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It can be claimed that space resource development does not have to occur inn an imperialist way, and that provisions can be made so that space industrialization proceeds to benefit all the people of a nation and all the people of the globe. The US space writer William Hartmann expresses such a hope when he comments that space resource extracting companies might voluntarily pay for commercial rights to exploit extraterrestrial bodies.
Hartmann goes on to suggest that Solar System prospecting and mining rights might be sold to an international body. The finances gained could then be put into a World Bank type global fund which would be dedicated to projects that would encourage Third World development.
I do not share Hartmann's confidence in the World Bank to promote appropriate resource projects in the Third World. Nor do I share his confidence in voluntary payments by either space companies or nations to approximate any amount which is due to Third World nations. But more importantly, while the Outer Space Treaty calls for space exploration activities to benefit all of humankind the Treaty does not stipulate exactly how this is to be effected. This is no accidental quirk of legal history.
The Outer Space Treaty does not ignore defining the nature of space benefit distribution by mistake, something that can be rectified through international resource policy adjustment. Programmes aimed at correcting this very issue have been instigated by Third World countries through the medium of the United Nations but they have failed.
Of particular relevance here is the attitude of space-capable nations to the attempted introduction of a new space treaty and also their attitude towards Third World calls for the augmentation of the Outer Space Treaty.
In order to combat the holes and vagaries contained within the Outer Space Treaty a number of non-space-capable nations drafted another treaty under the auspices of the United nations. This new treaty, the 1979 Moon Treaty, utilized the concept of commonality of ownwership of space bodies to build upon the provisions vaguely hinted at in the Outer Space Treaty.
The Moon Treaty labels all extraterrestrial bodies the 'Common Heritage of Mankind', thus indicating that no one would be allowed to extract resources without the consent of the global community.
Throughout its lifetime the Moon Treaty has been continually criticised as deleterious to space development by those who seek to develop space. As far as prospective industrialists are concerned any regime that implies that resource use must somehow be regulated to ensure its worldwide sharing is a regime that discourages space expansion. How is development going to occur, say the space developers, if they have to share their profits? Within the space policy circles of space-capable nations and within the space departments of those companies with an interest in developing the space frontier, Solar System expansion is held to be eminantly compatible with the forces of the Free Market and virtually impossible under any regime with a tendency towards distributive justice. With such an attitude prevailing amongst the space-capable nations the Moon Treaty has remained devoid of support - and signatures - except for the small group of mostly Third World nations that originally drafted the Treaty.
Augmenting the Outer Space Treaty for Participation
Given the lack of success in convincing First World nations to sign up to the Moon Treaty the Third World nations tried another tactic: to augment the provisions of the original Outer Space Treaty. The most relevant part of the Outer Space Treaty of concern to Third World nations is Article I which states:
The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development.
The main issue of significance here for Third World nations has been the meaning of space benefit distribution. In order that the sentiments of Article I be respected Third World nation representatives in the 1980s and 1990s campaigned for a substantive written agrreement to be formulated so that it became clear to the nations of the world exactly how benefits from space use should be dispersed.
Fearing that they may be made to enter into a binding agreement that obligated them to distribute space benefits in a way that they did not like, the space-capable nations rejected any proposal to augment the Outer Space Treaty with another regime aimed at bolstering the meaning of Article I. In this vein, space-capable nations have decided that they themselves should be free to dictate how space benefit distribution should be undertaken. To do otherwise, these nations suggest, is to impose upon the sovereignty of a state to formulate and implement its own international cooperation and aid policies. Through such claims of sovereignty about running their own foreign affairs these nations have effectively asserted sovereignty over any resources that they may chance upon in outer space in the future since they may decide for themselves the best ways to distribute these resources. They may implement aid plans that fairly distribute the resources gained from other planets by dispersing them equally to the signatories of the Treaty or they may implement token benefit distribution plans that merely disseminate inspiring photographs of the conquered worlds of the Solar System throughout the globe. Understandably the non-space-capable nations are worried that space benefit distribution will follow more closely the lines of the latter rather than the former example, thus leaving them devoid of any substantial gain. While Third World nations have in the recent past been demanding that some real substance be attached to the sentiments of Article I the nations of the world that are actually in the position to use space resources would like to see the provisions of the Outer Space Treaty remain as skeletal and ambiguous as possible since it allows them to interpret space benefit distribution in as self-interested and miserly way as they desire.
The instigation of an authoritative and uniform regime that dictates exactly the manner that benefits from space use should be distributed might be considered somewhat extreme since not only would it attract little or no support from space-capable nations but it may also lock non-space-capable nations into inappropriate aid plans. The position taken by space-capable nations, namely that they should be free to choose how, and to whom, they distribute space benefits, is just as extreme, however, since it pays no heed to a Treaty whose ideals they confidently professed and willingly signed when the Space Age was young. What is needed is an intermediate approach that stipulates the very real obligations that space- capable nations have to space benefit distribution - given that the Solar System belongs to all - while allowing individual nations to negotiate their own plans of distribution. In short, there should be a formulation of guiding principles that lay down the focus and depth of space distribution for every nation; whether they will be primarily donors of space resources or recipients.
In procuring this advice it seems reasonable to be optimistic with regards to the successful negotiation of the focus of space benefit distribution since this refers to the particular areas of help that space-capable nations are able to deliver and to the particular problems that non-space-capable nations are facing. However, it seems equally reasonable to be sceptical when it comes to the issue of the depth of distribution as this refers to a quantitative view of space benefit dispersal. It seems unlikely, given their performance in both space and non-space related matters, that space-capable nations will ever agree to a scheme that places any emphasis on the amount of help that they should commit themselves to, unless that amount is piddlingly small.
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It is apparent that if you are interested in space development in the Solar System you can participate in it in only indirect ways. Either:
you get yourself into a position that enables you to formulate space policy,
you make do with being happy about receiving the audio-visual and scientific results from projects that others plan
you campaign for those others to do what you want, or
you follow some misguided effort to do it by yourself.
These realities expose a cavernous deficiency in the way that participation in national space policy is formulated.
This lack of participation in formulating space policy may be paralleled with equally deficient participation with regards to the global distribution of future space benefits. This realm, of international participation, can be regarded as perhaps the most important avenue of participation, not because it necessarily guarantees citizen participation in formulating space policy but because it has the potential (conferred upon it by international law) to decide how the final frontier and its accompanying material benefits may be shared. Though any one nation has myriads of barriers that stand in the way of citizen participation in the formulation of space policy, it could be argued that even if these were resolved in your favour you would soon come up against barriers against participation at the international level.
There is within the global realm a variety of conflicting views with regards to space development scenarii and watching these proposed scenarii clash exposes the significantly anti-participatory schemes at work in particular governments. Though couched in terms of peace and inclusivity the legal regimes emerging from the machinations of international politics firmly veer the future of space in an imperialistic direction; where the commonly-owned resources of the Solar System become entrenched in the hands of a technological elite.
At work to glorify such extraterrestrial technocracy is a continuing ideological attachment to frontierism. Space frontierists speak of the rational and renaissance character of space development much as those humanists of old heralded the worldwide expansion of Europeans as the civilised dispersal of an enlightened culture and nothing but. In so doing they become not only the ideologues of a misjudged past and the silencers of alternative histories, but also the progenitors of future imperialism.
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