For decades , science fable author have imagined themoonas one of humanity ’s great dry land conquests , home to quad colony , space prisons , space research laboratory , and place apartments . Jules Vernewrote that we would get there by firing astronauts out of a cannon . Robert Heinlein believe of a moon base that hold out organization from Earth and revolts .
With several countries — including Russia , India , and China — making plans for a crewed moonlight mission for the first time since the United States last touched down in 1972 , the question of who has a claim to the lunar month and its imagination is less a speculative fiction subject and more one for lawyers . Specifically , space lawyers .
In a post forReal Clear Science , Frans von der Dunk , an attorney and prof of space law ( honestly ) at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln ’s College of Law , prove the question of moon ownership . Two years before Americans land on the lunar surface for the first time in 1969 , country including the U.S. and the Soviet Union prepared and committed to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty , which solidified the synodic month as a “ worldwide commons . ” It could belong to to no undivided state , and its secrets , resources , and other untapped potential would be in the avail of the greater goodness . As a goodwill attempt , the U.S. even shared soil and rock sample with the USSR in spite of theCold War .
While no Carry Nation can assert earth rights on the moon , the question of who owns resource educate from both the moon and asteroids — which are also materially part of the pact — is not so clean-cut . If a commonwealth is capable to mine mineral and other blank resources , are they able to claim possession , or must they be shared with the rest of the world ?
Von der Dunk is n’t quite sure , which is why distance law and blank lawyers , though they sound comical , are probably pass away to be very real and very need in the near future . It might be that excavation asteroids or the moon becomes cognate to commercial-grade fishing : So long as you ’re licensed , you’re able to keep what you take in . But some country , like Russia , consider anything press out from distance should have communal benefit to humanity as a whole .
One thing is certain : Neil Armstrongplanting a U.S. masthead on the moon credibly wo n’t mean a whole mountain in space court .
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A version of this story was published in 2018 ; it has been update for 2025 .
