Colonization of outer space – the privilege of the rich or the heritage of all?

Colonization comes from the latin word colere, which means to inhabit. It refers to a process, where a central power controls the surrounding land and all of its components. However we look at this term it has a mostly negative connotation from the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Although colonies have been outdated in the last century, they might make a comeback in space. Reasons for that are the rising costs of nonrenewable resources and the pressing need for acquiring them, the environmental devastation we have been causing to planet Earth, along with the ever growing population of humankind and ensuring its survival.

Human imagination and curiosity drove to the development of austronomy in the times of Egyptians, and later Greeks and Romans, and in the times of emerging mythology the planets were given their present names. Astrology and navigation were the driving motifs for space exploration. In the 16th and 17th century, the work of N. Copernicus, J. Kepler and I. Newton laid the foundations of modern space science, that is even today, the driving force of space exploration.

So how did someone come up with the very idea of colonizing the space? It was in the time of WWII, when military technology led to the developments in rocket and missile weaponry, where Germany took lead. After that, in the period of the Cold War, it was often referred to as ''just one of the many races''. It started off as a growing competition between the two rivals and ideologies of the Eastern and Western bloc, no other than Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States of America (USA). Its origins can be somehow seen in the nuclear arms race and especially in the 1955, but USSR took lead on October 4 1957 when Sputnik 1 has been launched as the first artificial Earth satellite. In 1958 the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) was established, which today represents the leading UN organisation for space affairs. In 1959 United Nations created the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), which later on created two subcommittees: the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal Subcommittee, that oversees and enforces the treaties. At the time it was one of the rare occasions where the two poles of the world would come together and discuss the importance of the peaceful use and research of space.

On the 27 January 1967 USSR, USA and the United Kingdom proposed the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, or the Outer Space Treaty. The 'first human in the space' race was also won by the USSR, as Yuri Gagarin entered space orbit in 1961, but the famous Apollo 11 mission sent by the USA ultimately 'won' the race with Neil Armstrong’s famous words: ''That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind''. The golden era of space race has in a way ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, but it has become an ever present issue in the 21st century.

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Have the territorial claims already been made? Veni vidi vici? Let's take the USA for example, can we expect the application of their governmental system on the Moon or the Mars? What about Chinese? They could be there before anyone else if they'd want to.

With the creation of the Outer space treaty in 1967 and corpus iuris spatialis internationalis[1] the coordination of the UN as a global arena for cooperation, the international framework for space law was created and it hasn't changed much until this day, it is therefor obsolete. It is clear the international space law cannot in anyform be compared to international sea or air law. There is still no clear defnition of it, and the reason for that is the problem of identifying the clear line between airspace, national borders and outer space.

With the development of international space law and international community as such, the growing number of universal and regional space agencies gained recognition. These are especially important for the smaller countries, for they mostly fall behind in resources. The emergence of commercialised space flights has led to some 20 countries developing national space laws, due to the lack of wider interest in the international community. Cooperation of smaller states must be kept on the agenda as this might be the only way for them to remain competitive and contribute to the modernization of international space law.

''Man, the cutting edge of terrestrial life, has no rational alternative but to expand the environmental and resource base beyond Earth.

Global development, therefore, must be based on an open world concept and include both the development of extraterrestrial resources and the wiser management of our terrestrial resources. This is the extraterrestrial imperative. Its central goal is the preservation of civilization.''

(Ehricke 1972)

History often repeats itself and like the colonisation in the European Reneissance has led to the WWI, it was of utmost importance that the UN paved the way for a basic legal framework and in applying the principle res communis omnium – individuals, corporations and nations have equal access and use of resources and are precluded from making any ownership claims.

We're now not talking about if, but when the colonisation of terrestrial objects will begin. We expect countries to come up with higly applicable solutions to the ever growing human population and our ecosystem on Earth is skrinking.

History has a way of repeating itself, only this time much faster!

[1] The Rescue Agreement 1968, The Liability Convention 1972, The Registration Convention 1975 and the Moon Treaty 1979.

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