Nobody owns outer space. Under international law, no country, company, or individual can claim sovereignty over space, the Moon, Mars, or any other celestial body. This principle has been the foundation of space law since 1967, when the major spacefaring nations signed the Outer Space Treaty. But as private companies push closer to mining asteroids and building lunar bases, the question of who can profit from space resources is becoming far more complicated than that simple answer suggests.
The Outer Space Treaty: The Core Rule
The 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space is the closest thing space has to a constitution. Its second article is blunt: “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” Over 110 countries are parties to it, including every major spacefaring nation.
Article I establishes space as open territory. It “shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality,” with free access to all areas of celestial bodies. Think of it like international waters: everyone can sail there, but no one can plant a flag and call it theirs.
The treaty also establishes that countries are responsible for everything their citizens and companies do in space. If a private company launches a satellite that crashes into another country’s spacecraft, the launching nation is on the hook. A 1972 follow-up agreement, the Liability Convention, makes this explicit: a launching state is absolutely liable for damage its space objects cause on Earth’s surface, and liable for damage caused by its faults in space.
The Moon Treaty Nobody Signed
In 1979, the United Nations tried to go further with the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, commonly called the Moon Treaty. It declared that “the moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind” and explicitly banned ownership not just by governments but by private companies and individuals too. Article 11 states that “neither the surface nor the subsurface of the moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person.”
On paper, that’s an airtight ban on private space property. In practice, it’s largely irrelevant. The United States, Russia, and China never ratified it, which is why legal scholars generally regard it as a dead letter. The fact that the Moon Treaty felt the need to explicitly ban private ownership is actually revealing: it suggests the original 1967 Outer Space Treaty was never intended to address private property claims at all, only government sovereignty.
The Loophole: Resources vs. Territory
Here’s where modern space law gets interesting. The Outer Space Treaty says you can’t own the Moon. But can you own a rock you dug out of the Moon?
The United States said yes in 2015 with the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. The law states that any U.S. citizen “engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell it.” At the same time, Congress was careful to note that the law does not “assert sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or ownership of, any celestial body.”
Luxembourg passed a similar law in 2017, declaring that “space resources are capable of being owned.” Like the U.S. law, Luxembourg’s framework draws a sharp line between resources and celestial bodies themselves. You can’t own the asteroid, but once you extract minerals from it, those minerals are yours.
Critics argue this distinction is a convenient fiction. If a company can exclusively mine a section of the Moon and own everything it extracts, that starts to look a lot like ownership in practice, even if no one calls it that. Supporters counter that the same logic applies to fishing in international waters: no one owns the ocean, but you own the fish you catch.
Safety Zones and the Artemis Accords
The Artemis Accords, led by NASA, represent the latest attempt to set ground rules for lunar activity. Signed by a growing coalition of countries, they introduce the concept of “safety zones” around active operations on the Moon. Signatories agree to publicly share the location and general nature of their operations and to avoid actions that create harmful interference with each other’s activities.
These safety zones are not territory claims. They’re temporary, ending when the relevant operation ceases, and their size is determined by scientific and engineering principles rather than strategic ambition. Signatories also commit to respecting the Outer Space Treaty’s principle of free access. Still, the practical effect of a safety zone is that other parties are expected to stay away from your mining site or habitat, which creates a kind of de facto exclusivity that makes some nations uncomfortable.
Orbital Slots: Ownership Without Owning
There’s one area of space where something very close to property rights already exists: the geostationary orbit. This is the ring about 36,000 kilometers above Earth’s equator where satellites can hover over a fixed point on the ground. It’s prime real estate for communications and weather satellites, and there are only so many usable positions.
The International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency, manages these orbital slots. Under its system, each country has predetermined orbital positions associated with certain amounts of radio spectrum. Nobody technically owns any orbital position, but countries hold allocated slots that they can use, and in practice these allocations function much like property. A slot without a satellite in it still “belongs” to the country it was assigned to.
Can You Buy Land on the Moon?
You’ve probably seen websites selling lunar land deeds for $20 or $30. These are novelty items with no legal standing. The most famous operation was started by Dennis Hope in 1980, who “claimed” the Moon and began selling plots. No court has ever recognized his claim or anyone else’s private claim to celestial real estate.
The legal reality is straightforward. Under the Outer Space Treaty, no government can grant you title to land on the Moon because no government has sovereignty there. And without a sovereign authority to enforce a property claim, a deed is just a piece of paper. Some legal theorists have proposed “land claims recognition” legislation, where a government would agree not to contest a private entity’s claim to lunar land if that entity established a permanent base there. But no country has passed such a law, and doing so would push hard against the boundaries of the Outer Space Treaty.
SpaceX and Self-Governing Mars
SpaceX has tucked a provocative clause into its Starlink terms of service. For services provided on Mars or in transit to Mars, “the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities.” Disputes would be settled through “self-governing principles, established in good faith at the time of the Martian settlement.”
This has no legal force. The Outer Space Treaty requires countries to supervise their nationals’ activities in space, and a private company can’t unilaterally declare a planet free of Earth’s legal frameworks. But it signals how commercial actors are thinking about the future, and it highlights a real gap in the law. The Outer Space Treaty was written for a world where only governments went to space. It doesn’t have clear answers for a future where private colonies on Mars might number in the thousands.
Where International Law Stands Now
The UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space has a working group actively developing recommended principles for space resource activities. Their timeline calls for exchanging views on a set of principles in 2025, with final review and refinement through 2026. The goal is a framework that ensures space resource extraction happens “in accordance with international law and in a safe, sustainable, rational and peaceful manner,” potentially leading to a General Assembly resolution.
For now, the legal landscape is a patchwork. The Outer Space Treaty bans national sovereignty in space, but two countries have already passed laws letting their companies own extracted resources. The Artemis Accords create practical zones of exclusivity while insisting they aren’t property claims. And the Moon Treaty’s stronger protections are ignored by the countries most likely to actually reach the Moon. Space belongs to everyone in principle. Who profits from it is the question that remains very much unsettled.