Space, there oughta be a law

hi there and welcome this is space cowboys number six right number six oh time flies my name is herbert blankestein and my name is tice roos there you are okay uh and we have sponsors tice take it away yes the sponsor is well you uh on patreon you can support us on patreon go to patreon.com space cowboys and see how you can sign up and support this show to bring you anything from the frontiers of space yeah maybe we should explain a little bit about the procedure there okay sure because indeed you first have to make an account and then you can decide which project you want to sponsor it can be ours or anybody else's of course choose space cowboys yeah patreon.com space cowboys and then you can pay by credit card or by paypal yeah any amount you wish any amount there's a default amount that's five dollars a month yeah we'd like that very much of course we're happy with anything one dollar is okay too yeah we have to start working on the on the perks that people get then um extra live shows and all that stuff send us your questions or what you what you want yes yeah more work we can make space pins or something something cool to put on i don't know but that's the way yeah cowboy hats space cowboy hats yes that'd be a good one with a logo and everything exactly all right now we have a guest too yes and that's tanya masson and she's i'm going to have to read this deputy director of the international institute of air and space law at leiden university correct ain't that right that's very correct welcome okay thanks for being here yeah thank you we're going to talk about space law today anything space law we're gonna we have so many questions because we are always talking about rockets we're always talking about exoplanets and we're always talking about space law and we're going to be different now yeah the the rules of the game hardly anybody ever talks about when uh when when it's about space nerding and they're super important as well because they facilitate the whole business right exactly yeah yeah especially when people screw up and the more people go into space the more important space law and it's not only about screwing up you know it's not only when things go wrong that you need the law preventing that people screw up making a clear framework so that you enable and facilitate activities is also helping the people who are the activities to flourish yeah yeah exactly before we're going to dive into all of that we're going to go to the story of the week we all have a story that we bring to the table i guess yeah about space uh anything that can be news or or or or like an animation that i will have but herbert what do you have well um i'd like to do a follow-up a follow-up yeah remember i know i remember yeah yeah you can still say it yeah yeah i've been talking on part at party about umuamua yeah like people are yeah people are definitely fascinated of that thing yeah beautiful well somebody showed up and um did some calculations and everything and decided that umuamua could um might as well have been a remnant of a comet something fluffy wow yeah well also so not aliens we had seth shostak here from the seti institute and he told us all reasons why it probably wasn't seti institute and he told us all reasons why it probably wasn't seti institute something from an extraterrestrial intelligence but maybe something well not earthly but anyway ordinary and um let me just take a quick look at my screen hang on yeah sure well shall i sing a song in the in the meantime okay so there's um zidanex sekanina there's a very difficult name an astronomer um has a publication on archive.com so that's still in the premature phase it's been sent out to people in his trade to look at the publication and criticize it and whatever um but um the headline is umuamua as a debris of dwarf interstellar comet that disintegrated before perihelion you know we saw umuamua uh only after perihelion was already on its way out we explained in our podcast number two i think it was this guy says um we didn't see it before perihelion and anything could have happened to it and the thing we see is at least consistent with some event of a comet-like thing that broke apart and this um long strangely rotating thing cigar thing left over cigar shaped thing yeah um very reflective and um not emitting emitting any gas like a comet would okay so and dust and everything forming a tail which you didn't so this is a new theory theory about what umuamua could have been and it's it's just a draft right right now it's a draft yeah that's right so anybody hearing this go where is this published archive.com we'll put it in the show notes oh we'll put it in the show notes definitely definitely interesting it's an ongoing saga it's a rational explanation rational explanation not not anything um flashy like rational intelligence so it's worthy to be mentioned here because we like the spectacular stuff but we also also like the the rational scientific yes the reality of it all that's right yes so tanya um so my uh event of uh of note i think is it happened about a week ago or so 10 days ago uh which is that belgium and luxembourg uh came to make a joint statement about the use of space resources which is one of the hot topics in my field today they came out together making this statement saying that they agreed that there is a need for an international framework and why is that noteworthy because actually those are probably the two countries that are most opposed uh in in their views where luxembourg is very forward-looking and facilitating the business investing yeah when it comes to space mining right they did two years ago they announced this big project but like we're going to luxembourg exactly yeah whereas belgium has been quite critical and also in the united nations has has quite has been quite vocal in in putting some side marks there so that was quite remarkable that they have a joint statement yeah they issued a joint statement saying saying and what do they agree well they basically agreed on a couple of things and they also agree that they disagree on a lot of other things so it's not it's not okay exactly they agree that there is a need for a for a framework so it's it's in in the end it's perhaps not not that it's not a good thing but it's a good thing but it's a good thing but it's a good thing life-changing but it was quite remarkable that this came from those two countries they stopped arguing sort of yeah well they recognize that there's still further work that is needed yeah but especially uh belgium why why is belgium are they opposed or are they just critical what's what's the what what are they disagreeing well they sort of feel that this is something that has to be negotiated in the united nations by all countries together and that not one country like luxembourg they issued a law on on space mining where they say any company that can extract resources can own them and sell them and and appropriate them and belgium says well that is an interpretation of treaties and we should agree on that all together and so yeah this luxembourg law is just as i say a luxembourg law right it's a national law sure yeah yeah that's one of the that's a thing we should discuss today yeah and i mean luxembourg very tiny country in europe that's a very tiny country in europe that's a very tiny country in europe that's a very tiny country doesn't have any launch capabilities itself right it doesn't it maybe it should have their own first space platform uh rocket platform before they can actually claim something like this well they were quite visionary also many decades ago when they started the whole business with sas astra with television and which is now one of the major telecom companies yeah so they