Does the Outer Space Treaty allow the establishment of property rights for space settlement? Rand Simberg explains that through the use of multilateral agreements among like-minded nations, the accord may actually be more permissive then originally thought
Partial Ownership of Space Resources for the New Space Economy
This paper introduces the concept of Partial Ownership of Outer Space Resources while not conflicting with the Outer Space Treaty. The system allows competition for resource utilization, while preventing monopolies through open ownership and preserving the incentives for investment, thus benefiting all participating nations.
ESA laying plans for lunar resource prospecting
The European Space Agency is developing a drill and analysis package called Prospect designed to extract water from lunar regolith. The miniature laboratory will fly to the Moon on Luna-27, a Russian spacecraft. Landing site selection is underway but no target date for the mission has been set.
The motivation for space settlement
Here is why we have such a positive view and faith in humanity’s future in space.
The Space Resource Report: 2020
The Space Resource has released their compendium of major developments in space resources in 2019, with an eye toward monitoring progress through 2020 and beyond. The Team aims to cover advances in the science, business, and technology development that will pave the way for humanity’s expansion into space
Air from moondust
ESA proves feasibility of extracting air from simulated lunar regolith. This is a giant leap toward sustainable lunar settlements using ISRU. Here’s the bonus kicker: as a by product of the process, metal alloys are produced for other uses.
Living off the “land” in space
Building blocks for governance of space resource activities
The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group announces adoption of the Building Blocks of an International Framework on Space Resource activities
A definition of space settlement
Dale L. Skran of the National Space Society breaks down the term differentiating between individual permanent habitats and the general creation of a grander association of colonies:
“ ‘A space settlement’ refers to a habitation in space or on a celestial body where families live on a permanent basis, and that engages in commercial activity which enables the settlement to grow over time, with the goal of becoming economically and biologically self-sustaining as a part of a larger network of space settlements. ‘Space settlement’ refers to the creation of that larger network of space settlements.”
Determining the Gravity Rx
Joe Carroll of Tethers Applications, Inc. delivered a presentation on a proposal for a LEO partial gravity test facility at the StarShip Congress which took place in San Diego September 13 – 15. An interesting fact is that of all the surfaces of bodies in the solar system where humans may want to build settlements, all of them have gravity similar to the Moon and Mars. Thus gravity in the solar system is “quantized” to just these two levels simplifying the testing regime. Determining the prescription needed for human health in partial gravity is a critical path research topic needed for space settlement.