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Silence Amongst The Space Advocates

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 17, 2015
Filed under ,
Silence Amongst The Space Advocates

Keith’s note: Many people are pleased that the SPACE Act made it through the House yesterday. This legislation does a lot to support NASA’s plans for going to Mars as well as various commercial efforts and things such as mining asteroids. There is something good in it for just about every space advocate. While a lot of individuals and organizations were quick to express their approval, others have been curiously silent. No statement seems to be available from the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration despite all of the things in it that directly support the organization’s avowed interests in sending humans to Mars. Nothing from the Planetary Society either – yet their co-founder stated yesterday that “Humans will become a multi-planet species by making it to Mars, but no farther. That is, they will never travel beyond Mars.” so … maybe they are not as enthusiastic about this legislation. Curiously, the two Mars-oriented groups Mars Society and Explore Mars are silent too. Meanwhile on the Asteroid utilization front, the usually bubbly Space Frontier Foundation is silent as well. Why bother communicating to the public you purport to enlighten about space when important news like this happens, eh?
Space utilization and exploration happens in spite of space advocates – not because of them.
Satellite Industry Association Applauds Congress for Passing Long-term Extension of Commercial Space Launch Indemnification
National Space Society Urges Presidential Signing of the Final Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act
CSF Applauds House Passage of Visionary, Comprehensive, and Bipartisan Commercial Space Legislation

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

33 responses to “Silence Amongst The Space Advocates”

  1. Vladislaw says:
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    Could they be waiting until the President actually signs the Act?

  2. P.K. Sink says:
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    ‘Space utilization and exploration happens in spite of space advocates – not because of them.’

    Space advocates seem like well-intentioned people. But a handful of visionaries with deep pockets have already taken us further into the future than all the advocates will in a hundred lifetimes.

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      I agree. Also the majority of them seem to just be NASA huggers. In fact what this Act does is hesitant the day when NASA will be irrelevant to the development of the Solar System. Maybe that is why they are silent, its a scary idea to them because it would make them irrelevant as well 🙂

      Think of it, how may comsat advocate groups are there?

  3. AgingWatcher says:
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    Perhaps someone who’s knowledgeable about such things can explain
    whether the House-approved version of the SPACE Act provides the level of
    funding the commercial spaceflight program actually needs?

  4. kcowing says:
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    “Respect for France”? Huh? Does that mean those who did release a statement do not respect France?

  5. maxfagin says:
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    This may simply be due to caution rather than incompetence. If the Mars Society, CDSE, Explore Mars etc. have reasons (unknown to us) to think the President will not sign the bill, (and that drumming up public support will not be enough to negate those reason), then it is logical for these groups to not waste effort and face promoting legislation that is expected to spend another several months in limbo. Let’s wait and see what happens AFTER the President has explicitly signed/not-signed the act before passing judgment.

    • Paul451 says:
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      then it is logical for these groups to not waste effort

      What the hell else are they for? They’re space advocacy groups. They exist to push their members’ interests.

      Issuing a press release, or at least a posting or seven on their news-feeds, on the progress of this Act through Congress is hardly going to break their backs. SFF hasn’t issued any statements since September, and that was just a promo for yet-another-conference. Neither the Mars Society nor Explore Mars have mentioned any of the developments. The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration hasn’t mentioned anything to do with Congress in their news-feed since February!

      Other groups, and blogs, have been discussing the bill for months. (And this bill was controversial, due to State’s Rights issues and liability changes.)

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Most likely the Mars groups don’t see anything it that relates to Mars. They probably aren’t aware that the wording change, from “asteroid resources” to “space resources” now makes it possible for them to own any resources, like water, they dig up Mars. Perhaps they will wake up to the fact that when this bill becomes law they will have the authority to develop resources on Mars.

  6. Daniel Woodard says:
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    The act doesn’t provide any funds at all. The only item of practical value was the extension of government-provided liability insurance for launches of commercial satellites, should damage occur beyond the limits of the commercial insurance satellite operators purchase. This is nothing new, just the extension of an existing program, and it is not a big budget item since no claim has ever been made against the government liability program.