have a vision of facilitating the space business and then they have all kinds of tax facilities and whatever So they will not have a launchpad for that. The country is obviously too small. But they have a vision and they invest a lot of money. So the companies come and they get... And they can have space companies that can start mining, at least in theory, and claim that this national law enables them to do just that. Yeah, exactly. In the absence of international treaties. It's an important debate. So we're going to dive into it. I still have my story of the week. And Tanya, you're feeling a little under the weather, right? Yeah, I'm sorry about coughing once in a while. The few coughs for the people at home or in the car. That's all right. It's just a podcast. Exactly. I'm a big fan of, in a nutshell, Kurzgesagt, the YouTube channel. I love them too. Beautiful, colorful animations. Beautiful, colorful animations on YouTube. And they, for years, have been sort of... First, they were answering sort of the big questions of life. Where does life come from? Or how big is the universe? Things like that. But they also do futurism. And this one was about, actually, the practicalities of building a Mars base. And it's wonderful. We have a little clip, right? Yeah, we do. You can't see the animation, but you can hear sort of the gist of it. Okay. But wait. Before we can get to the nice future stuff, we first have to complete the second phase of colonization. Creating a semi-permanent outpost to prepare the ground for a larger human presence. But doing so will be gruesome. Yeah, this is about building a Mars base. And it's so fun. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's their tune. Yeah. It's about how difficult, how incredibly difficult it's going to be to build anything on Mars where people can reside. I mean, it's not... I knew that. It's not living. Yeah. And that's why I wanted to bring it, because I know, Harrod... That's not rocket science. It's going to be difficult. You're so opposed to sending humans out into space. We're not doing this because it's easy. It's not easy, but because it's hard. Yeah, exactly. But you're always very critical, Herbert, about sending people out into space. And this video, what's so fun about it is, well, we have to put people basically in bunkers and put dirt over it. And people will live in sort of like tunnels, under the ground, on Mars. They have to constantly be resupplied with nuclear fuel, with everything for decades. Let's do it. Forget growing your own... Exactly. But they end on, let's go. Let's do it. Let's do it. Of course, we're going to go. Because it's cool and it's awesome. Yeah. That's the spirit. I know. Yeah, definitely. So it's very much how I look at the whole thing as well. It's like, oh, God, it's so difficult and it's hard and it's insane. It's so interesting. And I see you smiling. Sounds awesome. I'd like to add, people are going to die. Yes. And people are going to die. Yes. Of course. But that happened also when aviation started. Sure. Sure. And when Columbus sailed out and everything. Of course. They also didn't know whether they were going to be able to come back. They thought they were going to the end of the world. They went. I like to say when a sailor left home in Columbus's time, he wasn't going to communicate with home at all. No. If you go to Mars, you can. Yes. Yeah. You can Skype. With a delay. That's real. With a delay. Yeah, well. It's more sending like video or voice messages, you know. Selfies. Yeah. Or like leaving voicemails for one another. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. That's sort of how you can communicate, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. No back and forth. No, no. But no back and forth. So go check out that video. I'll put it up there as well in a nutshell. On to space law. Tanja, I want to ask you a question. Go ahead. Okay. So we're on our way to Mars, right? To this new Mars base. And I get into a fight somewhere halfway with someone. Me. No, because I'm not going to strangle you. But I strangle this person. You're not going, right? Oh, no. I'm not going. Say I lose myself and I lose my peaceful self because I've been in that metal cage for too long. And I strangle. I punch somebody in the face, strangle them. Where do I show up in court? Oh, that's a very interesting question. I don't know if it's very realistic. Of course, people who will go on such a mission. I mean, that takes seven months or so, right? To go there. And they will be in training for like 10 years and they're giving up everything to do this. And they will also have intense psychological counseling guidance and so on. They'll be selected for those properties. So, murder on a trip to Mars. I don't know if that is a very realistic scenario. Never mind that because law should deal with all things that might conceivably happen. No, I don't agree. I think law should, of course, deal with things that might happen to some extent. You should not have the ambition to put everything in stone if you don't know how and what is exactly going to happen. That doesn't make much sense because then you would even preclude technological developments. And that doesn't make good sense to me. But for your question about a murder on a spaceship. I steal their candy. Instead of strangling them, I steal their candy. We do have a parallel with the International Space Station because that is a station that is built by 15 different countries. And they have concluded a treaty to govern the use and the building of the ISS. So, you have the United States and Russia and Japan and Canada and then 11 European countries, members of the European Space Agency. And in that treaty that sort of builds on the United Nations treaties that we have as a basis of space law. In that international treaty for the ISS, there is a provision that deals with criminal jurisdiction. So, that deals with should there be a crime on one of the modules of the ISS, who has jurisdiction and who can try them and so on. Of course, you're going to be in space. It's not that hard to put someone in jail or something. And it will be even more difficult when you go to Mars. A space jail. Columbus certainly had some jail thing down in the ship. And you have it like on an aircraft as well. The pilot can restrain a passenger who is drunk or whatever. But will I show up? So, you go back down to Earth and there's a treaty. Will a certain country have jurisdiction or is this a separate entity? No. So, for the time being. The space law is international law, which means it is law between countries. So, countries join treaties, United Nations treaties. We have a set of five treaties regulating the behavior of states in space. Specifically space? Yes. Because I once heard it's like international waters, but that's… Well, there is a comparison, sure. Both with international sea and the seabed as well as with Antarctica, as you say. Those are all areas that are outside jurisdiction of states. That are not governed by sovereignty. So, no one is the boss there, if you like. So, if there is a dispute on those rules in those treaties, states would go to something like the International Court of Justice, which is the highest UN judicial organ, which is a court in The Hague, in the Peace Palace. Or they can go to international arbitration or whatever. But if you as a private individual have a problem, you will have to claim via your government. And that government has to present a claim to another government. That sounds pretty complicated. That's very complicated. And that is because the whole space business is really developing. Aviation in the early days was also a state activity. And now everything is privatized. Airlines are privatized. Air traffic