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Abstract

with a music producer who says when he sees teenagers, he listens to their conversation to see what preoccupies the youth of today. At the supermarket, a group of teens is hanging out in the alcohol aisle. I prick up my ears as I push my trolley past. They are talking about house prices.Their conversation is part disbelief at the cost of property and part hopelessness that they will never be able to afford a space of their own. Don’t worry, one says, the sea levels are going to flood everything, so there won’t be any houses left anyway. Another says he’s bought Bitcoin and that’ll go up so much he’ll be sorted. Elon Musk’s name comes up again in relation to living on Mars. Then they start talking about a song I haven’t heard that “totally slaps”.Musk’s name pops up frequently in relation to space. He represents a sort of science fiction hope that we can live the Star Trek life. With our increasing awareness of climate change, the idea of giving up on our planet and living in space is appealing. We’ve messed up Earth, so let’s get a new one. I’m reminded of the shared sandwich toaster at university that became so caked in solidified cheese no one wanted to clean it. Eventually, someone chucked it in the bin and bought another one from Sainsbury's.But (and incredibly as a species, it seems we need to hear this) the Earth is not a sandwich toaster that can be replaced rather than cleaned. Sainsbury’s doesn’t sell replacement planets. And even if they did, they wouldn’t be ready for us to live on. The most inhabitable part of Mars is significantly less inhabitable than the least inhabitable part of Earth. The point about real estate is true for all space: location is everything. Two acres on the Moon are not worth two acres on Earth. Even if they have views across the Sea of Tranquility.The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prevents any nation from claiming sovereignty of space beyond the Earth. I wonder if we’d have signed up to this if there was money to be made from owning the Moon. Space, the treaty says, is “the province of all mankind”. There’s still the suggestion it is owned, just owned by all of us. A sort of shared resource like the air, or Wikipedia, or one of those community centers with murals on the walls.This hasn’t stopped crackpots and chancers from claiming bits of space. In 1954 Jenaro Gajardo said he owned the Moon. As no objections were raised, his petition was logged in the Chilean Real Estate Register. Later, he explained he did it to get into a social club in Talca whose rules required applicants to own property. He didn’t own any space on Earth, so pretended he owned space in space. There’s no record of whether they approved his membership. I find myself wondering if he was mocking the rules of the social club or the concept of ownership itself.In 2001, Gregory W. Nemitz claimed he owned the Asteroid 433 Eros, onto which NASA landed a probe. He sent NASA a (surprisingly reasonable) parking charge of $20. NASA declined to pay.Others have tried to make a business of sellin

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g land on the Moon. Dennis Hope started the “Lunar Embassy Commission”. His is the business you see in novelty shops. The cardboard present packets for people you don’t know what to get: spa days, bungee jumping experiences, “Buy a plot of land on the moon.” Hope claims to have sold over two million plots for around $20 per plot.But do you really own something if you can’t get to it? What was Memitz going to do about NASA’s spaceship? Clamp it? While the idea of claiming ownership of the Moon or an asteroid just by looking at it seems like a joke or publicity stunt, all claims of ownership of land on Earth began in a similar way. At one point, no one owned anything, and then gradually, through war and commerce and legality and marriage and inheritance and fraud and all sorts of other human machinations, we divided our space into smaller and smaller chunks, enshrined by increasingly abstract legal rules.For many years, a core principle in property law was the ad coelum doctrine: the idea that “whoever owns the soil, owns everything all the way up to Heaven and all the way down to Hell.” This sounded perfectly reasonable to the ancient Roman jurist who wrote it in the 13th Century but now we have airplanes and satellites and sewerage pipes and fracking it’s no longer possible to own everything beneath and above you. The ISS does not have to ask to pass over my flat.The United States Supreme Court concluded in 1946 that a landowner owns “as much of the space above the ground as he can occupy or use.” Another legal doctrine: possession is nine-tenths of the law. Because United Airlines can get to the space thousands of feet above my flat, they have more rights to it than I do. How quickly the law changed when that space became useful. It’s all very well saying space is for the province of mankind, but when someone finds gold on the Moon or oil on an asteroid, I suspect those spaces may rapidly become the province of a limited few.The value of space depends on where it is, but it also depends on when it is. Oil fields are worth significantly more now than before we realized we could burn oil. Houses with sea views are luxuries, but their value depends on whether it’s before or after the flood defenses fail.Under the floorboards, with the plumber, we find a piece of paper that has been pushed between the cracks.“Dear parent,” it says, “Lucy did not hand in her physics homework yesterday.”I’m amused by little Lucy popping this between the cracks, into the no-man’s-land below. I wonder if she got away with it. But it also makes me think of the people who owned this space in the past, and the people who will own it in the future. Ownership of space is a four-dimensional quality. As much as we say we “own” something, we only do so between two dates. We look after it for a brief period before we hand it over to the next owners who then do the same. This is true for my flat and its gappy floorboards, but it’s also, I realize, true for the whole planet.</article></body>

