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Could corporations control territory in space? Under new US rules, it might be possible:
First, the Artemis Accords go beyond simply rejecting the unpopular 1979 Moon Agreement, which declared lunar resources to be the "common heritage of mankind" and committed parties to establish an international regime to oversee space mining. Only 18 countries have signed the treaty.
In its place, the accords envisage a US-centric framework of bilateral agreements in which "partner nations" agree to follow US-drafted rules.
Second, the accords introduce the concept of "safety zones" around lunar operations.
Although territorial claims in space are prohibited under international law, these safety zones would seek to protect commercial and scientific sites from inadvertent collisions and other forms of "harmful interference". What kinds of conduct could count as harmful interference remains to be determined.
Previously:
(2020-06-02) Third European Service Module for Artemis Mission to Land Astronauts on the Moon
(2020-05-16) NASA Wants Partner Nations to Agree to "Artemis Accords" for Lunar Exploration
(2020-03-12) CoronaVirus (SARS-CoV-2) Roundup 2020-03-12
(2018-07-22) Who Owns The Moon? A Space Lawyer Answers
(2018-03-07) China to Recruit Civilian Astronauts, Partner With Russia on Upcoming Missions
(2018-01-09) Russia Assembles Engineering Group for Lunar Activities and the Deep Space Gateway
(2017-10-18) Bigelow and ULA to Put Inflatable Module in Orbit Around the Moon by 2022
(2015-11-26) Who Owns Space? USA's Asteroid-Mining Act is Dangerous and Potentially Illegal
Robert Heinlein explored the notion in a novel. Does the future of space exploration lie with governments or corporations?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:09PM
Getting people in space to gather resources is a good thing, whatever their motive. This is a big step towards real post-scarcity. Let the capitalists capitalize until the capital disappears, as long as they're doing something productive.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:17PM (4 children)
suppose the rule made on earth sayz:"you need to sit on a moon chair, at a moon desk, writting and signing the moon document ON the moon with a moon pen"?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:54PM
The Lunar Ink Party... in zero-G.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:59PM
while eating a Moon Pie
(Score: 2, Funny) by sonamchauhan on Wednesday June 03 2020, @10:19PM
Remember to stand up and do the moonwalk every hour!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday June 05 2020, @07:04PM
And signing Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words) the whole time.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:26PM (20 children)
And what exactly is supposed to be concerning about "controlling territory"? Anyone who owns their own house controls territory. Now, if the implication is that corporations can create their own armed forces, and start wars, well, maybe we should look at the rules that are intended to regulate that sort of thing rather than rules that aren't?
Bottom line, at least for the US, is that one has a lot of latitude in creating a private militia, mercenary group, or other low grade military force, but very little latitude in what they do with that force - you can't start your own wars, you can't arm them with much more than basic infantry weapons, can't police stuff, incite violence or criminal activity, etc. States impose additional restrictions as well. I see a claim [motherjones.com] that California has made it illegal to train for "guerrilla warfare or sabotage".
Those restrictions, at least at the federal level, won't go away just because someone is in space. So let's suppose I start my own space mining corp and at some point, create a military force (let's say the pretext is defending my operations from pirates, who would be non-state actors). As I noted above, there's already a bunch of law in the US restricting my use of that force. And there's two huge Earth-side levers to insure my cooperation - assets on Earth owned by the corporation (or by corp officers and shareholders), and trade with Earth, the biggest economy in the Solar System for centuries to come. To willfully break those laws (or just be sloppy with the exercise of force) would be to abandon the usual reasons for having a business corporation in the first place.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:47PM (8 children)
Historically speaking, rules don't do much to affect the development of armed forces in far-away, difficult to reach places. What matters far more than rules is the ability to project force which has the capacity to enforce those rules. With control of said force, such rules often become unnecessary or moot.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:39PM (7 children)
And I noted a couple of ways that could be done economically.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:19PM (6 children)
You already have the situation that corporations write laws that benefit themselves, then pay your elected representatives to enact them.
If space mining looks like being fantastically profitable, they'll be making sure those profits go to the right people.
It is so much cheaper to put the costs of enforcing that stuff onto taxpayers. Having an army is expensive, that is why the United Fruit Company (for example) tended to use the United States Marines when they needed to suppress any slave revolts.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:51PM (5 children)
Sounds like something that could be a problem, but it doesn't change the fundamental dynamic. They still have an Earth-side presence and all the big money would be trading with Earth.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:59PM (4 children)
True, and as they have the ability to write their own rules they will be able to ensure anything they want to do is legal, using the threat of the US military if necessary.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:09AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 04 2020, @09:06PM (2 children)
Like what other interests? The voters? Don't make me laugh.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @10:31PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 04 2020, @10:59PM
Only two of those interests are going to have any say in what happens, and the other two work hand in glove.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:51PM (5 children)
There's one really big space-side lever to potentially ensure that no one in space needs to give much of a damn about what an Earth-side government says: it's really easy to drop a very big rock on any spot on the planet Earth.