control, airports, everything is private actors. And so, you have a contract between a passenger and an airline. We do not yet have private human space flight. That does not exist yet. Of course, there are some companies that are close, like Virgin Galactic or… Blue Origin. But it is not yet happening. And also, we do not have yet rules for how passengers could make a claim to the space line, if you like. Do you get your money back if you're delayed, for example? Yeah, exactly. If they miss their plane or if they break their leg on the runway. If their luggage is lost. Yeah. Important questions. That will come. That will come. Yeah. I had to sit on the runway for three hours when going to Mars. It was horrible. Exactly. I had to get my money back. Yeah. But it will come, especially with the suborbital flights, you know, that you have like five, six hundred people who have already bought tickets. So, we will have to come up with some rules to deal with that. But somehow, you're now talking business-like disputes, while Thijs started this conversation with actual real crime. Yeah, crime. Food-blown crime. Is there anything in space law about crime? No. No. Everything in space law is about peaceful cooperation. International cooperation. International cooperation. Oh, wow. Okay. No, you have to see this in the context of the time when the treaties were concluded, which was 1950s, 60s, right after Sputnik 1 went up in 1957. The first resolution was made in the early 1960s. The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which is the United Nations body dealing with space, was established in 1958. So, really right after that, which reflects the fact that states were anxious. And eager, I think. They were anxious, eager, of course, because they wanted to develop the new frontier, but also anxious because they wanted to prevent an arms race in outer space, just coming out of the Cold War and all the horrors of the wars that had just been finished. So, that's why all these treaties are really strewn with concepts of international cooperation, peaceful coexistence, prohibition of nuclear weapons, and things like that. But can we say that space law is more or less made up as we go? So, space law concerning crime might be written only when crime occurs? Well, ideally you should foresee it a little bit, but now we're really in a changing period of increasing commercialization and privatization. And that's why, as I said, you have to start thinking about rules to govern that. Up till now, that was not the case. If you have a Mars mission… …then it will likely still be some cooperation between nations. It will not be completely private. Elon Musk might be involved in it, but I expect that it will be a cooperative effort. So, it would be probably professional astronauts who are governed by their employment contract. So, there you have a legal basis for if they would commit a crime. And not to keep on going about crimes, but do you know if it has ever happened? Has there ever been a crime committed? No, not that I know. But, you know, people may become crazy. Somebody has to be the first. But, no, as I said, they have… It's always also like the question that you sometimes get, what if a baby is born in space? I mean, people who go to Mars will make sure that they don't make a baby, you know. They are there to do a super important mission to be the first human on another planet other than the Moon. So, you have to also trust a little bit, I think, their dedication and their professionalism. But you said more or less, well, you don't think somebody would really… …really commit a murder inside a trip inside a rocket on its way to Mars. But I don't think that's too far fetched. If you're under stress, if you're bored, well, you can name a couple of other factors there. I would consider it to be a possibility. Yeah. And I feel lawyers and such should be thinking about this. Okay, we will. No, there are, of course, rules of liability amongst us. There are long states. But again, everything depends whether this is a mission between several states or one state or private or state-oriented. And different rules may apply then. Have you ever read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? I haven't. No? No, it's beautiful. It's about a colony on Mars. Okay. Three parts, beautiful books. It starts with a murder. That's where it starts. And there's this entire international development that goes on. And Mars is… I believe it's been a while since I read it. I think it's governed from the Earth. There's different futuristic science fiction novels, of course, where there's always this idea of when you do things in outer space, it sort of becomes detached from Earth. That's how it feels. Like you're somewhere else. It's just like what happened with explorers who went from this city, from Amsterdam, to the Americas, founded New Amsterdam. And it became this new entity. And very quickly, people started to feel not connected to the homeland anymore. We're not there yet when it comes to space, of course. Especially when you're talking about Mars because that's the thing… Or the Moon even. The lunar base when it's busy. Then you can still see Earth. I think the thing is… True. But that's true. The thing with Mars is that you're really detached. And that psychologically is going to play a big role. You think that when people are on the Moon, they will look at the Earth and be like, hmm, I have to obey the laws of that country over there because I can see it. You will feel a connection also to the laws, I guess. I believe awfully soon there would be a Mars independence movement. Soon, not soon. Eventually, sure. Centuries. But as long as, I always say, as long as such a base, we will have a settlement. As long as it has to be supplied from Earth, there will be independence. As long as they're not self-sustainable, they will also have to apply and abide by our rules. There will come a point when they grow their own tomatoes and their own whatever, and then they will make their own rules, of course. They don't obey the tomato standards that they have back on Earth. Yeah, you cannot do a lot about it if they wouldn't. No EU regulations. No, exactly. When it comes to space mining that we talked about in Belgium and Luxembourg, it's in a very important debate because Luxembourg said basically if you go out into space and you find an asteroid or something that you can mine, it's yours, you can bring it back to Earth. How does this work? Well, not exactly that you can own the asteroid. They have been careful not to say that. And I have to go back one step to the treaty again. The basic treaty of outer space, the first of these five treaties that were concluded, is the Outer Space Treaty, 1967, which has more than 100 states parties. So it's a very wide... More than 50 years old now. And it's more than 50 years old, exactly, 52. And that says that outer space is free for exploration and use, but you cannot appropriate outer space. By any means. So that means that you cannot own a whole asteroid. You cannot own an orbit around the Earth. You cannot own the Moon or a piece of Mars. You cannot own the land. But it is not very clear whether that applies also to resources that you might find in or on a celestial body. And the Moon and other celestial bodies have the same legal status. So a piece of rock, an asteroid, has the same legal status as the Moon, which is, of course, quite remarkable. So what the Luxembourg and actually the Americans were first did, in their national law, is say, we are going to interpret our way of reading the Outer Space Treaty, and we're going to say the non-appropriation principle does not apply to the resources. And so they're saying, our companies, if they find resources, they can