The Case for Lunar Property Rights

longacre writes "Who owns the moon? In a thought provoking piece, Instapundit blogger/law professor Glenn Reynolds gives us a brief history of earthlings' discourse on lunar property rights, a topic which has stagnated since the 1979 Moon Treaty. Is it possible to claim good title on land that is not under the dominion of a nation? He goes on to plead his case for the creation of lunar real estate legislation. From the article: 'Property rights attract private capital and, with government space programs stagnating, a lunar land rush may be just what we need to get things going again.'"

Re:Possession is nine tenths of the law.

[QuantumPete]

But that'd mean that the US already owns the entire moon, being the only nation to ever have set foot there (and even planted a flag). They didn't say "I claim this island (trabant) in the name of blah." but with some careful editing of the historical footage, I'm sure that could be rectified ;-)

The year was 1970...

[flaming error]

Humiliated by the Americans beating them to the moon, the Soviets developed plans to send a massive unmanned rocket to the moon, laden with red paint. On impact, the paint would cover the entire bright side of the moon. A second, manned mission would immediately follow. The cargo - white paint, to make a bright hammer and crescent symbol against the red background.

American intelligence learned of these plans. A great opportunity arose to foil them. But instead the American President, "Tricky Dick" Nixon, demurred. "Let them go ahead and paint the moon," he said.

"But Mr. President, surely the image of the Soviet Empire covering the moon..."

"After they've painted it red," said Nixon, "we'll paint the logo of Coca Cola."

It's simple

[Colin Smith]

Who owns anything? The person with the biggest stick.
 

It belongs to the Nazis

[Rik Sweeney]

they first went there in 1945.

And in 2018, they are coming back. [ironsky.net]

My montly communist slashdot rant

[gnarlin]

I think Bill Hicks said it best: "Stop putting a fucking dollar sign on everything." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo [youtube.com] Hey, how about keeping the moon the collective property of all humanity? Why do these rich pricks always have to own everything? They already own the property you are in and the land beneath your feet that you keep paying for every month. Not only that, but they can create money out of thin air with the wonderful fractional reserve banking system imposed on us. Bah, I've already rambled enough for now. Also, if you work in marketing, kill yourselves.

Lunar property rights? Most people call him crazy.

[bobdotorg]

... but in reality, he's just a lunatic.

Re:Spacex and Bigelow are counting on this

[Kamineko]

> The reason is that the poles offer full and zero sun at the same time.

Lunar colonisation is not a zero sun game.

Re:location, location, location

[nospam007]

So what can you do on the Moon that would make it so fabulously valuable?

You could mine the cheese.

Re:location, location, location

[Notegg Nornoggin]

Maybe the UN should allocate a bunch of land to each country with a reasonable claim (i.e. viable spam programme)

Greetings!

I am the son of the former Nigerian Ministry for Lunar Development and I have a large sum of money held in his locked bank account...

I wonder if aliens have lawyers ...

[crazybit]

discussing about solar system property rights...

Re:Hill of beans

[aproposofwhat]

Nah - he just missed out the 'divide both sides by two' step :o)

Re:Possession is nine tenths of the law.

[bloodninja]

That's almost $30 an acre. Today, you can still buy range land in New Mexico for $40 an acre. And that is with Earth's atmosphere included, and substantially lower transportation and energy costs.

So, Martian land is less expensive than New Mexico land? And it is located in an isolated, relatively secluded place that even the US government has difficulty getting to? The Scientologists and Davidians will be crawling all over it now that the cat is out of the bag!

Re:The question is not whether lunar rights are go

[Anonymous Coward]

Property rights in land all date back ultimately to theft:

Yet theft can only occur with something that is subject to property rights, making this argument a perfect circle!

Re:location, location, location

[Kickersny.com]

With the New Mexico land you could at least raise cattle on it (they breathe air, remember).

Yeah, but you can raise buggalo [theinfosphere.org] on Mars.

Re:Possession is nine tenths of the law.

[Rude Turnip]

You can still "discover" that your wife is cheating on you, although at least 2 others knew before you.

Re:10 meters of fence and the moon is mine!

[DriedClexler]

In case anyone hasn't heard the related joke, here it is:

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are visiting their friend, who is a farmer. He's not very good at math, so he asks them for help with the problem. The farmer wants to enclose as much land as possible using only 200 yards of fencing.

The engineer reasons that for a fixed perimeter, a circle maximizes area, so he arranges it in a circle.

The physicist waits until it gets foggy and dark, lays the fence in a straight line, stands at the middle, and says, "look, look, I've encircled the earth!"

The mathematician builds a tiny enclosure, stands inside of it, and says, "I define myself as outside the fence."