Once enough people get out into space and they're living there on a permanent basis, they'll make their own rules between themselves. Probably after a lot of blood is spilled. That's what humans do.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:13PM (2 children)
It also has a huge lag. The nuclear powers on Earth can wipe out countries inside of two hours with nukes. That asteroid will take years to decades, plenty of time for an Earth power to respond and thwart the attack. Even a Heinlein-style railgun shooting rocks from the Moon will leave a day or more of warning.
And it's not going to do a thing to space-side infrastructure which could easily dodge that stuff and retaliate.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:25PM (1 child)
It's a bit hard for earth to dodge tho. It would either have to be intercepted somehow, the track record for such things is currently not fantastic, or some kind of mass-evacuation of/from a calculated impact zone.
That said I don't think there will be any Heinlein-style Mars (or Klendathu) bombardments of Earth anytime soon. It's probably more interesting what will happen with small research/mining bases and such -- what happens in space, stays in space unless there is some really atrocious things that just can't be denied or overlooked and they still have a presence on Earth or whatever we consider out jurisdiction will be.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:37PM
It was moved once. It can be moved again. As to space infrastructure dodging lunar attacks, I forgot about clouds of dirt moving at orbital velocities. That's much harder to dodge.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 04 2020, @04:09PM
I don't think it's in the Moon's interests to fight with Earth. You can't get a decent bagel anywhere on the Moon.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday June 05 2020, @09:46PM
May well be. But any space-borne (or other-solar-system-body-borne) culture would also have to be completely self-sufficient. Redundancies for the redundancies for the redundancies. Yes, Moon is a Harsh Mistress and all... but Mike only gave 1 in 7 odds of the revolution succeeding and even then success meant they came to better terms with Earth for resupply. Plus they had launched all their remaining canisters... what if nobody had recognized Luna in spite of the bombing? They'd die a lot more quickly than the Earth would.
How would they with inevitable minor outgasses of oxygen alone? Not saying they wouldn't, Fallen Angels had the characters skim the atmosphere to "steal" replenishment oxygen. Being at the top of the gravity well matters little if you're hypoxic.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:49PM (3 children)
that california law is retarded. training for guerrilla warfare can be training for offense or defense and is a duty not a privilege. rep needs to get it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:42PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @11:36PM (1 child)
If there is something in the water, California has determined it causes cancer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @09:53PM
Better than all your priests who jizz into the water supply thinking they'll spread God's precious bodily fluids. How does it feel to have guzzled a few gallons of cum in your lifetime?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:48PM
What a culture difference! I've heard a claim that Switzerland trains their entire population in sabotage; and that this made it useless for the Nazis to invade them -- there would be no way to hold the territory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @03:54PM (1 child)
Was discussed by the great Ursula Le Guin in the Dispossessed
(Just wasn’t earth’s moon in the book)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/29/hugo-award-ursula-le-guin [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 05 2020, @10:37AM
They interviewed that 100+ year old Native American who was the last of his tribe from the massacre outside of.... Napa I think it was.
She had a great pedigree and spent many decades as a mentor to other aspiring writers both male and female up until her death a few years ago. Truly worth of respect both for her literary works, her forefathers, and her life up until the very end.
(Score: 3, Informative) by turgid on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:00PM (13 children)
I foresee China, SpaceX and possibly Russia going to war over the Moon. Russia and China have nukes. SpaceX does not (yet) but it does have better rockets. Maybe Fake President Pull-My-Finger will sell Elon a few old nukes for cheap.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:05PM (9 children)
Why would anyone go to war over the moon when there is so much of it?
And as long as corporation's headquarters are here on Earth, and their supplies are launched from places on Earth, this is the place you fight them.
The Outer Space Treaty says that things in space are dealt with by the country of origin of the launch vehicle.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Touché) by turgid on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:09PM (2 children)
Power, control, pride, possession... all the usual things people go to war over. There will be all sorts of posturing and petty disputes that will be "solved" through violence. Imagine the prestige of winning the first ever space war?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:00PM
What's surprising? This is the US we're talking about, the country that has been at war for 93% of its existence [globalresearch.ca].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:07PM
If there are valuable deposits it seems probable they will not be evenly distributed. Typical fight for resources.
Would be nice if humanity united so we wouldn't have to kill people over who gets the resources.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:59PM
I can imagine some places on the moon being much more valuable than others. For example, the poles could be pretty useful to dig for ice, or to erect solar panel towers in permanent daylight.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:08PM
Because you find water only on a little of it. You know? That polar solvent that any human is addicted to the point that the withdrawal symptoms is usually fatal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:33PM (3 children)
Because there is so much of it. While shooting wars have started over remarkably stupid [wikipedia.org] things, the smarter people would go to war over high stakes. Control of the whole Moon would be such high stakes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @08:21PM (2 children)
I'll see your football war and raise you one bucket!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Bucket [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 05 2020, @03:21AM (1 child)
In the real world, I have been informed of the great and terrible Toledo War [wikipedia.org] (over the US Toledo not the Spanish original) with one stab wound. I also thought of the Cod Wars [wikipedia.org], a series of three mighty conflicts between Iceland and the UK with much trading of paint and one death.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday June 08 2020, @12:48AM
Not to be confused with the Cold War.
