Lunar property rights: buy me to the moon - FT中文网
登录×
电子邮件/用户名
密码
记住我
请输入邮箱和密码进行绑定操作:
请输入手机号码,通过短信验证(目前仅支持中国大陆地区的手机号):
请您阅读我们的用户注册协议隐私权保护政策,点击下方按钮即视为您接受。
FT商学院

Lunar property rights: buy me to the moon

If you can buy a home in the metaverse, why not on the moon?

If you can buy a home in the metaverse, why not on the moon? The heavenly body has already hosted visitors, played a key role in earthly geopolitics and may be home to untold mineral treasures. Traffic jams, collisions and debris all point to outer space facing some of the issues that bedevil planet earth. High time, reckons the neoliberal Adam Smith Institute, to consider privatisation.

This is a long shot, to put it mildly. As things stand, the moon — like other celestial bodies — cannot be appropriated by any sovereign or militia, under the Outer Space Treaty it is the “province of all mankind”. Changing that would require international consensus and a mindset shift rather too grand for a world struggling with earthly borders and reappraising globalisation.

Virtually every country has lunar ambitions but the big muscle comes from the US, Russia and China, an uneasy set of bedfellows at the best of times. Increasingly, space is in the sights of individuals who have amassed earthly wealth: Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Virgin founder Richard Branson, among others. That illustrates the shift in motivations, from national pride to financial incentives. The global space economy was worth an estimated £270bn in 2019 and is projected to almost double to £490bn by the end of this decade.

There would be losers too from a carve-up that allotted parcels to the modern equivalent of 16th century colonisers. Imagine a sovereign controlling not just a gas pipeline but entire communications. The UK has estimated that blocked access to global navigation satellite systems for just five days could cost the country £5.2bn. Consider too that the triumvirate of countries leading the way have vastly different ideas about both property and human rights.

Rebecca Lowe, the author of the paper, proposes getting round this with temporary and conditional ownership of plots. Owners, more akin to long term renters, could not hand their plots down from generation to generation.

Because rent cannot be paid to the man in the moon, a philanthropic fund would take the money and redistribute it into areas of common good such as conservation, say, or scientific endeavours.

Plenty of critics see this as about as likely as chunks of moon going on sale at the local fromagerie. But precisely because humanity has made such a hash of carving up the earth, it is a worthwhile debate to start.

版权声明:本文版权归FT中文网所有,未经允许任何单位或个人不得转载,复制或以任何其他方式使用本文全部或部分,侵权必究。

欧洲病夫?德国企业老板针对高病假率发出警告

一项研究称,如果不是因为病假率高于平均水平,德国经济去年将增长0.5%,而非收缩0.3%。

依视路陆逊梯卡估值达千亿欧元,押注眼镜将取代智能手机

该眼镜巨头的首席执行官米莱里表示,与Meta公司合作开发的可穿戴技术将促进增长。

朝鲜向俄派兵后,韩国考虑直接援乌武器

韩国认为,朝鲜向俄派兵和可能的俄朝技术转让对韩国的安全构成直接威胁。

再次陷入危机的大众汽车能走上改革之路吗?

欧洲最大的汽车制造商正与工人和政界人士交战,试图渡过痛苦的电动汽车转型期。

哈里斯的另一个大选对手:通货膨胀

美国选民对高昂生活成本的不满可能决定下周谁将赢得白宫。

Lex专栏:Meta和微软通过季度理智检查

科技巨头今天吹捧真正的胜利,以证明明天的巨额投资是合理的。投资者对此是支持的,但程度有限。
设置字号×
最小
较小
默认
较大
最大
分享×