  7. Dr. Malcolm Davis says:
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    “”Humans will become a multi-planet species by making it to Mars, but no farther. That is, they will never travel beyond Mars.”

    What an ignorant and short sighted perspective on the part of the Planetary Society. Let’s take a look at current plans. NASA is seeking to send humans to Mars by the mid 2030s, with the assumption that will involve a landing on the surface. Along the way, humans will be operating in Cislunar Space to test out the technologies and procedures to go to Mars.

    So we make to it Mars, lets say, by 2035 (date plucked out of my head). What then? Do we just stop? The NASA Mars Plan would hopefully be more than just a ‘flags and footprints’ mission, so we are talking a base that can be expanded over time. Likewise, operations in Cislunar space surely at some point, must lead to a landing on the surface – probably by a commercial operator – and that could lead to expanding facilities on the surface. Lets say that a consolidation phase, involving expansion of human presence on the Moon, on Mars, and perhaps exploring and exploiting the Near Earth Asteroids, commences from the late 2030s onwards.

    But why would that have to mean that humans would go no further? This is where we get to the ignorant and short-sighted bit in the Planetary Society perspective. What happens in the second half of this century – and the overall period through to 2115, one hundred years from now? There are many worlds beyond Mars to explore, and humans can play an important role on the surface of Ganymede and Callisto, Titan and Enceladus, Triton, Pluto, and other Kuiper Belt Objects. Oh, and there are also the Main Belt Asteroids – like Ceres, which looks quite interesting.

    Certainly to go beyond Mars, crewed missions will need some pretty significant advances in spacecraft design, most notably in propulsion. But we are not talking warp drive. If we adopt a stepping stone approach, then a gradual expansion across the Solar System through to 2115 should be possible, if traditional rockets are ditched in favour of nuclear-thermal or nuclear-electric propulsion.

    I know the Planetary Society is opposed to human spaceflight – they prefer robots – but humans and robots can work, side by side, together as a team. Humans are far more capable in many ways than robots, whilst robots can do things human’s can’t. To assume a mindset that cuts out humans is short-sighted and self defeating.

    The major space powers and commercial space actors should be investing in R&D that will one day enable chemical rockets to go the way of the steam engine and the horse and cart. We don’t need warp drive to explore, colonize and exploit the full extent of the Solar System over the next one hundred years. We do need people with some vision and who are willing to think boldly about what it is we are doing in Space, and why we are exploring Space.

  8. ThomasLMatula says:
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    You are confusing Real Property rights with Chattels. What the Act does is gives the same Chattel rights to U.S. firms the Federal government has. And it is a big thing because U.S. firms now know that if they mine resources from Asteroids, the Moon and Mars they will have legal title to them.

    And no, it is not inconsistent with the Outer Space Treaty.

    And no, it is not establishing private property rights in space since they were already established in 1962 with the launch of the first private satellite – Telstar. There are currently hundreds of privately owned satellites in space and a privately owned rover on the Moon.

    • fcrary says:
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      Did I miss something? What privately owned rover on the Moon are you referring to?

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        The Russian Lunokhod 2 was sold to Richard Garriott in 1993. It is his private property now. And it is still on the Moon.

  9. TheBrett says:
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    It’s a good law change and mildly interesting, but given that there’s only tepid work at best towards asteroid mining (Planetary Resources may or may not be aiming to get there many years from now), it’s like “So what?”.

  10. Paul451 says:
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    The UN’s Outer Space Treaty will still be in place to prevent actual ownership of mines

    A mine would be an activity on a celestial body and therefore both permitted by the OST and protected from “potential harmful interference”.

    Laws like the SPACE Act are actually required by OST’s Article 6. Nations are responsible for regulating activities of non-government entities launching into space from their territory.

    For some reason, there’s a group of activists (and “space lawyers”) who have been determined to interpret the OST in the most restrictive and harmful way possible. It’s weird. With a few exceptions (lack of a system of salvage rights for abandoned debris, etc), the OST is about the best space treaty we could hope for.

