by Glen Reynolds.

I've been in the private space business for over thirty years. I was pushing private launch systems back when the only other outfit thinking along those lines was OTRAG.

I remember the battle against the Moon Treaty. We knew damn well that this would kill space for humanity. If the space activist groups like L-5 never did anything else useful, their work in defeating this treaty would have justified their existence.

While I don't think Nemitz should be able to establish a claim to extraterrestrial bodies just by saying so, like Balboa claiming the Pacific Ocean and the lands that touched it, there should be definite rights to claim and own property in space. Objective and consistent rules similar to those for mining claims or homesteading need to be set up.

Any collectivist attempts to restrict property rights in space need to be shot down decisively. Especially anything out of the U.N. And there will be lots of them. The only reason this hasn't come up much is that private space travel to resources in space has not been considered feasible.