Analytical Review #4

Source:

                Hertzfeld, Henry R. "Bringing Space Law into the Commercial World: Property Rights without Sovereignty." All Business. Dun & Bradstreet, Summer 2005. Web. 04 Feb. 2012. <http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/883692-1.html>.

Analytical Review:

                "Bringing Space Law into the Commercial World: Property Rights without Sovereignty," by Henry Hertzfeld, is an analysis of the current situation regarding commercial space travel and any related tangent topics. Firstly, Hertzfeld opens the article with an overview, stating that the current belief, or claim, is that no entity can claim the rights to any celestial body or part of outer space and this fact will hinder expansion into space because private, as well as public, entities will shy away from investing money into space exploration if they cannot guarantee a profit on their investment due to the inability to claim ownership of anything that takes place in space. Hertzfeld believes that misinterpretations and conflicting laws will allow entities to use the corrupt law system in a way that could be detrimental to future plans in space. For example, the illegal vending of property rights to land in space. If people end up seeing these as legitimate land-rights, then serious problems could arise in the future, when this land becomes more assessable to the average person.

                To set a sort of basis for his argument, Hertzfeld begins the analysis portion of his article by talking about the current laws, treaties and regulations in place with regards to space sovereignty. He notes that because the idea that space should be shared amongst every nation in the world, any profit made in space would thus need to be distributed as well, decreasing economic drive of investors. Another interesting point is that the government is liable for anything its citizens do in space.

                Next, Hertzfeld goes on to point out ambiguities as well as conflicting laws present. The major source of this conflict of laws is over the idea that if no one can own anything in space, then who should be taking responsibility for anything that occurs in space, whether it be good or bad. Some laws say that whoever owned the craft on earth is therefore liable, while other laws contradict.

                Next, intellectual property rights, basically, if anything is invented in space, who is liable / able to get patents. The biggest controversy here is with regards to the International Space Station. While the name would lend one to believe that the station is owned by multiple nations. But, actually, different parts are made by different countries, thus jurisdiction over the International Space Station is a somewhat tricky subject.

                The article continues to show the intricacies of space law and how they are currently affecting the population involved with space travel. Hertzfeld then wraps up the article by stating that private firms aren't really all that interested in owning anything in space, all they're interested about is the profit margin. The author begins by stating his thesis, that property rights may inhibit private expansion into space and allow for corrupt entities to make a quick buck, and then backs up his ideas with the various loopholes that are currently present in law and then how these loopholes can be manipulated in order to either claim ownership over something or to profit illegally from something.

Analytical Review

Source:

Kistler, Walter P. "Humanity's Future in Space." Editorial. The Futurist [Washington State] Jan. 1999. Science; Comprehensive Works, Technology: Comprehensive Works. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. http://search.proquest.com/docview/218565782/fulltext/13503C6DA9D7EEF54F/1?accountid=285.

Review:

            In the fourth major paragraph, the author states his thesis, "Exploring space and colonizing other planets is not an option. It is a necessity if humanity is to evolve and not become a stagnant species with no room and no incentive for further development." Prior to this, the author puts forth the different beliefs and agendas involved with the rationale behind each of the arguments in the debate over whether space travel should be something that we, as a race, are spending a significant portion of our resources on.

            The author structures the article into 5 parts: the first being the two different rationales that I mentioned earlier, the second is the decision that it is necessary for humanity to exist and explore space for the betterment of the race, thirdly, a list of short term goals that ought to be achieved in space, fourth, and somewhat a detour, the author includes a tangent relating to Space Tourism and what impacts it will have on the space scene and lastly, the longer term goals that humanity should once it has established itself in space.

            The author dwells on the short term uses of space as being in the realm of energy and resources. From putting massive solar energy panels into orbit to finding other sources of energy and income space can provide positive returns on investments.

            While space travel is expensive, opening it up to private entities will help to reduce the cost, as companies will increase efficiency and improve flight costs in order to attract more customers.

            When the author starts to look toward the long term goals, he gets somewhat pessimistic, pointing out that the long distances that must be traveled in space to get to the nearest star or planet inhibits a person from getting there during his / her lifetime. However, with advances in technology and with the help of space probes, humans will slowly but surely begin to branch out into other regions of space.

            The only problem I had with this article, even though I find it very useful still, is that the author doesn't explain why he believes that going into space is a good use of humanity's resources when we obviously could be using that large chunk of money on other things such as feeding people that are hungry or research toward curing incurable diseases. However, the ideas of this article still serve a very good purpose in the context of my research paper because I have other sources to help show why commercial and governmental branches of space travel are beneficial and what each of the two branches will lead to.

Analytical Review

Source:

Hertzfeld, Henry, der Dunk von, Robert Harding, and Joanne Gabrynowicz. "International Space Law Panel." The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations 11, no. 2 (2010): 7-26. http://search.proquest.com/docview/867268159?accountid=285.