own and process and sell and do business. So you can dig up platinum or something from an asteroid or from the Moon, bring it back home to Earth and sell it there. Well, I also think there that we have to be pragmatic. We will not in any time soon be bringing back resources to Earth. In the first decades, it will all be about using them in outer space. Okay, but still you can pick it up, use it, it's yours. Well, that is something that is still subject to debate. According to Luxembourg law, and by the way, also according to American law, because they have a similar law. So they have interpreted it in a way that their companies can own them. They also recognize, they also understand that that doesn't, of course, help them in the end with everything. Because Luxembourg law will not help you against a Chinese company that interferes with your activities or something like that. But let's look at the content of this law. That's, well, Luxembourg has a version, US has a similar version. Are there any serious objections against such a law? Or would you say Europe might have a law like this in due course? Europe, you mean? Europe? Yeah, the EU or maybe the world. I mean, are these shining examples of what space law should be? Or is it bad? I see it as a first step towards an international agreement. And I think that these countries also realize that this is a first step and that more has to be done. Even in their laws and the American law a little bit more than the Luxembourg one, but they explicitly refer to their international obligations. Okay. So it's not their intention to bypass the treaty or whatever, because that would not fly. They just wanted to move on. They want to move on. And the industry was, you know, that is what the national domestic scene does. The industry was knocking on the door of the government and saying, we're ready to invest. We would like to move ahead, but we need certainty that it will be worth our investment. Yeah. I'd like to put a label on there. How about good try? First step, I would say. First step. Yeah. Towards what? Towards an international framework to govern the use of space resources. I think my interpretation of the treaties is not that it is prohibited per se, because that would not make sense. If you're able to find water on the moon or on Mars, it would be crazy to say we cannot use this because we have to own it together and nobody can touch it. That doesn't make sense to me. But if it's gold? Doesn't make sense to me. But we need rules to govern the use. We need international agreement on, yeah. On providing for some equitable sharing and some benefit for all. And, you know, whether that is in the form of even capacity building or outsourcing or whatever, it doesn't necessarily have to mean that you have to split all potential future proceeds into 200 countries or something. Personally, I believe that in space there should be plenty for everybody of anything. It's pretty big. It is pretty big. But remember that asteroids, there are many asteroids, but the resources are not renewable. So that's different from, for instance, the sea. When you say you can fish the fish in the high seas, but you cannot own a piece, a part of the high seas. It's the same. But fish are renewable and asteroids are not. But there are numerous of them, sure. But some will be located in much more interesting places. Those that are close to the moon will be… Some will be richer or bigger. Absolutely. So you do need a governance system. So that's what we have also been working on in Leiden. We've established a working group with support of the Dutch government, which includes stakeholders from all different parties, including the industry, agencies, governments, scientists, to talk about what should such a governance system look like. And so we've come up with a set of building blocks and which deal with all kinds of different things like a safety zone around your operation. But it should be reasonable in size and you should register it somewhere. Around your operation, for instance, on the moon or on an asteroid. Have these issues been really pressing lately? Has it come to some sort of conflict already? No, it's not a conflict. But… And pressing… I think the pressure is a little bit off because the companies that were really the pioneers in the early days, like five years ago when we started looking at this, have gone under, which is of course normal in a new space setting. There will be so many failures and… These were all mining companies? Well, the planetary resources and deep space industries. Those were really the two pioneers that kicked off the whole thing. And I think planetary resources was bought by a blockchain company and deep space industries assets were bought by Bradford. Does that mean they've gone under? Sorry? I mean, if a company gets acquired… It doesn't exactly go under. No, but blockchain and space mining. I mean, there might be eventually some interest in pursuing that also as a secondary business, but it's no longer the prime business model. But there are others and there will be others and so many have to fall and more will come. The website doesn't work anymore for deep space industries. No, it's now Bradford. Yeah, you can check Bradford. Even the Twitter account, everything was taken over now by Bradford. Yeah. So deep space industries was an American privately held company. I did not know that. Oh, poor Rick. Okay. I'm sensing… Oh, on January 1st, 2019. It was officially announced on January 1st, but it was already… That happened recently. Some next episode of Space Cowboys will be… I got to get Rick Tomlinson on the show. He was already out of deep space. He was no longer involved. Okay. Okay. It will be interesting to hear if he's telling a different story now than he used to. Yeah. I mean, the last time I spoke to him was almost two years ago, so we haven't been in touch. So, got a lot of catch-up to do. But speaking of conflicts, not much space mining is being done right now. Of course not. Not at all. No, not at all. So, these were the two ones that were… Well, at least they started the conversation and they maybe got you on a certain trajectory. And thank you. I mean, that's great. I think that's important that we talk about it. There's iSpace, for instance. That is, I think, the one that is most prominently on the scene. Which is a Japanese company, but which has also set up shop in Luxembourg. And they have raised, I think, $100,000 in capital. That's not much. That's not much for space, but it's something. So, at least they can think about it. I must be wrong with a zero, probably. I'm just a lawyer. No, it was a lot. It was more. No, no, no. But listen, space mining is not the field where you can have conflicts, right? Especially not if there's just one company in operation. But there are conflict zones and those are in orbit around the Earth. The geostationary orbit, low Earth orbit. We have space debris. We have favorable orbits that people are fighting over. So, what does space law say about that? Well, there you have a whole system. And that's actually what we're looking at also as a parallel. Is the geostationary orbit and other orbits are managed by an international organization called the International Telecommunication Union. Which is a UN specialized agency in Geneva. It's real estate, really, right? Sorry? It's real estate that people are fighting over. No, because you don't own it. Yeah, it's again, you get a slot and a frequency where you can put your satellite. And so, you have a right to use that. And you have therefore also a right to protection from interference by others. A right given by this union? Yes. Allocated, managed by the ITU. Yes. And this is… You said they work together with the UN. Are they the UN? It is a specialized agency of the UN. Okay. I'm looking for a parallel here. A concession? It is like usufructus. It is like when you own a house. You own a house, but you don't own the ground. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. And so, you keep on coming back. It is the UN. So, a lot of these things are still at least… That will stay. The UN is… Yeah. That will stay. It will be the UN. Yeah. It is a special organization because for some reason it's always that the UN is sort of like the earth governance system, of course. Also out of space. It is, of course. It is an intergovernmental organization. So, you should not see the UN as some supranational body. It's not like the EU, which in some areas has supranational capacity, authority. Like in aviation, it's only the EU that negotiates landing rights with other countries. The UN is an intergovernmental organization. So, it only has so many rights. And it only has so many rights as its members gives them. Yeah, yeah. So, it is not that they are a super cop or something. No. But they are assigned by their members to manage this scarce resource. It's a scarce natural resource, the geostationary orbit. Yeah, yeah. So, you need management. So, that's why also we involve the ITU in this working group that we established because their model is quite interesting. So, they have, for instance, set up kind of a two-tier system where on the one hand you have a system where every country has a system. Where every country has a guaranteed right to one slot in the geostationary orbit. And other parts are free for first come, first served. Because you have states that will need slots because they have more activities and so on. Yeah. So, something like that, you know, can be a way forward. And if you are a country or a company and you get assigned some location in geostationary orbit, what obligations come with that? That you should also not interfere with the activities of the geostationary orbit. The activities of others that you… Well, normally there are also more recent rules that have been designed because some states were claiming spots in the geostationary orbit. But were then not putting satellites there and they were leasing the slots or doing other kinds of business. Okay. So, now there's a rule that you have to actually put a satellite there within seven years. The bringing into use rule. And people abide by that? Well, it's still difficult. And especially with this new tendency of having large constellations. Where you have like OneWeb, which is a British company which wants to launch hundreds of satellites into low Earth orbit. It's not in geo. Into low Earth orbit. And they will at some point have to put one satellite in such a slot. But there are many hundreds more coming or not. And so, they could occupy space, literally and figuratively speaking, that others could also use. So, you need some rational management of that. Can I go to a case again? Sure. I have one question concerning real estate in space. Yes. So, speaking of obligations. One could be putting a satellite there when you have been given some location. But how about picking up the garbage, clearing up the garbage when you leave? Well, that's an important new topic, I would say. But I think as it is here on Earth, you know. We are much more aware that we have to protect ourselves. We have to protect our environment for future generations. And nobody hesitated about plastic straws 20 years ago. And in space, it's a little bit the same. In the beginning, states were just launching anything they could for the fun of it, basically. And did not really care about the environment. But things are getting fuller and fuller. Satellites, the higher they are, take many, many years to be pulled back to the Earth eventually, as they all do. And so, it's getting fuller. Yeah. It can be in geostationary orbit. It's very, very long. Sure. But so, it's getting fuller and fuller. More and more states have ambitions, want to launch satellites. More and more private companies want to do so. So, you have all kinds of new actors. And there's a lot of garbage up there. So, there's not really a clear obligation in the treaties that we have that says you have to clean up your garbage. There is one article that says you should not contaminate, harmfully interfere with the environment. Which you could sort of use as a, let's say, as a starting point. And then the United Nations have adopted certain guidelines, debris mitigation guidelines. But they are not a treaty. So, it's not binding law. But states and agencies do abide by them because everybody knows that we have to care for the environment and we have to be sustainable. Okay. So, that's reasonably effective. Yeah. I still think there's a lot of work to do. And there are predictions that collisions may occur. And the Kessler syndrome and so on, which you've no doubt heard about. Like self-multiplying garbage. Yeah, you get self-perpetuating collisions. And of course, then the interests at stake are huge. Everybody is super reliant and dependent on space as a critical infrastructure. So, it is in the interest of all to be guided by those principles. So, one good thing maybe. In space, you can't pollute without feeling the consequences yourself. For the time being, you can. Well, yeah, I guess it's still so big and the probability of a collision is… If it's a problem for everybody, it's also a problem for you. It affects everybody. It affects everybody. It will. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so… This was sort of going towards my case. So, that's a perfect… Go ahead then. So, what happens if… By the way, I love your necklace. It's great. It's like planets. They look like the planets. It's banana actually. It is what? Banana. It's a banana? Yeah. It's made from banana leaves. It's made from banana leaves? Yeah. No kidding. Oh, it looks… Oh, it looks… Yeah, like… Okay. Maybe this is the time to tell people we're also on YouTube. Yes. Exactly. So, you can see the necklace. There's a camera here. Yeah, you can… It's sort of tucked away, but you can definitely see. Maybe zoom in a little and you can definitely see him. Yeah. It's on YouTube. We are Space Cowboys Podcast. So, just put that name in the search box and you'll find us. Yeah. And you'll find us every week and live show coming up. This time, hopefully next week, maybe the week after. Yeah, it's coming. How about your case? Yes, the case. Well, has this ever happened and what if you then hit a satellite and a television goes out in all of Slovakia? I don't know. Somewhere the TV goes out because you launched your satellite. It's exploded in a billion little pieces and it goes out. What happened? Well, that has happened. There have been collisions in outer space. Can you remember a case? Well, the most recent one where two… Two intact objects collided with each other and where one active satellite was actually really broken up in pieces and that caused disturbance was 2009. An old Cosmos satellite of the former Soviet Union and a satellite of the Iridium constellation, an American company that had, I think, 66 satellites in orbit and of which one was exploded by this collision. And we were all thinking that we were going to have a case. And one of the particularities of space law is that we don't have… You were happy. Yeah, we don't have case law. And that is a problem because having case, having courts interpret the treaties can help clarify the meaning and that is missing. So all you have is treaties and a lot of reasonable people sorting things out. Yeah, you have all the scholars who interpret in their books and so on but it can't go any way. Hypothetically, yeah. Yeah. So what happened? But there are rules. Even of a state in this case of the