  11. Vladislaw says:
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    It is all that is needed to get capital flowing towards this endevor. Capital wants some protections in place, if you expend the capital and pull some ore from a space rock.. you now own it.. It is a big first step. The rest will come with boots on the ground on Luna.

    • P.K. Sink says:
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      “Frans von der Dunk, a space law professor at the University of Nebraska, compares space to the high seas–everybody owns it, but fishermen don’t have to apply to an international authority to go out and fish. “Freedom of activity is the baseline and limitations to such freedoms,” such as preventing pollution and over fishing, “should principally be agreed upon at the international level.”

      I thought you’d like this. It’s from yesterday’s Popular Science online, concerning the Space Act bill.

  12. ThomasLMatula says:
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    As long as you are active on the site, or leave tools behind, the non-interference clause applies. They need to stay a reasonable distance away for you operations, past or present. That is why no one is able to go close to the Apollo landing sites, it would be considered interference.The OST has no provisions for abandonment.

    Remember, both Russia and the U.S. were paranoid the other would steal technology by salvaging abandoned or non-functioning hard, hence the strong protections for Chattels.

    In terms of Real Property rights there are none in space because the OST prohibits appropriation of Celestial Bodies by national government. But that is also not an issue because unlike Earth, land on Celestial Bodies has no value to once the resources are extracted. And the noninterference clause protects you while you are extracting the resource.

  13. ThomasLMatula says:
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    First, the legal precedent is already set. The U.S. government owns the Apollo samples it has collected. Steal them and it is theft of government property, just as with a government automobile. Similarly Russia sold off a gram of their lunar samples in 1993. No other nations have complained.

    All this act does is extend the same rights the U.S. government has for space resources to its nationals. There is no legal basis for any nation to complain about it, at the UN or elsewhere.

    Remember, this portion of the act wasn’t written by some space advocates or legal professors, it was written by the best lawyers Planetary Resources could hire. It will stand the test of both the UN and Wall Street 🙂

    • Vladislaw says:
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      ” In 1970 the Soviet Union sent an automated sample-return mission to the moon, and three fragments collected by this mission and weighing 200 milligrams in total were sold by Bonham’s rival Sotheby’s in 1993 for $442,500.”
      http://www.economist.com/no

  14. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Thinking about it probably the main reason the advocate groups are so silent is because they had almost nothing to do with it. The space mining portion appears to be driven mostly by Planetary Resources. The launch liability by the launch firms. So perhaps its the old not invented here syndrome.

    Plus the advocate groups are basically focused on NASA and how it should spend its budget. Since there is nothing here for NASA it is understandable like these groups are not that involved.

    That said, this is also a very encouraging sign as most industry specific legislation is driven by the firms in that industry, so this is another sign that space is becoming a normal industry.

  15. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Well here is something else for you to think about. The FAA AST addressed a similar issue with Bigelow Aerospace’s Moon Base. The answer was the same basically.

    http://www.leonarddavid.com

    The FAA’s Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) has given thumbs-up regarding private sector operations on the Moon.

    In a December 22 letter to Bigelow Aerospace, the FAA’s AST — in consultation with the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies, including NASA and NOAA – “is prepared to support Bigelow Aerospace’s trailblazing initiative.”

    “Moreover, we recognize the private sector’s need to protect its assets and personnel on the Moon or on other celestial bodies,” the FAA AST
    letter explains. “Supporting non-interference for private sector operations will enhance safety and only add to the long history of preserving ownership interests in hardware and equipment.”

    Bottom line – you have the right to non-interference with your lunar activities. And as this Act gives you the right to own any resources you extract then it is reasonable for you to assume your site will not suffer from interference as per Article IX of the OST.

  16. Paul451 says:
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    The best we could hope for?

    You would prefer nations to be able to forbid orbital overflight under traditional sovereignty? Having to get permission from every nation that your orbit passes over?

    Would you prefer nations being able to make arbitrary claims of sovereignty over celestial bodies under the traditional methods? Many of which are contradictory, and already cause issues on Earth. Right of first claim, right of tradition, current occupation, past occupation, etc? Should one nation be able to claim the entire moon, or all of Mars?

    Would you prefer no system of sovereignty in space? Where nations can interfere with each others satellites/probes/etc at will?

