Does the US own the moon?

Kevin R

I'd say that it's the wild west right now out there. Nothing is claimed until its developed. The west was won by building railroads and roads.

The Vikings found North America long before any more modern European explorers did, should they have first claim? Or maybe Columbus should have claim on behalf of Spain? Or the Natives who lived on the land before European colonization?

Kazemaru

We could try, but would fail. It doesn't belong to anyone, same as Antarctica.

castaspella0183

No we don't own the moon we just have a flag on it so that if there is ever anything valuable found on the moon it's ours. There is a treaty regarding outer space and Antartica that the countries must follow.

Lurch

Nobody owns the moon. Plus, your assessment of the relationship between the UN and the US isn't very accurate.

Greg R

I believe there is an international law that everyone agrees to concerning outerspace.I read it not long ago but for the life of me cant remember the details of it.

glocktwentyseven

I don't know why the question would get deleted, because it is a good one.

Human exploration and expansion always leads to territorial disputes, and the exploration of space is no different.

Right now, no one owns the Moon, for the simple fact that no one "possesses" the Moon.

No one occupies or controls the logistics that concern the exploration of, or expansion across, the Moon; such as Lunar Travel, Lunar Colonization, or Lunar Resource Exploitation.

Once a country, corporation or other such entity establishes their control over these logisitical factors, only then will they be able to claim sovereignty over the Moon.

Rays

No.

Bob R

no, i saw it first, and called dibbs

quizzard123

It's mine, and I have the deed right here in my hand. Don't own all the mineral rights, though, those apparently belong to George Lucas.

Cylon Model 0005

No one nation can "own" the moon, or space around Earth.

Discipulo legis, quis cogitat?

Interesting question Gallard

It is most interesting because the only way international changes (according to the international law class I took last year), is when a country breaks it. If we were to claim ownership of the moon or any part of it, the Senate by 2/3 vote would have to pass a reservation to the UN treaty, and this would have to be signed by the president.

We have reservation to UN treaties right now, one of them is the Geneva convention on torture.

Even if we had never been to the moon, we could still claim ownership, but we would have to colonize it and defend its borders.

Once we have done this, our ownership would have to be recognized by other foreign nations in much the same way that we have recognized Kosovo when others have not. Eventually, there would be universal recognition after a period of claim.

Changing international law takes time, but yes, we could claim the moon, but I believe Kosovo would be recognized as a country before that happens.

northernhick

What would be the dimensions of the claim? Just saying "It's ours"? The international community would not respect the claim, and would disagree. It's been far too long since anyone's set foot there; in order to make a successful claim to sovereignty over uninhabited territory, you need to "display" - i.e. patrol it, survey it, treat it as yours, be seen to exercise control.

Now, claiming by unilaterally setting up a settlement...that would be pretty tough for anyone to argue with. Of course, the moon is a pretty big place, and it would be impossible to exercise meaningful control of the whole surface from a handful of settlements; if the Russians later created their own settlement elsewhere on the surface of the moon, there wouldn't be a whole lot the Americans could say about that, either. The immediate consequence, if anyone cared enough about who got the moon, would simply be another space race to get as much of the surface under effective control as possible.

Arnold Ziffel

We don't own the moon and I don't recommend we claim it, because if we did, we would owe back property taxes which would bankrupt the US the rest of the way, far more than Alan Greenspan ever thought of doing.

revanishing

I would say so !

Sleepy Kid

Finders Keepers

sloan

i think so, and mars is ours too - the robot was american

nicole

the us doesn't even own the us anymore. unless we pay china back 500 billion we can't say anything about owning

McCain / Palin '08

I think we should. Russia planted a flag at the bottom of the sea in the North Arctic and once the ice melts they get to claim all the oil under it. So we should get the moon.

atilla the avenger

yep,we own the moon and mars.so who is going to dispute the claim.....

Google It

We never landed on the moon so I would say that no one owns it.

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