So the private space economy has emerged in
the last several decades, I guess.
But it's really increased in speed over the
past 10 years, I guess.
SpaceX and Blue Origin are the ones that are
really making this go faster.
You know, Musk's SpaceX is obviously launching
rockets at cheaper prices than ever before,
and that's allowing more people than ever
to get into space.
And that's probably the biggest pro of private
space and the private space economy is that
we're enabling more access to space.
We're enabling people to do more things, more
great things, which ultimately help us here
on Earth.
Against that, there are some cons.
Not everything is great when you launch in
space.
If you do it in the right possible spirit,
then it's all fantastic.
If we're going to the moon, if we're going
to Mars, to better the species, then obviously
that's a great thing for Earth.
It's a great thing for humanity.
But if you throw in capitalism and making
profits, then sometimes the waters can be
muddied.
And that's not necessarily always a good thing.
You can have things like monopolies in space,
something that not many people have ever thought
of.
And you can have poor regulation.
And you can-- it's a very dangerous place,
space.
And you can have incidents, accidents.
There's a host of things that could go wrong
if we don't approach space in the right way.
And with the private sector and with little
regulation-- not saying that there is little
regulation, but if we don't keep up regulation--
then some things can go wrong.
The main form of regulation is a treaty, actually,
that was signed in 1967.
It's the Outer Space Treaty.
And it governs what you can and cannot do
in space, to a certain degree.
So one of the major things it says is that
no country can colonize any part of the universe.
So you can't go to the moon and claim part
of it.
So two years after that treaty was signed,
America did go to the moon, and they planted
a flag on the surface, famously.
But they actually went to great lengths to
explain that that wasn't something that represented
that they owned any of that territory.
It was merely a symbol of achievement, rather
than staking any claim to the moon.
You also see a lot of websites where people
are claiming to sell parts of the moon.
And that's completely illegal, impossible.
That's really just a piece of paper you're
giving someone.
So there is the Outer Space Treaty.
And that is now coming up against private
space.
The worlds are kind of colliding.
The Outer Space Treaty was written so long
ago, before we even knew that private space
was going to be a thing.
So these private space companies that have
grand designs that, you know, Musk wants to
go to Mars and wants to build a settlement
and a colony, he's going to run into the Outer
Space Treaty at some point.
He's not going to be able to do that without
tackling this law that was signed by all the
major space faring nations that says that
nobody can claim part of another planet.
So how do you build a settlement without claiming
part of that planet?
And I guess another part of that is resource
gathering.
There is what America has already said that
you can take resources from a place without
owning it.
So essentially, you could go to the moon and
you could take hydrogen from below the surface.
But you don't actually have to say that you
own that part of the moon, and that in the
Outer Space Treaty, there is an ambiguity,
which America has come down on the side of
no, you can go to the moon, take resources,
and not own it.
Luxembourg has also said that you can do that.
But other countries have come out against
it.
So the regulations that there are, they're
butting heads against the emerging private
sector and other plans of countries.
And at some point, something's got to give.
to do anything in space, in the private space
sector, you have to have a solid business
plan, just like anywhere else in the world.
So you have to be able to make money.
And your biggest cost, obviously, is getting
a rocket off-- getting a ride or a rocket
off the face of the earth and landing it somewhere
and then carrying out an operation.
Asteroid mining-- some people don't take it
so seriously within the industry, because
it's incredibly expensive just to go to the
moon, which is obviously a fairly standstill
target, the moon.
If you're trying to land on an asteroid, put
equipment down.
Put some kind of automated equipment down.
Take the resources.
Take off from the asteroid.
Bring it back to Earth.
Your overheads are so astronomically high
that there's almost no way you could make
a profit unless you were taking something
so far from that asteroid that you would sell
it for an absolute fortune here on earth.
So I mean, the law in America that they said
you can go to other places and mine resources
and you don't have to claim ownership was
backed up by the asteroid mining companies,
which were very hot at the time of that law
being signed.
They pushed for it because I knew that the
Outer Space Treaty was in that way, and they
managed to push through a law just in America
that says you can do it.
So legally, as long as they take off from
America, they can do it.
Whether they'll ever do it is another question.
It's one of those weird ideas that we might
never see come to fruition.
