Is Now the Time? Space Property RIghts Back and Forth

Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow raised eyebrows with an announcement pertaining to space property rights at a recent event in downtown Washington.

The Nov. 12 event marked the presentation of a report prepared by Bigelow Aerospace for NASA that proposed the use of a model similar to the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program — which led to the development of the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Dragon and the Orbital Sciences Corp. Cygnus freighter for international space station resupply missions — to develop human spaceflight capabilities for beyond low Earth orbit, including activities around and on the surface of the Moon.

As part of his presentation, Bigelow announced that by the end of the year Bigelow Aerospace would be submitting an application for a policy review to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space Transportation for a review of the United States’ stance on outer space private property rights. The announcement was met with skepticism from many in the space community.

link.

‘We can lick gravity,” quipped Wernher von Braun, “but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.”

Robert Bigelow is trying to do what von Braun could only dream of: Build a Moon base — and a profitable one at that. He’s not just dreaming. Funded by his hotelier fortune, Bigelow Aerospace already has two autonomous prototype habitation modules in orbit. Another Bigelow module is headed to the international space station next year. The company plans a full-scale space station once domestic crew transportation becomes available.

But as for von Braun, Bigelow’s challenge isn’t merely technological (or economic). Just like the first private rocket company 30 years ago, Bigelow Aerospace needs sign-off from the U.S. government — and again, there’s no clear path forward. The company also needs two other things, as Bigelow himself made clear at a press conference in November. First is the U.S. government’s assurances that it won’t allow other U.S. companies to interfere with Bigelow’s operations. Second, obviously, Bigelow must own any resources it mines: minerals, water, rocket fuel, etc.

“Without property rights, any plan to engage the private sector in long-term beyond [low Earth orbit] activities will ultimately fail,” declared a recent report Bigelow produced for NASA.

Far from seeing the company as competition, NASA “finally understands the need for such public-private partnerships,” says James Pura, president of the Space Frontier Foundation, an organization long critical of NASA’s traditional go-it-alone approach but which has cheered the agency for buying commercial cargo and crew transportation services to the international space station.

Not everyone is onboard, though. In the Dec. 9 issue of SpaceNews, space lawyer Michael J. Listner insisted that “The Time is Not Ripe To Tackle Space Property Rights” [Commentary, page 18]. He’s right: The United States needs to tread carefully. But he falls into the typical trap of lumping all “property rights” together — and thus defaults to calling for careful international negotiation, the last refuge of most space lawyers.

link.