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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: 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.