                The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations (WJDIR) attended a panel discussion during October of 2009. The panel was called the International Space Law Panel and consisted of experts from different backgrounds, but each of their backgrounds was in some way tangent to Space Law; these experts’ names are Henry Hertzfeld, whom was the author of another one of my sources, Frans von der Dunk, Robert Harding and Joanne Gabrynowicz. The article is basically a synopsis with quotations of the questions asked by the WJDIR and the responses from each of the panel members. The questions posed by the WJDIR have quite a variety of topics such as the effectiveness and controllability of different types of weapons in space, the policies and viewpoints that the United States should take when cooperating with other countries regarding space, how international aid and assistance play a role in the abilities of underdeveloped countries to achieve space travel as well as what the roles of these underdeveloped countries should be when it comes to creating treaties that would potentially limit the more developed countries and how the advancements of technology in the near future could change the world’s view of space.

                As of right now, the only treaties in place regarding the limitation of weapons in space tend to concentrate on keeping strictly nuclear weapons out of orbit, as this was obviously a main concern during the times of the Cold War. These treaties are somewhat outdated because they do not completely specify what nuclear weapons are, the treaties merely reference them as WMD (weapons of mass destruction), or even mention other types of weapons, such as biological or chemical for example. However, the majority of the panel agreed that the definition of space weapons is very broad at the moment, thus it is very difficult to limit them. Also, they believed that it would be nearly impossible to control weapons in space once they were there and believed that space should be kept clear of such weapons, even though they thought it probably wouldn’t happen as once one country decides to put a weapon into space for its own protection, every other country will follow the trend in an attempt to protect its own wellbeing.

                During the cold war, international aid had one main hope, in persuading neutral countries to choose a side, either the US or the USSR. However, today, that is no longer the case, and the panelists believe that today financial aid and assistance can be much more mutually beneficial things. In fact, the panel believed that aid must be this way; otherwise it is simply one country gaining and the other country losing. Also, countries that do not have access to space should play a more limiting role in the creation of international treaties as they are obviously less affected by its outcomes and limitations; but, once a country became more prevalent in the “space scene” their influence would increase also.

                Another topic discussed by the panel is Obama’s new space policy that, in summary, says that the US needs to be and will be more international in its outlook and use of space, as opposed to the previous outlook of the United States during the Bush years, which tended to view space as solely a means of national security by the means of space superiority. The panel mentions that this type of cooperation will cause a greater amount of competition between the parties / countries involved. But, overall, this type of cooperation will be beneficial to the countries involved, even if a certain country’s space capabilities only range to putting simple satellites in orbit.

                The reason I picked this source was because it brought together a wide range of viewpoints and backgrounds and intellects and focused them on talking about a topic that could help to move my paper along. Also, it provides opinions that aren’t prevalent in some of my other important major sources.

Analytical Review

Source:

          Miller, Ryder W. "Astroenvironmentalism: The Case for Space Exploration as an Environmental Issue." Electronic Green Journal no. 15 (2001): 2-7. http://search.proquest.com/docview/197579864?accountid=285.

                In "Astroenvironmentalism: The Case for Space Exploration As An Environmental Issue," by Ryder Miller, Ryder brings up a very different way to look at space exploration that I had not previously considered or had even thought existed. When one thinks of space one tends to think of vast distances of nothingness, with the occasional comet, planet, star or moon, completely void of organisms and without the intricate systems that earth posses. However, Miller brings up a sort of ethical debate pertaining to protecting the environment  of space from the destructive tendencies of the human race. Obviously this is a reasonable claim when you're talking about keeping earth's upper atmosphere and orbital zone free of debris that is made of harmful chemicals that could eventually end up back on earth. This type of pollution can easily be agreed upon as something that we, as a species, would like to keep to a minimum. But, Miller relates other parts of space to earth and he believes that human beings must take the same precautions that we do here on earth with regards to our environment and translate them into space. Miller believes that property rights shouldn't be allowed in space because it increases the probability of conflict among entities in space. Conflicts can lead to worse things that can only have negative impacts on the immediate surroundings. Miller says that is it our moral obligation to keep space free of the stains we have put our earth through during our existence as a species.

                Basically, Miller desires that our race take the utmost caution when moving into space, showing the most respect possible to the various systems and environmental systems that are present on other celestial bodies. Terraforming, while it won't be economically feasible for another 150 or so years, is the process in which a group of pioneers, 100-150, inhabit a planet and attempt to create large scale environments on other celestial bodies like the environmental systems that exist on earth, for example, the creation of oxygen on a planet or the implementation of a water cycle, or a way to moderate temperatures to more easily support life. It's basically "earthifying another planet." Miller worries that humans tend to act arrogantly toward nature and this may cause us to trample over systems that have been in place since the dawn of our solar system. While Miller isn't completely against the idea of moving into space, he emphasizes the necessity for caution. Miller also worries that during the early days of International Outer Space Law the environment was not taken into consideration.

                My reason for choosing to use this article is, while it's not factually saturated, it provides another viewpoint in the expansion of technology and humans into space. A viewpoint more oriented toward nature, caution and compassion toward something that hasn't been messed with for over four billion years. If this paper is going to be successful, I'm going to need to compile a multitude of different viewpoints toward space expansion so that I can hypothesize the different outcomes and implications of each viewpoint.