Exclusive - The FAA: regulating business on the moon

(Reuters) - The United States government has taken a new, though preliminary, step to encourage commercial development of the moon. According to documents obtained by Reuters, U.S. companies can stake claims to lunar territory through an existing licensing process for space launches. The Federal Aviation Administration, in a previously undisclosed late-December letter to Bigelow Aerospace, said the agency intends to “leverage the FAA’s existing launch licensing authority to encourage private sector investments in space systems by ensuring that commercial activities can be conducted on a non-interference basis.” In other words, experts said, Bigelow could set up one of its proposed inflatable habitats on the moon, and expect to have exclusive rights to that territory - as well as related areas that might be tapped for mining, exploration and other activities. However, the FAA letter noted a concern flagged by the U.S. State Department that “the national regulatory framework, in its present form, is ill-equipped to enable the U.S. government to fulfill its obligations” under a 1967 United Nations treaty, which, in part, governs activities on the moon. The United Nations Outer Space treaty, in part, requires countries to authorize and supervise activities of non-government entities that are operating in space, including the moon. It also bans nuclear weapons in space, prohibits national claims to celestial bodies and stipulates that space exploration and development should benefit all countries. “We didn’t give (Bigelow Aerospace) a license to land on the moon. We’re talking about a payload review that would potentially be part of a future launch license request. But it served a purpose of documenting a serious proposal for a U.S. company to engage in this activity that has high-level policy implications,” said the FAA letter’s author, George Nield, associate administrator for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Transportation. “We recognize the private sector’s need to protect its assets and personnel on the moon or on other celestial bodies," the FAA wrote in the December letter to Bigelow Aerospace. The company, based in Nevada, is developing the inflatable space habitats. Bigelow requested the policy statement from the FAA, which oversees commercial space transportation in the U.S. The letter was coordinated with U.S. departments of State, Defense, Commerce, as well as NASA and other agencies involved in space operations. It expands the FAA’s scope from launch licensing to U.S. companies’ planned activities on the moon, a region currently governed only by the nearly 50-year old UN space treaty. But the letter also points to more legal and diplomatic work that will have to be done to govern potential commercial development of the moon or other extraterrestrial bodies. “It’s very much a wild west kind of mentality and approach right now,” said John Thornton, chief executive of private owned Astrobotic, a startup lunar transportation and services firm competing in a $30 million Google-backed moon exploration XPrize contest. Among the pending issues is lunar property and mineral rights, a topic that was discussed and tabled in the 1970s in a sister UN proposal called the Moon Treaty. It was signed by just nine countries, including France, but not the United States. "It is important to remember that many space-faring nations have national companies that engage in commercial space activities. They will definitely want to be part of the rule making process," said Joanne Gabrynowicz, a professor of space law at University of Mississippi . Bigelow Aerospace is expected to begin testing a space habitat aboard the International Space Station this year. The company intends to then operate free-flying orbital outposts for paying customers, including government agencies, research organizations, businesses and even tourists. That would be followed by a series of bases on the moon beginning around 2025, a project estimated to cost about $12 billion. Company founder Robert Bigelow said he intends to invest $300 million of his own funds, about $2.5 billion in hardware and services from Bigelow Aerospace and raise the rest from private investors. The FAA’s decision “doesn’t mean that there’s ownership of the moon," Bigelow told Reuters. "It just means that somebody else isn’t licensed to land on top of you or land on top of where exploration and prospecting activities are going on, which may be quite a distance from the lunar station.” Other companies could soon be testing rights to own what they bring back from the moon. Moon Express, another aspiring lunar transportation company, and also an XPrize contender, intends to return moon dust or rocks on its third mission. “The company does not see anything, including the Outer Space Treaty, as being a barrier to our initial operations on the moon," said Moon Express co-founder and president Bob Richards. That includes "the right to bring stuff off the moon and call it ours.” (Reporting Irene Klotz; Editing by Joe White, Hank Gilman and Andrew Hay)

Islamic State claims wave of Baghdad bombings: ​‘Saddest photo yet’: Astronaut photographs Gaza offensive from space

