US decides who owns the space resources

Epigraph

- What does a person buy with a land plot?
- It depends on the deed ... Usually - the rights to minerals, all sorts of minerals ...
- Nonsense, nonsense! Suppose he buys everything without separation of rights. How deep and high is his domain?
- Well, he owns a cone down to the center of the Earth, it was determined in connection with controversial cases with oblique and shifted drilling of oil-bearing lands. Theoretically, he owns everything above his site - ad infinitum. [..]
- No, George, not at all! You, apparently, badly looked at those affairs! It was established the right of passage, but the ownership of the above-ground space remains unshakable! And even the right of passage is not absolute - you can, for example, build a thousand-foot tower where planes and rockets usually fly by - and they will have to take higher, and no one will even complain about you for that. [..]

Strong pondered.

- Clear. The most ancient principle of land tenure remains unshakable: down to the center, up - to infinity. And so what? This is the purest theory. What, you want to pay duties for flying your moon rocket?
')
Strong smiled palely at his joke.

“Oh my goodness, George.” The thing is different. Who owns the moon?

Strong's jaw dropped.

- Are you ... joking?
- Not. I repeat the question: if the basic law says that the landowner owns all the space above his farm indefinitely, then who owns the moon? Look at the globe and say.

Strong looked at the globe.

- Yes, it is nonsense, Delos. Earth laws on the moon do not apply.
“But they are doing quite well here; that's what worries me. The moon constantly keeps on a narrow strip of earth bounded by twenties by nine degrees north and twenty nine degrees south latitude. Roughly speaking, if the entire tropical belt belongs to one person, then the moon will belong to him. So? So. According to any of the theories of land ownership, known in our courts. [..]
- Fantasy!

Robert Heinlein, "The Man Who Sold the Moon" (short quote)

Who owns the space resources

Having not fully understood the resources on Earth , Americans looking to the future are already thinking about how people will share what is in space. It is impossible, in fact, to continue possession on Earth "up to infinity." The question, on the one hand, seems to be idle, and on the other, they plan to build bases on the Moon not in the very distant future, and on Mars, and NASA is already striving to mine asteroids .

While there are debates about the moon, and the US flags placed there are fading , the legalists adopted an act of how to divide the smaller celestial bodies - asteroids. In general - just:

There are no restrictions on the use of legal resources.

I mean, every asteroid resource obtained in outer space belongs to the one who received it. It seems to be logical and understandable, but now it is also declared by law in the United States.

But due to the fact that there are several other states on Earth except for the United States, legal issues are becoming more complicated. In fact - lawyers still have not even agreed on the definition of "outer space". Although, in most cases, this implies a distance of 100 km from sea level.

Cosmos - nobody and all at once

Talk about international space law began to take place soon after the first artificial satellite of the Earth was launched in the USSR. They mainly concerned issues of planetary security, the inadmissibility of the transfer of hostilities into space (in fact - into the orbit of the planet), the cautious use of nuclear facilities in space, and so on. At that time no one thought about the development of extraterrestrial resources - you should not take seriously the enterprising citizens who sell certificates on the “site on the moon”.

Ten years after the flight of Sputnik-1, the " Space Treaty " was concluded, which, in effect, declared outer space a demilitarized zone, as well as a common human domain. The agreement was signed by hundreds of countries, and it opens with signatures of the United States, Great Britain and the USSR (of which Russia has become the successor). Does a new agreement violate an international law passed in 1967? Let the lawyers tell you this.

Now the exploration of the moon and nearby asteroids has become much closer. And there are already discussions about whether it is worth allowing private individuals and companies to own "space real estate". One only calms - compared with the Earth, there are much more resources in space. Perhaps, we can do without star wars.