Our Strange Ideas About Owning Space

Who owns spaces on our planet (and beyond) and what does owning them mean?

The plumber tells me that Elon Musk plans to surround the planet with so many satellites that NASA won’t be able to launch any more rockets. And then he’ll go live on Mars. “Musk will control Earth from space,” he concludes.

We’re crouched under my floorboards as he tells me this. He’s pointing out that the pipework in my flat needs replacing and consequently his bill will be more expensive than the original estimate. The Elon Musk story is, perhaps, to soften the blow.

Under my floorboards is this kind of… gap. Between my floor and the ceiling of the flat below mine is about 5 feet of space. It is not marked on the property deeds, it does not show up on any map. Had the plumber not taken up the floorboards, I’d have not known it was there.

In fact, my whole flat is surrounded by odd bits of space. The walls are hollow with cavities behind them. Above the ceiling is a void before the roof begins. This space under the floor could house a second-floor wine cellar. For a city where space is at a premium, this empty usable space makes no sense. On one side of my thin plasterboard wall, space is £729 per square foot, on the other side, it doesn’t belong to anyone. A sort of real estate no man’s land. Space is eye-wateringly expensive or worthless.

This is the reality of space. The price of it depends on where it is. San Francisco versus Kansas City. London versus Hartlepool. Upwind from the sewage plant versus downwind. What is “surprisingly spacious” in one is a hovel in the other.

I am thinking about the price of space because I have bought my first flat. Although it was the cheapest property in the estate agent, my flat cost an eye-watering sum, leaving me with a mortgage many times my salary. My online banking shows a negative value with so many digits it no longer seems to represent anything. Every day the number gets more negative as that day’s interest is added on. This is the price of space.

The plumber tells me that he would like to buy property, but he can’t afford it. He lives with his dad. When he buys a flat, he adds, he’ll rent it out to bring in extra money. He will buy space, and then charge other people to use it. They say time is money, but really space is where the money is. “Buy land,” Mark Twain quipped, “they’re not making it anymore.” Really, the quote should be: buy land, then you can charge someone to use it.

I read an interview with a music producer who says when he sees teenagers, he listens to their conversation to see what preoccupies the youth of today. At the supermarket, a group of teens is hanging out in the alcohol aisle. I prick up my ears as I push my trolley past. They are talking about house prices.

Their conversation is part disbelief at the cost of property and part hopelessness that they will never be able to afford a space of their own. Don’t worry, one says, the sea levels are going to flood everything, so there won’t be any houses left anyway. Another says he’s bought Bitcoin and that’ll go up so much he’ll be sorted. Elon Musk’s name comes up again in relation to living on Mars. Then they start talking about a song I haven’t heard that “totally slaps”.

Musk’s name pops up frequently in relation to space. He represents a sort of science fiction hope that we can live the Star Trek life. With our increasing awareness of climate change, the idea of giving up on our planet and living in space is appealing. We’ve messed up Earth, so let’s get a new one. I’m reminded of the shared sandwich toaster at university that became so caked in solidified cheese no one wanted to clean it. Eventually, someone chucked it in the bin and bought another one from Sainsbury's.

