Land for Sale: On the Moon?
The Moon
Present
Currently you will not see this sign because of a 1967 “Outer Space Treaty”, which governs international space law.
This treaty forbids any one nation from claiming sovereignty over any body in space. The United States and dozens of other countries have ratified this treaty.
Space Policy Consultant Rand Simberg, now says that there may be a loop hole in this treaty.
He claims that if a country did not claim sovereignty but parceled off portions of land, they could actually sell them to private buyers.
He suggests that if this were to happen, businesses and rich entrepreneurs may buy parcels of land and that could bring revenue to the country.
Simberg lays out a plan that could facilitate this parceling out of land, in such a way as to assist Earth economies. He lays out his scheme in a paper published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Antarctic Treaty
Moon Treaty
In 1979 a Moon Treaty came into existence, which prohibited private or national ownership of any part of the Moon.
This treaty though was never ratified by the major countries involved in space exploration, including the US, Russia and China and so really it could be treated as a dead piece of legislator.
To really protect the Moon from being sold piece meal would be a treaty such as the 1961 Antarctic Treaty. This treaty dictates that all land must be open for use by any nation for scientific and peaceful purposes. Although many countries would love to start drilling in Antarctica, this treaty is still in effect.
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When only two men landed on the Moon and they can clearly be seen in the photo, who took the photo. This and other details are leading some to think the Lunar landings were a hoax.
Future
With private businesses now getting involved in the space industry and privately owned spacecraft, I do believe that it will not be long before somebody takes advantage of this possible loophole in the Outer Space Treaty; however whichever country started it, would become very unpopular internationally.
So, for now, the land on the Moon is not for sale but with entrepreneurs expanding their thoughts into space and the allure of money being able to be made, I do not think it long before the media will be grabbing our attention with ads for lunar acres for sale.
To me, this will be inevitable and so it is today that the international community should come together and ratify a treaty that could facilitate this in a fair and rational manner.
After all, if we don’t do it now we may see “land wars” on the Moon, in our future.
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