Category Archives: Economics

Tomorrow’s Announcement

Here’s a WSJ piece on it. If they do actually move an asteroid, under current precedent, they’d own it.

I won’t be covering it in real time, because I’ll be at a workshop at JPL giving a talk on propellant depots. Interestingly, Dennis Wingo gives a talk following mine on extraterrestrial resource utilization. It seems like a lot of things are coming together at the same time.

[Evening update]

Sorry, workshop link was wrong. Fixed now, I hope.

More Space Property Rights Commentary

It’s sort of turning into a telephone game, like this piece:

Simberg, an aerospace engineer, says a new law granting the United States conditional permission to claim extraterrestrial land is internationally legal. His view: failure of the 1979 Moon Treaty to get even one signature nullifies the Outer Space Treaty.

a) The Moon Treaty has fourteen countries who have acceded to it.
b) I didn’t say that the Moon Treaty’s failure nullifies the OST.

Other than that, they get it completely right.