Soviet Union that didn't exist anymore. So that's… Yeah, but then you have state succession. Oh, there are rules about that. Oh, okay. But in this case, if there would be a case and I analyze it with my students, of course, it's a super nice case study. You would have, when damage occurs in space, the space treaties provide for a fault liability system. So you would only be able to claim damage from the other state, from the other launching state of the other satellite if you could show that the damage was due to the fault of that state. And there's no really standard of fault and it's going to be super difficult because it's up there and who was at fault, you know? Should the Soviet Union have cleaned up their satellite or should Iridium have checked the debris because you can track debris and moved out of the way and you can maneuver satellites? So we don't really know which way it would go. In this case, Iridium had a spare already in orbit which they could put in the constellation so there was no real interruption of service. Wow. So it hasn't led to a case. And we also had a case of a satellite that crashed on Canadian territory so something can also come back. Cosmos 954. Right. Something can also come back to Earth. The Chinese one that was… No, the Russian one. Oh, sorry. Which one are we talking about? Because there was recently also a Chinese one that was coming down. Tanja told me just now Cosmos 954, right? Cosmos 954 is a case in 1978 which crashed on Canadian country and had no damage. And it was a nuclear power source on board which was spread over the country. So there were no… Very remote region. Yeah, it was remote region. There were no casualties but it had to be cleaned up. Yeah. So in the case that something causes damage on Earth, there is what we call an absolute liability. So there's no need to prove fault like you have in space because the consideration was an innocent victim on the ground should not have to prove fault. Yeah, you can't blame the Canadians. So you would be liable. Yeah. So unfortunately this also did not lead really to a case. In the end the Soviets did pay I think 3 million to the Canadians. Are parties in space conflicts very reluctant to make a case? Yeah, because you know we all depend on each other. And I think as long as there's no catastrophic event like the gravity movie scenario, you know, where people die on the space station or something like that. The whole space station blows up I believe. Yeah, because there will also… There will always be other interests. There is other industrial interest or agriculture, trade, whatever that will… So unless something is really dramatic… Yeah, there's a very strong incentive to sort things out reasonably. Yes. And you see even in the International Space Station where we all depend on the Russians to bring back our astronauts and to bring them to the ISS. Although we have a lot of tensions here on Earth, we completely depend on the Russians to bring our astronauts safely back home and that works. Because everybody knows we have to do it together. And they don't abuse their power there. Well, they increase the price a little bit as soon as the shuttle went up I think the price doubled. That's a monopoly people. Sorry about that. So if I understand you correctly, a lot of this is hypothetical. Yeah, in terms of liability, yes. But in terms of other things like registering objects or assigning jurisdiction. Things like that, it's certainly used. But in terms of liability, yes. It has not led to an application in practice. And I believe that the Netherlands wants to, as very often, wants to play a sort of like bigger role when it comes to space law. I want to hear an ambition from the Dutch government. Oh, that's something we can profile ourselves in. Oh, I haven't heard that. Oh, okay. I heard it. Yeah, especially The Hague being… The city of international peace and justice. Yeah, exactly. Sure. And that, as I mentioned, set up that working group. And that is really, I think, playing an important role and it's being recognized worldwide. And of course, we have a legacy of Gautius, you know, the father of international law. Hugo de Goot, who was from the Netherlands, from Leiden. And we have a big history in the law of the sea. And so we had also a lot of aviation lawyers and space lawyers. And we have this institute at the University in Leiden, which is one of the few in the world. So that's quite a unique position. What needs to happen now? That's sort of the… Where is this going now? Well, do countries… It all needs an update. But do countries now need to come together for this next step in space exploration that's coming up? Where all these private companies are going out? Where… Yeah, what are the… Well, you have that basic framework. And I think that framework is a set of principles that should continue to govern the activities. But you do need further implementation, elaboration. You need to address new topics like those mega constellations that I mentioned, or space mining, or small satellites, or the debris problem, which are not yet very clearly regulated and settled in the treaties. And so we need additional law. We need much more national law because we have so many more companies arising and wanting to do space business. A company is not bound to a treaty. And so you need to find a way to implement the treaty obligations of the state, which is also an obligation under the treaty. States have to authorize and supervise activities of private companies. And so that is things that have to be done. So it's really a field of law that is in full development. Here's a question. I hear you say we need national law. Are there any Dutch politicians working on this? Is it difficult for you to find people who are willing to take this further? Well, no. I think space has always been high on the agenda policy-wise for the Netherlands. But I don't read anything about this in the papers. Like some proposed law or something. No, more can be done. But we have a very good legal system here in the Netherlands. We have had a national space law since 10 years. Okay, when you say we need more national law, you mean other countries? Yeah. Okay. The United States was also working on a better law. They have a better law for private companies. Well, they have law since the 1950s when they set up NASA and they commercialized communication already in the 1960s. So that is the country that's most advanced. But recently you have more and more European countries like Finland and Denmark. And the UK has just overhauled its whole system because it wants to promote suborbital flights. It wants to have spaceports. So they needed a new law that would encourage that new industry to develop. So you see more and more like this happening. And that is the future. It's not going to be only state activities. It's going to be first probably a partnership and eventually you have to privatize the business as an industry becomes mature. I once heard, but please correct me if I'm wrong, that the country where you're being launched from is the responsible country. Yeah, the launching state is the state that will be liable for damage. So the launching state can, however, be different states. It can be the state from the territory of which a launch is taking place or the state that procures the launch, a state that buys a launch from another country. So there can be several states that qualify as a launching state and to which a victim could present a claim. Yeah, so a rocket launched by ESA from French Guiana crashing down on the United States. That's a difficult case then. Or is it then French Guiana or is it ESA? No, because then there is an agreement between France and ESA. You take a bit of a particular example because of course ESA