but right now, Outter Space is about as lawless

as the Wild West

The question is not just who owns space,

but whether anyone actually can

The closest thing we have to a law governing Space

is the Outter Space Treaty,

an agreement first drawn up by the United Nations in 1967

and ratified now by 102 countries.

The treaty was written during the heat of the Space Race

It sought to prevent territorial disputes

by making it illegal for any nation

to claim ownership over Outerspace or any celestial body

But the treaty makes no mention of private companies

and the issue could come to a head now that several firms

are planning ventures in Space

For example, the american company Planetary Resources

aims to mine asteroids for precious metals,

and water for rocket fuel

But it's not clear the firm can claim to own any part of an asteroid

including the resources they mine

Of course this hasn't stopped some people

from staking claims in Space

Nevada entrepreneur Danis Hope has sold millions of acres of property

on the Moon, Mars and other planetary bodies

despite his dubious right to do so

Hope's been charging $19.99, plus shipping and handling

for an acre on the Moon,

and $22.49 for an acre on Mars

So far, he claims to have sold 7% of the Moon

The law also gets thorny in another arena: space debris

According to the Outer Space Treaty, all space objects,

including defunct satellites,

belong to the country that launched them...

for ever

But what if a company refuses to take responsability for it's own debris cleanup?

Under current law,

no other country has the right to try to salvage or dispose of dead sattellites,

even if they pose a collision risk to everyone else's space craft

All of this uncertainty means one thing:

There might soon be a booming market for space lawyers

For Scientific American's Instant Egghead

I'm Clara Moskowitz