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By: Brandon Adcock, Staff Member

Ironically, in order to consume natural resources, it seems humanity collectively ignores the old saying, “don’t defecate where you digest nutrients,” to put it mildly. For a solution to this problem, space seems to be the final frontier…but has someone already beat us to sustainability? One thing we can always count on as more sustainable than our resources is a scalable, business model. Perhaps an anecdote will make this far, far away issue land closer to our third rock from the sun. I recently learned that my current Internet provider, Time Warner, will be subsumed into Comcast.[i] Unfortunately, in my apartment complex, Time Warner is the only game in town and that game is Monopoly.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty disallows sovereignty over celestial bodies.[ii] This Cold-War-Era grandstanding hardly made Americans feel better about Sputnik and left private ownership eerily fuzzy.[iii] Captain Kirk may be paying for parking, where one small step for a man[iv] is one giant leap for commerce. Greg Nemitz did just that when he attempted to charge NASA for landing a probe on “his” asteroid, Eros (dismissed for not proving actual ownership).[v] Thankfully, the treaty supposedly outlaws appropriating celestial land parcels.[vi]

Despite this, rule of capture maintains relevancy through allowances for extraction,[vii] so orbiting matter is up for grabs to the first one to reach it. Planetary Resources, colluding with Google, wants the final frontier like the old west for asteroid mining[viii] so that it doesn’t take forced mine-tricks to hide the ’roids they’re looking for. Yet only some entrepreneurs have the luxury of considering private, space exploration.[ix] Should the public worry that Red Bull has a better space program than most nation-states?[x] It depends. Outer space, ideally, offers a fresh start, much like the old west did for the downtrodden. However, running against the capitalist ethic, the prospects of space seem hostile towards start-ups.[xi]

Perhaps a business model would be an investment toward the future. NASA, failing mostly due to Congressional budget cuts and bad priorities,[xii] has opened their pod bay doors to the idea.[xiii] People should battle for free-market competition now before a legal monopoly results. Turning moon rocks into alternative energy[xiv] may help in the short term, but the Earth is unsustainable. What will be the fair market value of humanity’s salvation—living on distant, corporate-owned, leasehold colonies? When it comes to cyberspace, Comcast’s merger means hearing, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”[xv] When it comes to outer space, I hope that humanity won’t get fooled again.
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[i] Michael Santoli, Comcast and Time Warner Cable merger: What it means for consumers, Yahoo Finance (Feb. 13, 2014, 10:01 AM), http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/comcast-to-acquire-time-warner-cable-143000745.html.
[ii] Berin Szoka and James Dunstan, Space Law: Is Asteroid Mining Legal?, Wired (May 1, 2012, 11:00 AM), http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/opinion-asteroid-mining/ (citing language from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty).
[iii] Id.
[iv] Karen Kaplan, Did Neil Armstrong really say, ‘That’s one small step for a man’?, Los Angeles Times (June 5, 2013, 6:30 AM), http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-neil-armstrong-one-small-step-for-a-man-20150605,0,1063827.story#axzz2urW0mTZ4.
[v] Berin Szoka and James Dunstan, Space Law: Is Asteroid Mining Legal?, Wired (May 1, 2012, 11:00 AM), http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/opinion-asteroid-mining/.
[vi] Berin Szoka and James Dunstan, Space Property Rights: It’s Time, and Here’s Where to Start, Space News (Jan. 27, 2014), http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/39294space-property-rights-it’s-time-and-here’s-where-to-start (“Such celestial land grabs are specifically outlawed by Article II of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, whether such claims are made by countries or by private entities”).
[vii] Berin Szoka and James Dunstan, Space Law: Is Asteroid Mining Legal?, Wired (May 1, 2012, 11:00 AM), http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/opinion-asteroid-mining/.
[viii] Id.
[ix] See John Schwartz, Thrillionaires: The New Space Capitalists, The New York Times (June 14, 2005), http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/science/space/14rock.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0.
[x] Richard Feloni, New Footage from Last Year’s Epic Red Bull Space Jump Shows Felix Baumgartner Handling a Wild Spin 24 Miles Above Earth, Business Insider (Oct. 16, 2013, 9:21 PM), http://www.businessinsider.com/pov-look-at-red-bulls-space-jump-2013-10.
[xi] Richard Seymour, Why outer space is really the final frontier for capitalism, The Guardian (Dec. 20, 2013, 6:45 PM), http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/outer-space-final-frontier-capitalism-mine-moon (“[Businesses, which are conservative,] aren't going to invest unless they're reasonably sure of a profit, even if the result is sluggish growth and flatlining innovation”).
[xii] See Rand Simberg, Capitalism in Space, National Review Online (Aug. 10, 2012, 4:00 AM), http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313417/capitalism-space-rand-simberg.
[xiii] Berin Szoka and James Dunstan, Space Property Rights: It’s Time, and Here’s Where to Start, Space News (Jan. 27, 2014), http://www.spacenews.com/article/opinion/39294space-property-rights-it’s-time-and-here’s-where-to-start (“NASA ‘finally understands the need for such public-private partnerships’”).
[xiv] Richard Seymour, Why outer space is really the final frontier for capitalism, The Guardian (Dec. 20, 2013, 6:45 PM), http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/outer-space-final-frontier-capitalism-mine-moon (“Apparently, the substance sought is helium-3, an isotope of the element that could potentially replace oil and gas as our energy generators”).
[xv] The Who, Won’t Get Fooled Again (MCA Records 1971).