In a speech last week, US National Space Council executive director Scott Pace rejected the idea that space was a "global commons" or "the common heritage of mankind" and vowed to make the USA "the most attractive jurisdiction in the world for private-sector investment and innovation in outer space."
“It bears repeating: Outer space is not a ‘global commons,’ not the ‘common heritage of mankind,’ not ‘res communis,’ nor is it a public good,” Scott Pace, the executive director of the US National Space Council, said in a speech last week (pdf). “These concepts are not part of the Outer Space Treaty, and the United States has consistently taken the position that these ideas do not describe the legal status of outer space.”Pace says the Trump administration will work with other governments and international organizations to develop fair rules for space, but that the goal is for the US to become “the most attractive jurisdiction in the world for private-sector investment and innovation in outer space…the task for the United States, if it wishes to influence how space is developed and utilized, is to create attractive projects and frameworks in which other nations choose to align themselves and their space activities with us, as opposed to others.”
Donald Trump's space adviser says the US is not a "global commons" as private companies aim for the moon — Quartz [Tim Fernholz/Quartz]
(via Naked Capitalism)
