(a) The orderly and safe development of the natural resources of the moon; (b) The rational management of these resources; (c) The expansion of opportunities in the use of these resources; (d) An equitable sharing by all States Parties in the benefits derived from those resources, whereby the interests and needs of the developing countries, as well as the efforts of those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly to the exploration of the moon, shall be given special consideration. Parts (c) and (d) above, coupled with the explicit statement in Art. 11, para. 1 that resources of the moon are “the common heritage of mankind,” clearly indicate that unrestrained “robber baron” free enterprise is not to be permitted — a decision reached in the US and other market societies by early this century. Private enterprise is not banned, despite plaints of some Treaty opponents (21), but placed within the context of a collectivist concern that there be some “equitable sharing” of benefits. Since (d) above specifically requires special consideration for both developing nations and “those countries which have contributed either directly or indirectly to the exploration of the moon” there seems no reason to believe that US or other private enterprise concerns would be barred from lunar activity unless their domestic governments act to do so (22). The terms of (d) could easily accommodate the existing structure of Intelsat, for example, and Intelsat includes private enterprise participation. In both the Law of the Sea and Moon Treaties, provision is made for equitable distribution. The Treaty uses the term equitable, not equal — a significant distinction (23). Perspective is critical. Law of the Sea creation of a “parallel system” allowing both collective and private seabed exploitation can be seen by developed nations as a “Robin Hood” program. But the G-77 can view it as a possible way for poor nations to avoid becoming relatively even poorer. Shall we perceive the parallel system as explicitly permitting and legitimating both private enterprise and collective action, or as a disguised attack on the market system, or as a raid by the dispossessed on the wealthy? Neither perception can be proven either accurate or false except by undergoing the test of future experience. The consequences of misperception are thought to be very large — loss of liberty, “permanent” inequality, loss of the future — and leave ideology as a powerful determinant of policy choice. We have before us historical experience of many examples of mixed private and collective enterprise. In very large scale undertakings resembling space industrialization, history gives us little but mixed model or collective examples. Neither model has always worked as planned, but this shows only the universal ambit of Murphy's Law. There seems little reason to expect that mixed models will not be found in SI. Provided only that use of mixed collective and private market approaches is accepted as legitimate, advocates of neither approach need fear being frozen out of SI. Finally, if space resources are as vast as SI advocates claim, there is ample supply to meet the needs of all claimants under any remotely “equitable” future space regime. It has been estimated (24) that space resources are sufficient to construct space habitats with “land" area equivalent to a minimum of several thousand earths, and to provide space habitats or Earth itself with whole planet-equivalents of raw materials and vast quantities of energy collected from solar output. Let us be quite conservative and assume that only 1000 Earth-equivalents of living area could be constructed in space, as an illustration of the nature of the resource. If an Earth nation were allowed to construct only a number of habitats proportionate to its percentage of Earth's population, the US and the USSR would each be entitled to approximately 60 Earth-equivalents, Japan 30, France 15, Thailand 10 — and China
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==