Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute will host a livestreamed Capitol Hill briefing to introduce a new study by Adjunct Scholar Rand Simberg: Homesteading the Final Frontier: A Practical Proposal for Securing Property Rights in Space .
The right to claim, develop, and trade property and particularly real estate has been the driving force of human exploration throughout history. Currently, this right does not exist off planet, and its absence is discouraging real investment in space development. Rand Simberg argues that the U.S. should recognize off-planet land claims by private groups and individuals under certain conditions.
TechFreedom Senior Adjunct Fellow James E. Dunstan, who is an attorney specializing in space issues, will provide remarks on the proposal.
Although both Dunstan and Simberg agree on a number of points, as Dunstan lays out in his written comments ,
We disagree completely on the path America should take to achieve space property rights. Space property rights are nothing new. In his book, Unreal Estate: The Men Who Sold the Moon, Virgil Pop tracked hundreds of outer space property rights claims over thousands of years, from individuals, kings, and countries, under various theories of law. All have failed the test of time.