Space Law Quotes

Mars does not belong to 'America,' nor to Earth, nor to human beings.

Several weeks before the Russians launched Sputnik, our team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory asked permission to place a rocket in orbit around the Earth. We could to it with two days of preparation. We had been doing experiments with 2 stage rockets to test materials and designs for nose-cones returning from space. We launched rockets straight up. At the maximum height we turned it around and fired the second stage to drive it straight back to Earth so it could achieve the speed of an object returning from space. We were developing more and more powerful second stage rockets. We had just calculated that our newest second stage had more than enough thrust to, after the ascent, turn the rocket at right angles to the perpendicular, and fire the rocket into orbit around the earth. We could do this easily. The military were initially very enthusiastic. America could be the first nation that put a satellite in orbit. However, the authorities in Washington, not only refused us permission to try, but postponed a number of our regular launches and forbade us from talking to anyone about our capability or request for our experiment.. When Sputnik was launched into orbit a few weeks later, we were really puzzled. No one ever explained why Washington had refused us permission, but we came up with a theory: The issue of the legality under international law of one country having its satellite in orbit over another country’s airspace was not at all settled. If we did satellite reconnaissance in the future over the Soviet Union, the Russians could claim that was an act of war. And we had extensive plans to create such satellites and launch them when we solved all the technical problems in the future. We believe that the authorities knew that the Russians were about to launch Sputnik. By allowing them to be the first to launch, it would be they—not us—who would be setting the precedent of sending satellites over other nation’s airspace and claiming this was not aggression or an act of war as they thought they were way ahead of us. In addition, after WWII, President Eisenhower was having difficulty getting Congress to spend money on rocketry and satellites as well as science and technology including science and mathematics education which was then terrible in America. So allowing the Russians to “beat us” the administration had the issue that they needed, and they allowed the Russians to set the legal precedents that they would have opposed if we were ahead of them and orbited a satellite first. Either President Eisenhower and his team were brilliantly shrewd or they were pretty dumb because we easily could have put our rockets in orbit then.

Space, like Switzerland, should be neutral.

When we have 13,000 Americans living on the moon, they can petition to become a state.

Space has always been confusing to politics.

Luxembourg is the first adopter in Europe of a legal and regulatory framework recognizing that space resources are capable of being owned by private companies.

The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.

The commercial space industry owes a huge debt to Patti Grace Smith. There might not be a commercial spaceflight industry were it not for Patti's leadership.

You may have trouble getting permission to aero or lithobrake asteroids on Earth.

No national sovereignty rules in outer space. Those who venture there go as envoys of the entire human race.

Governments spending billions on a humans-to-Mars program won't allow wild-eyed billionaires to steal the glory; all heck will break loose as the public and sidelined governments decry and block the perceived cosmic land grab. Yet the private folks aren't waiting.

There are several revenue streams that are near and present that could support a private space station, including in-space manufacturing, microgravity research, and tourism - for both individuals and sovereign nation astronauts - and in-space supply logistics.

No government in the world today has explicitly assigned the responsibility for planetary protection to any of its agencies.

In fact, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 bans militarization. Potential adversaries of the US, and even its allies, are so far behind that these countries are very interested in maintaining the treaty. Europe and the rest of the world want a strong reaffirmation of the Treaty and the US is unilaterally trying to derail it. Termination of the treaty would mean that the US could develop satellite weapons, put offensive weapons in space. It would probably mean using nuclear power in space. All of this leads to some very dangerous scenarios, including destruction of the species.

Now we are flying off into outer space, there is no clear curb on what can be done in the name of the economy.