Announced Speakers for CSCA Annual Conference

The following speakers have confirmed their attendance at the Canadian Space Commerce Association Annual Conference happening Tuesday March 16th at the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto Ontario.

Wilfred So, a Patent Agent with the Intellectual Property Group at Blake, Cassels and Graydon LLP.will be speaking on the topic of "Protecting Any Invention under the Sun and Beyond – The Basics of Patents and Their Role in Space Activities." Mr. So's background includes R&D for landing gear, life support systems for the F-22 Raptor and visual inspection equipment for the Canadarm. He was also exposed to various other industries in a consulting role, including tire manufacturing, production of heavy tractors, textile manufacturing, chemical production and electrical turbine production.

Dr. Wade Cherrington, a physicist and consultant in the fields of computer-aided engineering and scientific computation working with Continuum Aerospace and their computer-aided engineering division, Continuum Simulation & Design will be speaking on the topic of "The Evolution of Computer-aided Engineering for Aerospace."

According to Cherrington, virtual prototyping through simulation-based design is a powerful tool for creating great products in less time, and this is particularly important in designing for aerospace and space applications. In his talk, he will describe some of the practices developed at Continuum Aerospace for achieving an appropriate mix of commercial and non-commercial tools in the simulation work-flow, with a view to achieving the greatest impact for a given budget. He'll  also provide an overview of current limitations and some exciting new trends in simulation-based design that promise to be transformative in the years ahead.

More speakers will be announced shortly. For more information on the event please check out the website at http://spacecommerce.ca/agm2010.

Feedback on "The Men Who've Sold the Moon."

Daniel Faber is an ex-president of the Canadian Space Society, an ex-employee of one of the finest small suppliers of hardware, software, training and expertise to the spacecraft community (Canadian based Sinclair Interplanetary) and, as near as I can tell, also an ex-Canadian since he recently returned to his Australian home to work on their changing space program (some of those changes are discussed in the ASICC Newletter #1 for December 2009, published by the Australian Space Industry Chamber of Commerce).

So now that we've made a list of his "exes" we should perhaps also note what he is one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful upcoming amateur experts on the potential economics likely to surround our new space age.

He also sometimes reads my blog and at this specific time has quite a bit of feedback on my post "The Men Who've Sold the Moon." This is what he thinks:

Everyone wants to own the moon...

Even Alexander the Great, on learning that there are countless orbs in the universe, wept saying "Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them [worlds], we have not yet conquered one?" (Pultarchus, c. 46-120, IV).

Dennis Hope is only the most recent/successful in a long and growing list of people purporting to own and/or sell the moon.

An excellent review of the legal aspects of this practice is given by Virgiliu Pop ("Who Owns the Moon? Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership", Space Regulations Library, Volume 4). His list of claimants to the moon and other celestial bodies includes A.D. Lindsay (USA, 1936), J.T. Mangan (USA, 1948), the "Elves', Gnomes' and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder and Marching Society" (USA, 1952), J.G. Vera (Chile, 1953), Planet Mars Development Corp. (USA, 1954), R.R. Coles (USA, 1955), Japan Astronomical Society (Japan, 1956), Oklahoma City Council (USA, 1965), Deer Park City Council (USA, 1965), 35 citizens of Geneva (USA, 1966), and Dennis Hope (1980).

Today I , Daniel Faber will also claim the Moon. Therefore, as per my decree, on this date in the year 2010, it is mine!

But of course, my claim changes nothing, just as most of the previous claims to the Moon have also changed nothing. Anyone of us can claim anything we want but a simple claim all by itself doesn't necessarily make it so.

For example, I could claim the television in your living room. Unfortunately for me, your own claim to that television can be backed up by the courts and the police, and you can exclude me from using it. This is what Dennis Hope and other would-be owners of celestial bodies are lacking - a court with jurisdiction over the territory, backed by executive powers (ie. police) to enforce those decisions. The 1966 United Nations Outer Space Treaty, by prohibiting national appropriation by any means, effectively prohibits the courts of any country from having the jurisdiction to hear the case.

As outlined in Virgiliu Pop's book, the treaty defines the Moon as belonging to "everyone and no-one" with the UN possessing the legitimacy and soft power through the Outer Space Treaty (and it's signatories) to allow for any nation to defend it's "rights" as defined in the treaty in UN sanctioned international courts.

So everyone, and not just Dennis Hope, can use the Moon, and can change it in any way, but they can not restrict others from using it. Importantly, anything extracted from the moon, such as rocks or minerals, can be treated like fish from the sea and become the property of whoever extracts them. You can mine the moon. You can operate a business. You can own your equipment and the things you extract - just not the real estate itself.

This community ownership has a definite appeal. We all own it and we can all use it! However the world is never quite so simple, and our well being is not so easily served. A lot of effort is needed before things returned from the moon start improving people's lives.