Nice.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:49PM (2 children)
Musky boy is trying to build a case [space.com] to give himself control of more nuclear weapons than currently exist...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @06:03PM (1 child)
He is becoming quite unhinged these days. Wonder what is going on with him.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:50AM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SemperOSS on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:55PM (4 children)
I claim everything outside a distance of 320 km (200 miles) from the surface of the Earth plus permanent access rights to this volume via the atmosphere. I will have to request all the illegally parked vehicles in this volume to be removed instantly or face parking charges. My partnership, the Parking-in-Space Syndicate Ltd (traded as PISS on the Southern Hebrides International Trading stock exchange), with Mr E Musk will soon launch a number of attendants in spiffy, yellow space suits to dice out tickets to the many offenders.
Parking permits for residents can be purchased for $235,000 a year per vehicle with the possibility of discounts of up to 0.001% (rounded to the nearest dollar) for all permits after the first. Please contact the head office in Lagos, Nigeria for further information.
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
Maybe I should add a sarcasm warning now and again?
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Wednesday June 03 2020, @07:04PM (2 children)
Please note: I already have claimed all of the Andromeda galaxy. Please do not trespass. Entering without authorization will result in singularity attacks and gamma-ray bursts to keep you at an appropriate distance of at least a few thousand lightyears.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 04 2020, @12:54PM
What about the people who are already there?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday June 05 2020, @09:54PM
Ah. Very good to meet you! I am the taxation official for galactic entities in the Local Group. Please remit your current back taxes in arrears of 6.8 quadrillion Quatloos immediately. Failure to do so may result in repossession or string displacement to render all the atoms of your galaxy to their quantum particle states. This is your final notice, and we expect your payment by hyperloop transfer to Frogstar B in 36 Rels. Thanks, and have a nice day!
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @09:59PM
I will be concerned, only when, you install the boot to my vehicle wheel arch.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:09PM
I'm sure the Weyland-Yutani corp approves of this. What could possibly go wrong ...
That said isn't this the natural outcome of it? If states can't exert power then whatever things they, corporations, put in orbit or asteroids they mine or whatnot will probably be considered theirs and for them to do as they see fit with. Far away from the prying eyes of earth and it's laws.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @05:20PM (1 child)
So why would anyone agree to this
They can dream up, or "envisage" all they want, I doubt any country that matters will sign it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:56AM
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ilPapa on Wednesday June 03 2020, @08:56PM (6 children)
I don't think anyone should get too worried about "current US rules". Everything's going to change real soon. Executive orders will be undone and hopefully there will be South African-style "truth and reconciliation" hearings. There's gonna be a lot of repair/fumigation to do once the bloated and fetid degenerate in the White House is safely gone. But happen it will.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 03 2020, @10:15PM
Are you going to cry when the orange overlord wins again?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:15PM (4 children)
For what? Trump's shitty tweets? I'm tired of people demanding justice when they can't even articulate what's supposed to be wrong.
As to the "current rules" in space, we need something better. We globally spend vast sums on government space activities, and get token theater in response. The private world is where it's at. That's where the new ideas come from and the will to do awesome things.
The rules should reflect that. My take is that claim staking, like mining in the Western US over the past two centuries, is a far superior approach to the clueless communalism of the Moon Treaty (which claims that space belongs to everyone, but isn't signed by a single space power). While the Artemis Agreement wouldn't go that far, at least it would allow for normal property in space.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Saturday June 06 2020, @12:51PM (3 children)
Not at all. The hearings won't be for Trump, they'll be for those that supported and enabled Trump. This type of hearings were proposed after the Civil War and if they would have happened we might not have the kind of problems we have in the country today. Nuremburg kept Europe nazi-free for 60 years, after all. South Africa has been peaceful and moving in the right direction thanks to the Truth & Reconciliation hearings.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 06 2020, @05:12PM (2 children)
So when you come with a loathsome kangaroo court idea and present it as coming from a opponent of Trump, doing your part to support and enable Trump, how many years in prison do you think you deserve for that? Five? Ten? Just put you against the wall?
Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed after the US Civil War.
Taking testimony from people who suffered real harm under apartheid is very different than going on a witch hunt for "enablers".
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Monday June 08 2020, @12:59PM (1 child)
No jail time or execution if there is a sincere apology.
If they just would have let Sherman finish the job we might not have had Jim Crow and still be living with the South's racist legacy. And we damn sure wouldn't have statues of Confederate traitors all over the South.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday June 09 2020, @04:31AM
With his elite corps of unicorns right? Military defeat doesn't eliminate racism.
I think a sincere "fuck you" suffices here.