Blog Post 23, Free Form: Astronomy and Politics: Interplanetary Law

Who owns space? For that matter, who owns the moon, or the orbit of a satellite? While astronomy is generally a very pure science, it has allowed mankind to leave our planet's surface and go to new unclaimed territory. The real question here is, if you go to the moon and build a moon-house there, is that your property? Can you own part of the moon? If you happen to blow up your moon-neighbor's house, under what law code is this illegal? This may seem very futuristic, but the nations of Earth actually put forth legal proceeding on these very question (okay fine, not these exact questions, but close enough).

On October 10th, 1967, the United Nations enacted the "Outer Space Treaty," also known as the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies."  That's quite a mouthful, so we will call it the OST (an initialism that I invented about 15 seconds ago).

The OST was originally put forth as a military treaty which bans the placement of usage of weapons of mass destruction in space, in orbit around Earth, or on the moon or other celestial bodies.  So basically, no satellite nukes.  Interestingly, it does not address conventional weapons, so you can put as many missiles in orbit as you want, but they can't be nuclear.  

The next part of the OST bans individual or national ownership of the any celestial body or resource, leaving them as the "common heritage of mankind."  Unfortunately, this means that you can't own a lunar golf course.  What a shame.  This doesn't mean that all satellites and equipment are public property, because all space equipment still belongs to the state that launched it.  This all means that the owner of the object is liable for any damage caused by said object.  This means that in the hit film Gravity, Russia has to pay for all of the equipment the its defunct satellite broke.  

The OST also addresses individual activities in space.  If a non-governmental party wishes to perform actions in space, they need to work with the jurisdiction of a signing nation of the OST.  For instance, SpaceX works under the United States' jurisdiction.  

IN 1979, a second treaty called the "Moon Treaty" (MT (also my own initialism)) was created.  This treaty tightened restrictions on space resource allocation, military functions, and generally attempted to sum up the OST and a few other treaties that hd been put in place in the years between the OST and MT.  Unfortunately, No space capable nations signed it.  This treaty has only been ratified by 16 nations, including Australia, Chile, Mexico, Pakistan and Turkey, none of which have space programs.  The US has not ratified it, neither has any space capable country.  Thus, it has no real power at all.

So, let's answer our initial questions:

Who owns space? All Humans

Who owns the moon, or the orbit of a satellite? Mankind owns the moon, the launching nation owns the satellite.

If you go to the moon and build a moon-house there, is that your property? The house is your property, but the land you placed it on is not.

Can you own part of the moon? No

If you happen to blow up your moon-neighbor's house, under what law code is this illegal? This is illegal under the OST as it is a "harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space."

So, there's a bit of space law for you.  One cool closing point: the OST claims that outer space is "common heritage of mankind."  I guess we just declared ownership of all alien worlds.  No wonder that always try to wipe us out in movies.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Treaty