For example, at present, if you wish to raise a couple of hundred million dollars to characterize an ore body on the moon and prepare a mine plan (not an unusual price for such activities on the earth, before starting to construct a mine), you have no guarantee that someone will not jump in and build a mine on that spot while you are still trying to raise the necessary billion dollars or so to build your own mine. You can't hide something on that scale - everyone will know where the riches are. The usurper's business plan will look much better than yours, having saved those hundreds of millions of exploration costs. If I were an investor I know where I would put my money, and no court in the world could help you.

The result is that you will never get the hundreds of millions for the initial exploration.

So as presently structured, the only funding that will go into mineral exploration on the moon under this regime will be from governments and philanthropists. Progress will be painfully slow. Contrast this with most countries on Earth where the government grants exclusive mining rights to get investment happening, thus creating jobs, collecting taxes and keeping the price of metals low around the world. Thankfully history has a number of examples that show how the implementation of appropriate ownership rights over a communally owned environment can effect this process.

For example, the "Inclosure Acts" in the UK in 18th and early 19th centuries gave exclusive farming rights to individuals in what had previously been a communally owned environment. This meant that the traditional rights that all people once held to graze animals on these areas were denied. However, the incentive to the remaining farmers to improve their lands through drainage, cropping and management resulted in an explosion in agricultural productivity, reducing hunger and associated illness and allowing the population of Britain to increase 5 fold in 100 years.

Similarly in 1975 in Sichuan, China, the assigning of production contracts to individual households (which disband the previous existing commune system) led to a 25% increase in agricultural output within three years and an abatement of the famines that had devastated China in the preceding two decades. All the data supports Benjamin Franklin's assertion that "Mine is better than ours".

This is the economic reality produced by the legal reality. Every country in the world now subscribes to the capitalist system as the most efficient method of improving the economic well being of its citizens. This system requires the creation of "mini monopolies" to justify using up the resources (ie. cash) needed to make those improvements. The size and duration of the mini-monopoly needed to "incentivize" investment is commensurate with the risk and the size of the investment; typically twenty years for technology (patents), greater than a generation for farming, an indefinite period for land/ buildings and "until you stop exploring/mining" for minerals.

These are the legal and economic mechanisms, the organs and the "warts" that make the system work. We are comfortable with them in our own countries and our own backyards. Expanding our economy to the higher orb, warts and all, will bring benefits we have not started to imagine.

A Canadian Perspective on NASA Changes

The cat is finally out of the bag with the Monday release of the Obama administrations budget proposal for FY2011 and various Canadian pundits and self appointed experts have already begun to weigh in on whether the changes are good news or otherwise.

Kevin Shortt, President of the Canadian Space Society in a CTV News interview (available online at http://watch.ctv.ca/news/#clip262388) said that "we are at day zero" of the new budget and the winners and losers are still to be determined while York University astronomer Paul Delaney, states unequivocally that Canada's space program is "looking for a quick right turn towards the Europeans" as a result of the budget (his CTV interview is available online at http://watch.ctv.ca/news/#clip262148).

Global National News ran a short piece quoting from a variety of sources (including a seven second clip of me) under the title "Obama's deficit plan cuts NASA funding" during their February 1st National Newscast while Canadian Press author Peter Rakobowchuk discussed how the "Canadian aerospace industry says Obama budget presents a great opportunity."

The Rakobowchuk article, perhaps the most comprehensive in the Canadian mainstream press, includes comments from Claude Lajeunesse, CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada ("a great opportunity for Canadian companies"), Carole Duval, a spokesperson with the Canadian Space Agency (who is quoted as saying the agency is reviewing the Obama budget and will speak to NASA "to see how we can work together on these initiatives), Christian Sallaberger, VP and Director of space exploration at Macdonald Dettwiler and Associates (who says his company "can definitely support the plan.") and even me again (I think I'm becoming a pundit).

The general consensus (mine included) is that Canadian space focused business and the CSA are well prepared for what's happening in the US.

But what about Canadian scientists and science policy makers? After all, a lot of the science we do in Canada is in cooperation with others and some of those people (especially in space) are Americans doing work for NASA.

Are scientists and policy makers in Canada prepared for that "quick right turn toward the Europeans" as predicted by Paul Delaney?

Evidently they're not. Perhaps the only disappointment over the last few days is the complete lack of editorial comment in science focused media such as the Science Canada blog, the Science Media Centre of Canada (SMCC) website or even the science policy news section of the Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC).

The SMCC hasn't had an update since December 15th 2009 (just after their appointment on December 9th of "veteran science journalist Penny Park as the inaugural Executive Director") so maybe it's unfair to expect much from them but Science Canada blogger Jeff Sharom has been posting stories every couple of days to the site since the site went up and it seems logical to provide at least some commentary on stories he's already posted such as "Obama to cut NASA's Moon Plan" and "NASA to Explore Private Space Flight."

Of course he's just a grad student so perhaps we shouldn't be too harsh even though his lack of voice is typical of the Canadian science focused blogsphere.