launches from French Guiana, which is French territory, right? But there is an agreement when these are ESA launches, ESA will accept the liability as a launching authority. So in the space treaties, there is a possibility for international organizations to accept the obligations. and rights of treaties and to also be a launching authority and a registering authority. But national laws cannot solve this then. This will not be managed on a national scale. This particular example, there will be an agreement between ESA and France on the apportionment of the liability. But of course you can look at the treaties to see who would be. But if you would take a simpler example of an Indian rocket that would launch a Dutch satellite and the satellite gets lost. Crashes onto Bangladesh? Crashes onto Bangladesh. Bangladesh could go to India because from that territory it is launched or that's a launching state. But you could also argue that the Netherlands procured the launch because its company has bought a launch service from India. And so that might also qualify the Netherlands as a launching state. So then Bangladesh can choose and they could choose the country with the deepest pockets where to present their project. Good idea. It's up to them to settle it between them. But they wanted it to be easy for a victim to identify a potential state where they can present their claim. Can I take you to some different region of space exploration? Suppose I'm a country or a company. I want to land on the moon. Can I just land anywhere? Well, you're presenting a case that has different angles. If you're talking about a country, there's probably less rules. And of course, there's not a lot on the moon. For the time being, you would inform the scientific community of your plans to land like the Chinese did recently on the far side of the moon. But there's not somewhere where you have to register your intention. Hey guys, I'm going, picking that spot. But if it is a private company, you have that obligation of the state to authorize and supervise, right? So they will have to... The government will have to assess whether the plan of the private company is okay, whether that's safe, whether it's not going to interfere with another rover or whatever. I mean, we're not there yet. It's not yet again full. But should you have different settlements on the moon, that may become more difficult. And then you need, again, what these building blocks that I mentioned are doing. You need rules on registering priority rights on certain areas, like what we're doing with the geostationary orbit. You need to know who is where, and that gives you then a right to protection. Yeah. And there's something we find more and more interesting. We're going to do more about planetary protection. And the moon in this respect is also a planet. It's a world. It's a body. Celestial body. That's the term in the treaties. So as a space faring nation, you're supposed to take care that your space probes are clean and do not introduce microbes or anything. Is that something that everybody abides by? I mean, does everybody know they should do this? And what if you don't? What if you don't? Yeah. So that is, again, a link you can make to that one article in the Outer Space Treaty that says you should not harmfully contaminate outer space or negatively affect the environment on the Earth. And how can you even prevent doing that? Yeah. And the treaty obligation is really more about if that should be the case, you have to consult each other. That's a very strong obligation. You get an angry letter. Yeah, exactly. So that doesn't help much. But we also have non-binding guidelines, again, like we have in the debris area and other areas, which are made by COSPAR, the Committee on Space Research, which has established with its members, which are thousands of scientists, which has established a planetary protection protocol. And they have categorized the different kinds of danger of emission, the risk that the mission may pose. And according to the category, you have to impose certain safety measures. And so for Mars, they are more stringent than for the Moon, for instance, because there's gravity and things may grow and an atmosphere. Yeah, an atmosphere. So that is, again, there are voluntary guidelines, but they are definitely followed by all the missions of states and agencies and so on. But will that also be the case for private companies? And that's, of course, again, the next step. How do we do that? We have the first ever license that was given to a private company to land something on the Moon, was given to Moon Express, a company in the United States. And they're going soon, right? Yeah, it gets delayed every time. I'm not sure. All right. I'll do a quick search. You do a quick search. And they were, so they were reviewed by the government to see if their mission was okay, if they would get the license. And the government was the United States? Yeah. And they imposed on Moon Express the duty to obey by the planetary protection guidelines of COSPAR. So what you see is that in the national legal orders, those voluntary guidelines, whether it's planetary protection or debris or things like that, will become binding on private parties. And so that gives hope that even if it is not laid down in a treaty, which would be the ideal solution, it will still work as privatization goes on. Yeah. And on a national level, I think there is enough awareness that this is necessary for everybody to abide by. And when the Chinese went with their cotton seeds, they were in a sealed container. And, you know, they seem to have abided by those principles. But when private enterprise goes, we will have to make sure that the national governments make sure that those rules are implemented. Yeah. Listening to you, I get the impression that space is a shining example. Of a field where, okay, we have some law, but maybe we don't even need any. There are some treaties, but, well, people solve everything amongst themselves, being reasonable and being very conscious of their common interest. Is that too nice a view? Yeah, it may be. I sometimes, I basically think that too. And it may be in a way naive when you hear Trump say, you know, you can't say anything about the space force or things like that. Of course, it is a very strategic area. But going back to the why states do that, of course, they do that out of a sense of responsibility, for sure. But they also do that because they have agreed on those rules in the space treaties, which set the basis for a peaceful coexistence. And, you know, sometimes there is criticism on the treaty because it doesn't give definitions. It doesn't deal with everything. But it has preserved outer space from becoming a theater of war. And we are doing things in a peaceful manner in cooperation. And of course, space is used for military purposes. That is clear. Like spy satellites. Yeah, space originated from the military. Testing of some space weapons, I think. Well, and the whole GPS is a military system. Oh, yeah, sure. So, and as you say, spying satellites as well. Space is also by definition dual nature. Any satellite, you can use it to check on the crops of corn. But you can also check whether there's a training camp in Pakistan. So it is sometimes difficult to draw the line. And it's also not realistic to say that that is prohibited. Because using space in a peaceful military manner can also help preserve the peace, I think. But putting weapons is, of course, another thing. And I don't think there are any. And yeah, sometimes you have someone like Trump threatening to do so. But then he has also a whole democratic system behind him, which I think will... Well, it's clear that that discussion has diluted a lot. And, you know, you