
Space law is inadequate for the boom in human activity there - pseudolus
https://www.economist.com/international/2019/07/18/space-law-is-inadequate-for-the-boom-in-human-activity-there
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whatshisface
Law doesn't come from (or shouldn't come from) unqualified legislators
guessing about what the future will be like and what problems will be there.
Law comes from when somebody has a grievance against somebody else, and
society steps in to resolve it.

Could you imagine how bad it would be if Congress got excited about the
potential for internet crime in 1985, tried to guess the form of the problems
that would arise, and then wrote laws banning and permitting things that they
thought would lead to trouble? There is no way somebody back then could
predict which situations would lead to trouble decades later.

The best way to deal with space would probably be to let judges stretch earth
law (property rights, whatever) to produce as much justice as possible, and
then modifying the laws once the lessons had been borne out.

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crsv
_Could you imagine how bad it would be if Congress got excited about the
potential for internet crime in 1985, tried to guess the form of the problems
that would arise, and then wrote laws banning and permitting things that they
thought would lead to trouble? There is no way somebody back then could
predict which situations would lead to trouble decades later._

You mean like everyone who's talking about AI policy right now?

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JoeSamoa
There have been people who have predicted exactly the direction we are headed
like Richard Stallman.

I think though that the number of people with that kind of vision and
foresight are few.

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dahfizz
> I think though that the number of people with that kind of vision and
> foresight are few.

It also often comes from domain experts, and almost never from politicians.

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L_226
Pretty sure as soon as there is permanent human habitation in space, any
"Space Law" as determined by Earth lawyers is going to become wishful thinking
really quickly. Good luck trying to enforce mining rights or even copyright on
Ceres, using Earth law.

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QuotedForTruth
Its pretty easy to enforce if the disputes are between two parties that are at
all Earth based. There will be a significant period of permanent habitation
before there is self sustaining habitation. And you really cant afford to tell
earth to screw off until you're self sufficient.

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chromeguy66
I hope you won't be the lawyer who delays a food shipment to mars/moon because
of some petty copyright dispute.

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Havoc
>is space mining even legal?

Who's gonna stop you?

It is for all intents and purposes wild west...except constrained by which
geopolitical relationships the launching country/company is keen to maintain.

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acpetrov
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Space_Launch_Compet...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Space_Launch_Competitiveness_Act_of_2015)
USA recently allowed it for their citizens

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clarkmoody
Let's send a copy of _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ to members of legislative
bodies contemplating space legislation ;-)

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tzfld
At least, we still have to wait a few decades for the "boom in human activity"
there

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Railsify
Boom, how many people are in space?

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Symmetry
Only about five people. But there's also an economy almost unrelated to those
people that brings in $330,000,000,000 a year via satellites of various sorts.
And if more of the internet starts getting routed through LEO that number is
likely to go up a lot.

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Retric
Satellites and rockets have a lot of regulation. SpaceX for example needed FCC
approval before launching test satellites for it’s internet project.

Satellites seem largely unregulated because they impact such a small number of
things. It’s not not like the FDA is relevant when it’s all photons being sent
back and forth.

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Rebelgecko
>Satellites seem largely unregulated

Also, because when a company like Swarm launches even after their licenses are
denied, all they get is a slap on the wrist.

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pseingatl
Exactly. See, marslegalcode.org.

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georgeburdell
I can’t read the article due to a paywall, but don’t laws need an ability for
someone to enforce them (police, military, etc.)

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nine_k
There are means to enforce things in space. But they all constitute an act of
war, under current agreements.

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slowhand09
Start by banning plastic straws in space.

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tempsolution
Yeah as if Earth doesn't have any other problems right now than putting
million of super-rich people into space lol. What a stupid waste of time and
resources. Maybe there should be some laws indeed for Earth orbit, for
instance, banning densely populated, orbiting space craft, for starters. Or
fixing or problems on Earth before spending hundreds of billions on useless
space projects. We might not be around long enough to populate space
otherwise. Now is not the time...

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simonh
Ban stuff because.... well, because bah humbug. Humanity can apparently only
do one thing at a time. Also you get to decide what people should or shouldn't
be allowed to do, and when. Nice.

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martamoreno2
Interesting comment. So your style of commenting consists of creating
arbitrary statements that were not present in other people's comments,
ignoring the valid claims they had and sprinkling it with a touch of stupidity
of your own?

Anyone who thinks populating space and space governance at this point in time
should be a priority, obviously has no idea about where our planet is heading
right now. And judging by the utter uselessness of space exploration at this
point in time, it's not too hard to realize that these billions spent for
landing even just a rover on Mars, would be better invested in any other
project that improves the place where we actually live...

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pixl97
You're doing the same silly thinking. Want to 'save the earth's, why not
divert the _trillions and trillions_ we waste on military spending? The
billions we spend in space have and will pay off a thousand fold.