@MohamedElgawady وماذا عن جنود السيسي الذين قتلوا ؟ هناك أنباء أنه دفع بهم لليبيا للقتال مع شقيقه في الخيانه حفتر !! @ MohamedElgawady What about the soldiers who were killed Sisi? There are reports that he had paid them to Libya to fight with his brother-in infidelity Haftar!! Iraq: al-Maliki rejects Iran's urging to step down: BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's Prime Minister In a voting within the Kurdish MPs in Baghdad, Fuad Masum was elected as the #Kurdish candidate for #Iraq's presidency http://www.alhayat.com/Articles/3757813 بازخوانی پیام سالگرد کشتار خونین مکه و قبول قطعنامه ۵۹۸ - ۱۶ فلسطینى، راه گم كرده خود را از راه برائت ما یافت. و دیدیم كه در این مبارزه چطور حصارهاى آهنین فروریخت، و چگونه خون بر شمشیر و ایمان بر كفر و فریاد بر گلوله پیروز شد، و چطور خواب بنى اسرائیل در تصرف از نیل تا فرات آشفته گشت، و دوباره كوكب دریه فلسطین از شجره مبارك لاشرقیة ولاغربیة ما برافروخت. و امروز به همانگونه كه فعالیت هاى وسیعى در سراسر جهان براى به سازش كشیدن ما با كفر و شرك در جریان است، براى خاموش كردن شعله هاى خشم ملت مسلمان فلسطین نیز به همان شكل ادامه دارد. و این تنها یك نمونه از پیشرفت انقلاب است. Photo of the Day - Libya in Crisis Wreckage of a burnt aircraft is pictured after shelling at Tripoli International Airport, July 21, 2014. (REUTERS/Hani Amara) ============ ​‘Saddest photo yet’: Astronaut photographs Gaza offensive from space Published time: July 24, 2014 09:36 Get short URL

My saddest photo yet. From #ISS we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over #Gaza & #Israel pic.twitter.com/jNGWxHilSy

— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) July 23, 2014

Image from twitter.com @Astro_Alex Israel, Middle East, Politics, Religion, Space, Violence, War A German astronaut managed to capture the Gaza war zone from space while aboard the International Space Station. He called it his “saddest photo yet.” Alexander Gerst, a German flight engineer, geophysicist and volcanologist, spread the news with a short tweet on Wednesday, as the ISS was on a flyby over Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. The image went viral. One can clearly see the spots in which the yellowish glow of exploding targets is more prominent than elsewhere. “From the International Space Station we can actually see explosions and rockets flying over Gaza and Israel,” He wrote on his Facebook fan page late last night, with a German translation underneath. The ESA astronaut is currently on the 57th day of his mission, together with Russian commander Maksim Surayev and American engineer Reid Wiseman. Israel is currently in the midst of an all-out assault on Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip – an operation that has recently gone into a new phase, as escalating hostilities and ground warfare bring the death toll to 700. There are casualties on both sides, but the overwhelming majority is Palestinian, 80 percent of them civilians, according to a recent UN report. ========================== BAGHDAD Sun Jul 20, 2014 3:11am EDT (Reuters) - The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a wave of car bombs in mostly Shi'ite areas of Baghdad which killed at least 27 people on Saturday. The hardline Sunni Islamist organization which has led an offensive across northern and western Iraq said two of the explosions were suicide missions by bombers it named as Abu al-Qaaqaa al-Almaani and Abu Abdul Rahman al-Shami - noms de guerre which suggested they were from Germany and Syria. Saturday's blasts were the deadliest in the Iraqi capital since the Sunni insurgency erupted in the northern city of Mosul and then swept through Sunni regions of Iraq towards Baghdad. The first suicide bombing took place at a checkpoint where soldiers, police and Shi'ite volunteer fighters were gathered, the Islamic State said in an Internet statement. The other struck in Kadhimiya, the site of a major Shi'ite shrine. At the same time two car bombs were set off in the west of the capital. "The toll of these blessed operations was the killing and wounding of 150 people," the statement said, warning of greater attacks to come. (Reporting by Raheem Salmman; editing by Tom Pfeiffer) ===================================