunar surface if no one can live there, produce there or grow there? If there was no oil under the Antarctic no one would want that land as they would be obligated to defend any of their citizens that chose to move there which would be costly and not worth the effort.

Land will eventually be claimed on other planets/moons, it has to be if humanity ever intends to colonize the stars to any degree but allowing it now would not promote further exploration because people tend to think short term and financing a massive exploration program is a long term project that would leach huge amounts of money out of whatever country committed to it. Money that could be used towards health, education and the creation of additional employment. What politician would be re-elected after saying "No healthcare for you, we spent all our money on claiming the solar system"?

Edited June 2, 2013 by Sᴄɪɴᴛɪʟʟᴀᴛ�ʀ

[Brotoro]

I would bet that mining for resources can be profitable, starting with asteroids. Allow private companies to claim and exploit space property, and see what happens. It worked for encouraging exploration of the Americas and it worked for encouraging the expansion of railroads in America. Give it a try.

[firerider521]

it would really start wars rather than help. Space needs to be politics free. this would allow more development of space science.

Space has NEVER been politics free. It was the Cold War that drove the U.S. into flying up a satellite.

[Kryten]

I don't see how his statement implies anything otherwise...

[ZedNova]

Eventually there will be territories, but not for a long time.

[rodion_herrera]

Right now, every country in the world, regardless of political and economic ideology (i.e. the different "ISMs") all have one thing in common--everything is driven by money. We live in an age of human civilization where money is something central to almost every human experience there is. You might then ask "Well, is there any other "mode" of existence that won't rely on money?" Well that all depends if the entirety of humans DO WANT to maintain that sort of system.

Therefore if you ask me, what, in this stage of human evolution, will encourage more spaceflight? Simple--the lure of money...hence you got NASA "re-invented" to become asteroid miners, China off to mine Helium 3 on the moon...and etc etc...

However, if humankind perhaps evolves into a new mode of existence that does not rely on money for exchange of goods or services, space travel doesn't have to be encouraged, because it will be an endeavor that will be done simply because most people would like to do it. Jacque Fresco's "resource-based" economy is one such "scenario"--all people contribute something to a cause, because no one is being coerced to do something simply because money has ceased to be a motivating factor, and what's left is the motivating factor of doing something because you want to see "what lies on the other side"...

[Cryocasm]

From a purely physical point of view, if countries really wanted metals, no matter what kind, the Asteroid Belt combined is many times more massive than Earth, and contains a mind-bogglingly huge amount of everything. If you wanted megatons of Iron, all you'd need to do is fly out there and explore. Hopefully with more size-appropriate ships in the kilometer size class, rather than these puny capsules that we float about the lowest possible orbits of Earth with. Since the Apollo program, no manned mission has left LEO.

[Brotoro]

The total mass of material in the asteroid belt is much smaller than the mass of the Earth.

[Shrike42]

Well, actually... As the arctic Ice cap has retreated, the Russians have been planting flags on the ocean floor to expand their territory for resource gathering and political purposes.

And I'm pretty sure North Korea has claimed the moon and whatever else they can see as their own.

The only current legitimate attempt at claiming areas for resources is from Planetary Resources, working on developing asteroid mining satellites.

[ddavis425]

I don't think many nations would be interested. As far as I know most countries no longer have that imperialistic attitude, and the only reason for wanting the land would be for resources, which wouldn't really be cost-efficient at this point.

[nhnifong]

I don't think many nations would be interested. As far as I know most countries no longer have that imperialistic attitude, and the only reason for wanting the land would be for resources, which wouldn't really be cost-efficient at this point.

Sure they do, just look at the recent battles over ocean floor mining operations

[NASAFanboy]

More likely it will be like this.

China ; (Lands on Moon, Claims as own.)

America ; It is our's, we got there first. (Builds missle base on oon.)

China ; Nun-uh! (Deploys armed spaceship)

America ; Un-huh!

China ; THE MOON IS OURS, YOU EVIL WESTERN IMPERIALISTS! (Deploys armed spacestation)

America ; WE REFUSE TO BE FORCED TO LIVE UNDER A RED MOON! (Deploys laser battlestation, deploys US Naval Space Command battleships into space)

China ; NO WAY!

America ; SHUT UP! (Claim's Mars)

China ; GTFO! THIS IS OIUR LAND (Lands on Mars, claims)

Russia ; So, they have'nt figured out I have claimed Venus. Thats a good sign. Now for some more vodka.

Meanwhile...

China ; THE MOON IS OURS!

America ; NO! (Builds city on moon)

China ; RAIGGGGG! (Sets off nuke in space)

America ; You have violated the blah-blah-blah treaty of blah-blah-blah.

America ; (Builds base on Callisto)

China ; UBERRAIG! (Sends expedition to Europa)

America ; No way! (Sends expedition to Saturn. Builds base on Titan)

China ; OMEGAUBERSUPERMEGAUBER1337RAIG! (Build's base on Ceres)

America ; CERES IS OURS, NOOO! (Builds second Ceres base)

Russia ; Noone even knows of our colony on Mercury... More vodka, please.

Meanwhile...

China ; NUUUB!!!! (Nukes American Ceres Base)

America ; [Explicit] (Nukes China)

Henceforth, the inter-planetary war begins.

[falofonos]

Sure they do, just look at the recent battles over ocean floor mining operations

Those are primarily states acting as proxies for corporate interests.

Exploitation of extra terrestrial resources is likely to cause all sorts of fun and games, If the resources are returned to earth orbit or earth itself (bit of a waste of deltaV, but needs must) then which tax jurisdiction are they in? Which environmental laws apply to the descending lumps of whatever?

Does a corporation which places solar shades in space earn income on Earth for carbon offset? Does that corporation pay tax on Earth when their head office is located on the moon and if so, to whom?

What nationality (and tax jurisdiction again) are people who earn their living in space?

[ROFLCopter64bit]

This raises the age old question; who actually owns the moon? No-one does. How would you determine this?

[OtherDalfite]

This raises the age old question; who actually owns the moon? No-one does. How would you determine this?

I would guess that it would be whoever wanted it and was able to establish a way to defend it. But since we have the International Space Treaty stating that we can't claim celestial bodies as our own, nobody really owns it, for now, at least.

[Kerbface]

I would guess that it would be whoever wanted it and was able to establish a way to defend it. But since we have the International Space Treaty stating that we can't claim celestial bodies as our own, nobody really owns it, for now, at least.

Well I call dibs.

But seriously, if people ever start owning space property, it'd probably be mostly small regions, like on Earth, not entire bodies.

[jwenting]

10 seconds after the regulation is announced, Russia claims the entire geostationary orbit and gives all others 10 hours to vacate their property before they'll shoot down anything there (using Russia as an example because they have the capacity to do that, no other reason).

[Kryten]

...destroying incredibly expensive property of most other nations in the world and starting WWIII. When will people realise countries don't act like they do in bad video games for very good reasons? Oh, and they don't have that capability. Their ASAT systems were all cancelled after the collapse, and were LEO-only anyway.