already have the Air Force, which has a space command. So basically it's boiling down to that what is already there. Yeah, but since you brought it up, a space force, would that be prohibited by some treaty? No, no. That is a national decision on having a branch of the United States. And it's a part of the military that deals with strategic issues in space. So they can't just do it. Well, they could do... Even if it was prohibited, they could do it, right? Sure. What is prohibited is to put nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction anywhere in outer space. And the celestial bodies have to be used for exclusively peaceful purposes. So there is a bit stronger obligation. So theoretically, you could say anything that is not a nuclear weapon or a weapon of mass destruction would be allowed. Maybe. Maybe. But then on the other hand... But no military bases on the Moon or on an asteroid. You can put a military base on the Moon if it's used for scientific purposes, but not for military purposes. How's that work? But you could still use military personnel. No, that's... State aircraft can also be used for civil purposes or the other way around. So you can do that. A small little update on the Moon Express. They... So they didn't go to the Moon. No, not yet. They secured some new funding and they're a contender for a NASA contract to fly small payloads to the lunar surface as soon as 2019 or let's say 2020. Okay. But we will have, I think, this month an Israeli mission to the Moon. But it's not entirely a commercial private mission. It's IL Space. And many of these companies were contenders in the so-called Google Lunar Express. And IL Space was also. But it is sort of a governmental mission. It's not really something that would be licensed as a private commercial mission. So a lot of things are happening. And you already said for the past five years, this whole discussion has been ongoing. What I'm wondering about is, well, you have clearly made a very good career out of this, out of space law. But somebody listening to this and interested in this, is there a market for space law? Is it very high up in the tree, international law, that kind of thing? Can you start a law consulting business today and that it will actually create value for companies? Good question. How do you see this? Yeah, it's a very good question. And I'm confronted with that in the university. I mean, we have had since 20 years now, nearly 20 years, a master's program in air and space law, which is a very international program. And we have about 35 students every year from all over the world and really from all corners of the world. And they study both air and space law. And of course, more jobs can be found in the air law field. But what I clearly see in the last 10 years or so is that the space law market is expanding. And students find internships, which sometimes evolve in jobs, in space companies, in agencies and so on. So it's definitely growing. And of course, in Europe, we're a little bit behind on the United States. Oh, again. Yeah, of course. So it is possible. And there are jobs. There are jobs for sure. For sure. And I mean, it's still law firms. It's going to be a growing business. It is growing. And law firms who specialize in air law also become interested in space law. And you have also activities that are a little bit at the borderline between the two, like suborbital flights. They are going to 100 kilometers. Of course, the companies say, hey, you're going to be an astronaut. You're going to space. But there's not really a boundary, an internationally agreed boundary. So nobody really can say 100 kilometers is where space begins and therefore is where space law applies. So these activities, we have to quite urgently come to a solution on whether we are going to apply air law or space law or some combination. And so you see the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, which is the UN organization dealing with aviation, and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs. So both these bodies which are talking together on, you know, we have to deal with issues like safety. These vehicles are going to fly through airspace. Who has a priority? Do we apply… Who yields to whom? Exactly. You need space traffic management. That's also a new topic. Oh, yeah. So… Also a new job opportunity. Exactly. So the jobs are the job potential. And I see that my students do get interesting positions and they are very inventive. Yeah, in finding stuff and doing jobs. How many students do you have in each year? About 30, 35. 30, 35 per year. Air and space law students being delivered to the market. Getting employed. Yeah. Yeah. And then we're one of few institutes in the world. So there are a few others who do that. But this, of course, it is a niche market for sure. But it is also a market that is expanding and it is often the combination of being a contract lawyer and knowing also about space law, which can help you then implement national law, insurance, intellectual property. So it is also something that is multi-pillar, so to say. Thijs, anything? Yeah. Before we let you go, where do you see the initiative coming from? Will this be the United Nations that does all this or do you think that it's more private companies that are going to pull you in? Or just, you know, yeah, where do you see the initiative coming from, from this whole development to new space law? I think the push is definitely coming from industry. Yeah. And they push the governments to settle issues that are unclear. Yeah. And I still see a role for the UN, even though I don't think they will be concluding any new treaties because there's no political will to conclude treaties. You know, states are very nationalistic at the moment. Yeah. They don't want to give up sovereignty usually. You see it in climate change and anything, you know. It's very hard. So there will be a growing role for national law. But the push will come from industry who develop new means and it's going faster and faster. They're coming up with new ideas as we speak. So industries like on-orbit surfacing or active debris removal, industry wants to do it. So we have to deal with the rules. And we're going to be there to report on it. We will. Exactly. Thank you very much, Taina Masson. Thank you so much. And we will most certainly invite you some other time. Yes. Definitely. Yeah. When all these things are happening. With your planet necklace, hopefully. Thank you. Thank you to all our listeners too. So you can follow us on Spotify, YouTube, where else? On BNR. Every. BNR.NL. Yeah. Or any crazy app that you can find. YouTube. Did you say that? YouTube. Yeah. I'm going to go to YouTube. Okay. Thanks, Thijs Roes. Thank you, Herbert. My colleague. Yes. Okay. See you all next week. Who do we have next week? Let me take a quick look. Yeah. I don't even know where I've got the document. Yeah. Thinky, thinky. We have to. Okay. This podcast will be slightly longer. Yeah. I got it. Coen Janssen from Hyber. Hyber. Yeah. Hyber. Hyber is one of the five current companies in the Netherlands that have a license under the Dutch legislation. Okay. They are the ones that they received their license to carry out space activities last April, I think. And I know what they do. They are creating a network, an internet from space for Internet of Things applications. Yeah. Super cool. And it's an example of a constellation of various small satellites and so on. Low bandwidth, lots and lots of points where they can beam their data to and receive data from. Well, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you won't miss anything. This was Space Cowboys number six. See you next week. See you next week on seven. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.