Asteroid Mining, Property Rights, and Who Owns The Moon: Space to Grow

About this episode

The episode explores the complexities of space ownership, asteroid mining, and the implications of international treaties.

Who owns the Moon? China? The USA? Nobody, everybody? We're about to find out. Who owns the Moon? China? The USA? Nobody, everybody? We're about to find out. It's the last part of Space to Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rousseau, and today we learn about asteroid mining, the trillion-dollar promise of Psyche-16 and the property rights questions raised by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. We detour to the Kuiper belt via John Locke, Kant, Hume, and Rousseau to ask who actually owns space. Along the way: Peter Diamandis and Planetary Resources, the role of DARPA and national security in funding the space industry, the "military celestial complex," and what happens when the global south is locked out of the rules being written above their heads. If SpaceX builds at the south pole of the Moon and China plants a flag in the Sea of Storms, what then? -- Chapters (00:00) Global Conflict and Space Resources (02:04) Human Nature and Space Exploration (03:28) The Economics of Asteroid Mining (05:53) Legal Frameworks for Space Mining (11:05) The Space Resource Exploration Act (13:01) International Reactions to Space Mining Legislation (17:19) Philosophical Perspectives on Space Ownership…

People in this episode

Hosts: Mark Fielding, Jeremy Gilbertson

Topics covered

• asteroid mining
• property rights
• space ownership
• international law
• national security
• space exploration

Keywords

• asteroid mining
• Moon ownership
• Outer Space Treaty
• space resources
• national security
• Psyche-16
• space exploration
• philosophy of space
• global south

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Planetary Resources, DARPA

Books & works: Outer Space Treaty

Places: China, USA, Moon, Kuiper belt, Sea of Storms

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