But (and incredibly as a species, it seems we need to hear this) the Earth is not a sandwich toaster that can be replaced rather than cleaned. Sainsbury’s doesn’t sell replacement planets. And even if they did, they wouldn’t be ready for us to live on. The most inhabitable part of Mars is significantly less inhabitable than the least inhabitable part of Earth. The point about real estate is true for all space: location is everything. Two acres on the Moon are not worth two acres on Earth. Even if they have views across the Sea of Tranquility.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prevents any nation from claiming sovereignty of space beyond the Earth. I wonder if we’d have signed up to this if there was money to be made from owning the Moon. Space, the treaty says, is “the province of all mankind”. There’s still the suggestion it is owned, just owned by all of us. A sort of shared resource like the air, or Wikipedia, or one of those community centers with murals on the walls.

This hasn’t stopped crackpots and chancers from claiming bits of space. In 1954 Jenaro Gajardo said he owned the Moon. As no objections were raised, his petition was logged in the Chilean Real Estate Register. Later, he explained he did it to get into a social club in Talca whose rules required applicants to own property. He didn’t own any space on Earth, so pretended he owned space in space. There’s no record of whether they approved his membership. I find myself wondering if he was mocking the rules of the social club or the concept of ownership itself.

In 2001, Gregory W. Nemitz claimed he owned the Asteroid 433 Eros, onto which NASA landed a probe. He sent NASA a (surprisingly reasonable) parking charge of $20. NASA declined to pay.

Others have tried to make a business of selling land on the Moon. Dennis Hope started the “Lunar Embassy Commission”. His is the business you see in novelty shops. The cardboard present packets for people you don’t know what to get: spa days, bungee jumping experiences, “Buy a plot of land on the moon.” Hope claims to have sold over two million plots for around $20 per plot.

But do you really own something if you can’t get to it? What was Memitz going to do about NASA’s spaceship? Clamp it? While the idea of claiming ownership of the Moon or an asteroid just by looking at it seems like a joke or publicity stunt, all claims of ownership of land on Earth began in a similar way. At one point, no one owned anything, and then gradually, through war and commerce and legality and marriage and inheritance and fraud and all sorts of other human machinations, we divided our space into smaller and smaller chunks, enshrined by increasingly abstract legal rules.

For many years, a core principle in property law was the ad coelum doctrine: the idea that “whoever owns the soil, owns everything all the way up to Heaven and all the way down to Hell.” This sounded perfectly reasonable to the ancient Roman jurist who wrote it in the 13th Century but now we have airplanes and satellites and sewerage pipes and fracking it’s no longer possible to own everything beneath and above you. The ISS does not have to ask to pass over my flat.

The United States Supreme Court concluded in 1946 that a landowner owns “as much of the space above the ground as he can occupy or use.” Another legal doctrine: possession is nine-tenths of the law. Because United Airlines can get to the space thousands of feet above my flat, they have more rights to it than I do. How quickly the law changed when that space became useful. It’s all very well saying space is for the province of mankind, but when someone finds gold on the Moon or oil on an asteroid, I suspect those spaces may rapidly become the province of a limited few.

The value of space depends on where it is, but it also depends on when it is. Oil fields are worth significantly more now than before we realized we could burn oil. Houses with sea views are luxuries, but their value depends on whether it’s before or after the flood defenses fail.

Under the floorboards, with the plumber, we find a piece of paper that has been pushed between the cracks.

“Dear parent,” it says, “Lucy did not hand in her physics homework yesterday.”

I’m amused by little Lucy popping this between the cracks, into the no-man’s-land below. I wonder if she got away with it. But it also makes me think of the people who owned this space in the past, and the people who will own it in the future. Ownership of space is a four-dimensional quality. As much as we say we “own” something, we only do so between two dates. We look after it for a brief period before we hand it over to the next owners who then do the same. This is true for my flat and its gappy floorboards, but it’s also, I realize, true for the whole planet.