Extraterrestrial Real Estate
Human-made refuse left in space endangers prime orbital ‘real estate’ for future satellites, causing big problems for future use of nearby space. In the case of debris cluttering orbital space, if the orbiting debris continue to build up without remediation, orbits near the earth will become so crowded with deadly missiles that some operations in space will no longer be attainable. Once cleared, the surrounding space around a planet can then be used for more real estate opportunities. To remediate the damage already done by human-made objects, astronauts will need to bring specific hardware into space to exterminate the debris. There are specific orbits, however, that have caused ownership debate.
Another issue is the crashing of abandoned orbital debris on extraterrestrial planets. If an old, contaminated orbiter crashes onto an extraterrestrial planet, except in extreme cases, it will no longer be possible to test the panspermia hypothesis with any confidence in the outcome. Before the 21st century, exploration of other planets in the Solar System raised little concern about contaminating planets with life from the Earth. Some ‘bugs’ will survive the trip, potentially invade the planet, eliminating the chance of determining whether life arose independently on other planets, or in the deep geologic past has spread between the planets of the Solar System via the hypothetical “panspermia” processes. Since then experiments have shown that some terrestrial life is astonishingly hardy, and the time spent in transit in space is not a guarantee of a sterile spacecraft on arrival.
These claims did not receive wider international support or recognition and were subsequently largely abandoned. Two problematic issues arise regarding derelict spacecraft: In orbit around the Earth, ‘dead’ and abandoned satellites threaten future travel in the same orbits with a spray of deadly debris. A prominent environmental problem in near-Earth orbital space is ‘space junk’. In orbit around extraterrestrial planets, non-sterile orbiters in decaying orbits threaten to pollute the remote planets they orbit with Earth-organisms, and hence create a false ‘signal’ of alien life, possibly destroying or supplanting native life, or infesting its remains.
In 1997 three men from Yemen – Adam Ismail, Mustafa Khalil, and Abdullah al-Umari – sued NASA for invading Mars. NASA with a bill for US$20, for parking the spacecraft at the asteroid. Richard Garriott, a computer game designer and astronaut’s son, legitimately purchased the Lunokhod 2 lunar lander from the Russian Space Agency. They based their argument on mythologies of the Himyaritic and Sabaean civilizations that existed several thousand years B.C.E. NASA declined to pay, citing the lack of legal standing. They claim that they “inherited the planet from our ancestors 3,000 years ago”.
However, Article VI of this treaty states “The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty.” Thus, while it does not explicitly prohibit such schemes, the treaty does require they be authorized by the schemers’ government. The short story The Man Who Sold the Moon by Robert A. Heinlein, which was written in 1949, offers a portrayal regarding such plans or schemes, and created the concept of a Lunar Republic.
The United Nations sponsored 1967 Outer Space Treaty established all of outer space as an international commons by describing it as the “province of all mankind” and forbidding all the nations from claiming territorial sovereignty. It has also been signed but not yet ratified by 26 other nations. The Magna Carta of Space presented by William A. Hyman in 1966 framed outer space explicitly not as terra nullius but as res communis, which subsequently influenced the work of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The development of international space law has revolved much around outer space being defined as the “province of all mankind”. Article VI vests the responsibility for activities in space to States Parties, regardless of whether they are carried out by governments or non-governmental entities.
