Well the space environment is unique - that most of the land itself is worthless for humans - just acre upon acre of cratered landscape in a vacuum. Can't grow any crops on it, can't do much of anything with it. You have to build habitats before you can grow anything. And the habitats can go almost anywhere - no shortage of places to put them.
So - the shared heritage there is space - and the celestial bodies - and especially - the science value of study of space - not to do things that impede on scientific studies by other parties to the treaty.
The habitats are not shared heritage - unless you abandon them.
The OST already recognizes habitats you create yourself as owned by yourself - so long as you continue to live in it.
As for who has authority or jurisdiction - that's arguably the nation that built the habitat.
It's not likely we will be able to renegotiate the OST any time soon - so best future legal system for space would be something built on top of it. Luckily there are several ways it can be extended, consistent with it.
But - ownership in space is problematical also - because of countries that are not part of the "space race".
Personally - I'm not too bothered about need for benefit sharing in early stages. Startup space companies need to have the profits to plough back into the business and to encourage investors to support them.
But later on - then I'm very concerned myself about what might happen if space economy becomes far stronger than the Earth economy as could happen.
This is more for settlements closer to Earth - I don't see a colony on Mars working or lasting if it was set up - and it has planetary protection issues also - nobody has produced a road map showing a viable way for it to happen without falling foul of planetary protection.
But doesn't matter - however and whenever it happens - and personally I hope it is delayed somewhat and we focus on exploration first - then we could get issues like the 1973 oil crisis happening in space.
In 1973 that lead to many of the developing countries suddenly incurring a huge debt they couldn't pay off and many of them still struggling to pay off those debts incurred over a short period of time in 1973.
Debt of developing countries
If something like that happened in space - then all non space faring nations on Earth might potentially end up in trouble - and even indeed the launching state - if what you had was a big multi-national that had taken over the space industry and was able to hold the rest of the world to ransom.
When you see asteroids valued in trillions - is at least a risk of something like that happening.
I think we need to build something into the legislation - some form of benefit sharing - or some other provision - to make sure that the space economy can't dominate the Earth economy and make the rest of the world in debt or bankrupt.
It could kick in when the space economy reaches a significant fraction of the world economy - so if that never happens - then the benefit sharing or whatever it is never happens either. But would be a precaution there in case it does happen as some seem to think reasonably likely - that space economy ends up massive.
For more about this see Will Anyone Ever Own Their Own Land In Space - And May We Get Wars In Space In The Future?
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
So - the shared heritage there is space - and the celestial bodies - and especially - the science value of study of space - not to do things that impede on scientific studies by other parties to the treaty.
The habitats are not shared heritage - unless you abandon them.
The OST already recognizes habitats you create yourself as owned by yourself - so long as you continue to live in it.
As for who has authority or jurisdiction - that's arguably the nation that built the habitat.
It's not likely we will be able to renegotiate the OST any time soon - so best future legal system for space would be something built on top of it. Luckily there are several ways it can be extended, consistent with it.
But - ownership in space is problematical also - because of countries that are not part of the "space race".
Personally - I'm not too bothered about need for benefit sharing in early stages. Startup space companies need to have the profits to plough back into the business and to encourage investors to support them.
But later on - then I'm very concerned myself about what might happen if space economy becomes far stronger than the Earth economy as could happen.
This is more for settlements closer to Earth - I don't see a colony on Mars working or lasting if it was set up - and it has planetary protection issues also - nobody has produced a road map showing a viable way for it to happen without falling foul of planetary protection.
But doesn't matter - however and whenever it happens - and personally I hope it is delayed somewhat and we focus on exploration first - then we could get issues like the 1973 oil crisis happening in space.
In 1973 that lead to many of the developing countries suddenly incurring a huge debt they couldn't pay off and many of them still struggling to pay off those debts incurred over a short period of time in 1973.
Debt of developing countries
If something like that happened in space - then all non space faring nations on Earth might potentially end up in trouble - and even indeed the launching state - if what you had was a big multi-national that had taken over the space industry and was able to hold the rest of the world to ransom.
When you see asteroids valued in trillions - is at least a risk of something like that happening.
I think we need to build something into the legislation - some form of benefit sharing - or some other provision - to make sure that the space economy can't dominate the Earth economy and make the rest of the world in debt or bankrupt.
It could kick in when the space economy reaches a significant fraction of the world economy - so if that never happens - then the benefit sharing or whatever it is never happens either. But would be a precaution there in case it does happen as some seem to think reasonably likely - that space economy ends up massive.
For more about this see Will Anyone Ever Own Their Own Land In Space - And May We Get Wars In Space In The Future?
Legal Disclaimer
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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