    Or would you prefer the god-awful “Moon Treaty”? Coz that’s clearly an option that some people wanted.

    OST is the best we could hope for – given the options available.

    pull some ore from a space rock.. you now own it..

    Totally unproven.

    Title 51, subtitle V, chapter 513, section 03:
    “A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States.”

    And as written completely against the wording of the Outer Space Treaty

    I think you are either reading the wrong treaty or else, as TLM noted, you are confusing real property rights with chattel property rights.

    The OST makes very clear that it forbids real property rights, but protects chattel property rights. Ie, sovereignty over vehicles, constructions and operations is protected, but sovereignty over land is forbidden.

    In fact, under the OST, chattel property rights are more tightly protected than under traditional international laws. There’s no salvage rights or recognition of abandonment, for example, unlike the laws of the sea. This even usurps traditional sovereignty, so that if my property ends up on your territory, you must return it. That does not apply to aircraft and sea vessels.

    the OST would be interpreted […] “and please pay a token fee to the UN for each ton of ore you extract”

    Yes, you are definitely reading the wrong treaty.

  17. Vladislaw says:
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    Mike Shupp wrote: “there are a handful of nations which have a monopoly on spaceflight “

    if there are a handful of suppliers then by definition it is not a monopoly. The “handful” of nations that have launch vehicles sell them on the open global market so virtually every nation, except a few rogue nations, can purchase launch services for spaceflight. With the comming of commercial crew and a commerical destination like Bigelow, again pretty much all nations will have access. So there really are no monopolys. Maybe when it was only the U.S. and the Soviet Union but those days are gone.

  18. Vladislaw says:
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    It really wouldn’t matter how many non space states voted… as long as the U.S. Russia and China vote like they have in the past in the security council will it really matter?

    • ThomasLMatula says:
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      Treaties are not interpreted by votes in the UN Assembly. Legal disputes involving treaties go to the International Court of Justice at the Hague, unless the treaties have their own dispute mechanism built it. So it doesn’t matter how many nations may disapprove…

      But I expect Russia and China will just quietly let their firms, government and private, develop space resources in a way consistent with the guidelines with this Act since its a rational model for doing so consistent with the OST.

      BTW China has already expressed its interest in mining the Moon. Knowing the U.S. legal position on it will make eliminate an uncertainty in regards to it. And clarifying the rights of U.S. firms will ensure it is not the only one doing so.

      http://www.mining.com/china

  19. ThomasLMatula says:
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    It is. What you are describing are the normal associations found in a healthy industry, along with regulators most industries have. Not the same as the space advocate groups always begging money focused on NASA spending on space. Instead Comsats have become a normal industry, driven by markets and investors.

  20. ThomasLMatula says:
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    Actually it appears in the rewrite of the bill the wording was changed from “asteroid resources” to “space resources”. This means it now applies to all Celestial Bodies, Moon, Mars and beyond. This makes it even more of a watershed moment in space law.

  21. Paul451 says:
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    Nations forbidding orbital overflight? That was settled in 1957, with the Eisenhower administration’s response to Sputnik.

    Failure to defend you own airspace does not “settle” any issue of overflight for other nations. Until OST, there was only an unstated gentleman’s agreement between Russia and the US not to treat satellites like military aircraft, an agreement both sides knew was as fragile as glass.

    Nations making arbitrary claims of sovereignty? Check out Antarctica. We’ve met the issue of dividing up territory with other nations before, without resort to war or anarchy. (That said, I’d really like to see a treaty which allows reasonably sized — small, IOW — grants of territory to nations with manned bases or colonies, as a step towards eventual settlement

    There are multiple overlapping claims of sovereignty in Antarctica. Plus nations like the US and Russia that don’t acknowledge anyone else’s claim. It got very, very messy until they created the Antarctic Treaty, which forbid development, thus made claims of sovereignty moot.

    However, unlike OST, it was a time-limited treaty, it merely put things on hold. When it ends, the faeces will hit the hvac.

    I didn’t say that I couldn’t come up with a better treaty. I said OST is the best we could hope for.