Property rights and space settlement

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

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.

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.