But the biggest disappointment simply has to be a total lack of any kind of coverage whatsoever in the science policy news section of the CSPC. The site (which grew organically out of the 2009 Canadian Science Policy Conference) doesn't even mention the changes at NASA or how this will effect hundreds of researcher presently working under CSA contracts or for other major Canadian players who subcontract to NASA or other US firms involved in space focused activities.

As well, there seems to be no articles or discussions anywhere of the international collaborations and partnerships required to undertake large scale science (an example of which is discussed in my article "Thirty Meter Telescope Awaits Construction Funding"). Actually there are no discussions anywhere on the site since the discussion forums are offline, awaiting the transfer "of all the old discussion topics from our previous website to the newly redesigned website."

These are obvious errors that the people interested in science policy in Canada should be addressing.

The Men Who've Sold the Moon

As a child growing up in Winnipeg Manitoba, one of my fictional hero's was Delos D. Harriman, the Robert Heinlein character in the novel "The Man Who Sold the Moon."

Written in 1949 and published in 1950 it tells the story of the first (at that time fictional) landing on the Moon by private companies controlled by Harriman, "the first of the new robber barons," who is determined to reach and control the Moon.

He tells his business partner he "would cheat, lie, steal, beg, bribe — do anything to accomplish what we have accomplished." His determination was rooted in a childhood desire to travel to the moon himself, but the responsibilities of running his financial empire make this dream impossible (at least until the sequel, "Requiem").

I never thought I ever meet a person who actually raised money selling the Moon but that was before I heard about Dennis Hope and his Lunar Embassy. Hope has been selling deeds to small parcels of land on the Moon since 1980 based on what he perceives to be a loophole in international law allowing him to claim full sovereignty of the moon as an individual (countries are specifically forbidden from claiming the Moon under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which was ratified by 98 UN member countries, including the United States).

Hope estimates that he has made $9 million selling one acre lots of land in outer space and claims that he, alone, has the legal authority to do so. He figures that the UN and other appropriate world bodies would have contacted him by now if he was doing something illegal, but no one has.



Only time will tell if his figuring is correct but at this point his views may or may not carry as much weight as those who attended the Space Security Index 2009, focused on the "Status and Future Trends in Space Security" at Canadian Embassy on January 21st.

The event, organized by the Secure World Foundation (SWF), the Space Security Index (SSI) and the Canadian Embassy in Washington focused more on describing the way the world "is" rather than explaining to us any emerging "future trends."

For example, according to the summary of the event (available online here) Clay Mowry, President of Arianespace, speaking on the topic of the commercial sector in the context of space security discussed:

the health of the satellite manufacturing and services industries and the launch industry that feeds upon them. He pointed out that these industries seem immune to the current global economic crisis, though he did mention that recent cancellation of a key U.S. military communication satellite program, continued strict application of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and a reemergence of artificially low Chinese launch prices will have negative impacts on the space industry.

This might be a reasonable list of statements on how things are but it's certainly not comprehensive and it's not in anyway a list of suggestions on how things are going to be.

Plus, even as a statement of how things are, major players are missing including RSC Energia, new players Space-X and Virgin Galactic or any of the two dozen plus private spaceflight companies currently offering or planning to offer equipment and services geared towards spaceflight, both robotic and human spaceflight. In essence, the Secure World Foundation has simply forgotten about a whole subset of growing space focused private industry that it needs to include in order to discern accurately any emerging trends in space.

It seems obvious that international experts are not only ignoring people like Dennis Hope who continues to sell pieces of the Moon to anyone looking for cheap land off the beaten track. They've also forgotten a whole bunch of real life future Delos P. Harriman's, presently running firms offering or intending to offer spaceflight related services.

Here comes the next great historical wave of "robber barons."

Can Capitalism Survive in Space? 

Watching the Americans figure out what they're going to do with their broken, bleeding and bankrupt national space program is turning into a series of useful lesson for Canadians and others interested in developing space focused industries.

But few are aware  that the present situation follows logically from a series of past decisions and historical events and the best way to learn about these events is from one of the people who influenced and contributed to those decisions.

Jeffery Manber, is one of those people. According to Wikipedia, Manber has been involved in several of the key breakthrough commercial space projects, principally those revolving around the commercialization of space assets as well as the integration of the Russian space industry into major space programs, including that of the International Space Station.

Here's a talk he gave recently at the University of Michigan on the topic of whether capitalism can survive in space.



The most interesting point he makes is that while private companies can certainly survive and thrive in space, they can only do so only if the government is not opposed to such ventures. In the 1980's and the 1990's the US government and NASA were opposed to commercial space activities and so no independent space focused industry developed in the US.

However, some interesting lessons were learned and space focused businesses did develop in (of all places) Russia. Now the US plays catch-up and Manber provides useful insight into why this is so (for example, he doesn't think NASA was terribly helpful).

The Canadian government, the Canadian Space Agency, the various organizations administering and contributing to Canadian science policy might want to take note of these interesting historical lessons.