Extraterrestrial real estate

Extraterrestrial real estate refers to claims of land ownership on other planets, natural satellites, or parts of space by certain organizations or individuals.

[4] Article VI vests the responsibility for activities in space to States Parties, regardless of whether they are carried out by governments or non-governmental entities.

A white paper by the Competitive Enterprise Institute suggested legislation whereby the US would recognize claims made by private entities, American and others, which meet certain conditions regarding habitation and transportation.

[13] Some individuals and organizations offer schemes or plans claiming to allow people to purchase portions of the Moon or other celestial bodies.

The short story The Man Who Sold the Moon by Robert A. Heinlein, which was written in 1949, offers a portrayal of such plans or schemes, and created the concept of a Lunar Republic.

[14][15] A space ownership issue of current practical importance is the allocation of slots for satellites in geostationary orbit.

[17] To remediate the damage already done by human-made objects, astronauts will need to bring specific hardware into space to exterminate the debris.

Since then experiments have shown that some terrestrial life is astonishingly hardy, and the time spent in transit in space is not a guarantee of a sterile spacecraft on arrival.

If an old, contaminated orbiter crashes onto an extraterrestrial planet, except in extreme cases, it will no longer be possible to test the panspermia hypothesis with any confidence in the outcome.