One of the lessons one can learn from the recent plethora of NASA problems and failures, and from the problems with the space "programs" of Europe, Russia and Japan, is that in the long run, humanity will never become a spacefaring civilization without the recognition of private property rights in outer space.

All of the world’s government-run space programs are mired in low Earth orbit; even under the "better, faster, cheaper" philosophy (which has been criticized extensively due to recent failures), you can count on your hands the number of deep-space probes launched by NASA in the last few years.

The bottom line is: If we rely on the governments of the world to get humanity into space and colonize the planets, then 50 years from now we'll still be having the same kind of discussions we have today -- about when we will return to the moon or finally get that piloted Mars mission underway.

Government programs are slow and plodding. The budget process itself often takes years (witness: the International Space Station, first proposed by President Reagan in 1984) and is at the mercy of the political winds of the moment. The only exception is a crash program, in the nature of a national emergency such as Apollo; however, no such national emergency now exists, nor is foreseeable in the future to make space exploration a priority.

Humanity's manifest destiny is the colonization of outer space, but it will not happen without the ability of people to lay claim to what they have expended their money, ingenuity and, perhaps, lives to reach.
     

What then will be the engine of growth and advancement that will jump-start humanity’s journey off our blue planet? There is but one, which is tried-and-true in the human experience and will give risk takers the returns necessary to want to leave the safe confines of the Earth: Private individuals and corporations should be able to exercise private-property rights on objects in outer space.

There is ample precedent for this approach as the method upon which to encourage and enlist entrepreneurs to take the risk and make the investments in technology and infrastructure necessary to tame the final frontier. Witness the gold and land rushes of the American West, and the expansion of the railroads from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The ability to lay "claim" to land, the right to exercise dominion and control, and to exclude others, were vital to what was called America’s "manifest destiny."

Humanity’s manifest destiny is the colonization of outer space, but it will not happen without the ability of people to lay claim to what they have expended their money, ingenuity and, perhaps, lives to reach.

The current regime of space treaties to which the major spacefaring powers are parties does not exclude private-property rights in outer space. The Outer Space Treaty expressly only limits nation-states from exercising national sovereignty over objects in outer space; it does not seem to limit the activities of private individuals or corporations. The Moon Treaty of 1979 was never signed by the United States or any other space power; the treaty and its "common heritage of mankind" socialism were dead on arrival.

How would a system of space-property rights work? The specific mechanisms are beyond the scope of this article, but one can imagine a private company (read: no government ownership whatsoever) sending a probe to land on a celestial object, say an asteroid or perhaps even the moon. The company would declare its claim to the area where the probe landed. Such a claim would be enforceable in the courts of the country of origin of the owner.

In order to alleviate the international tensions that might arise over enforcement of such rights, a convention would be negotiated that nations could sign on to, thereby bringing certainty as to the procedures and enforceable rights available to private parties. Similar pacts are already in place regarding matters ranging from exploitation of the sea, to the use of letters of credit, to enforcement of sales contracts for goods.

Of course, a court proceeding regarding a property claim in space would not be necessary until some other private entity sent its own probe to land on the same object and made a competing claim. And if such a thing happened it might even be a good sign -- it would mean incentives are in place for people and corporations to develop the technology to engage in space exploration and colonization themselves.

Right now, outside of Earth orbit, the only players are governments. If we are going to go to the planets to stay, that has to change. Granting private individuals and entities the right to own and enjoy, to the exclusion of others, the fruits of their hard-earned labor -- that piece of the solar system they can call their own -- is the way to do it.