A space economy based on legal conditions that ban private property – like those of North Korea – will never flourish, says Rainer Zitelmann

After the Moon Landing of 1969, manned space travel stagnated for over half a century. The space shuttle was far too expensive and never lived up to expectations. It was only with the advent of private space exploration that the cost of transporting a kilogram of payload into space fell dramatically. In fact, it now costs Elon Musk only around three percent as much to transport one kilogram into space as it used to cost NASA with the Space Shuttle.

Plans to establish a base on the moon – and later on Mars – or mine asteroids are becoming increasingly achievable thanks to the massive drop in launch costs. Today, there are more legal than technical obstacles to such visionary plans becoming reality. This is because governments will not be able to finance such ambitious undertakings, or will at least not be able to finance them alone. What it will take are strong economic incentives – and a secure legal framework.

It now costs Elon Musk only around three percent as much to transport one kilogram into space as it used to cost NASA with the Space Shuttle

Without private ownership, there will be no successful space economy. Most successful countries permit the private ownership of land. Where this does not exist, it is at least possible to buy usage rights from the state for 50 to 70 years, which can also be resold – as in Vietnam and China, for example. North Korea is the only country where even that is not possible. But a space economy based on legal conditions such as those in North Korea will never work.

The basis of space law is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST), which........

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