Monday, March 6, 2006

Space.com /USA Today: "Moon Water: A Trickle of Data and a Flood of Questions"

Leonard David interviewed me for space.com andUSA Today (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060306_lunar_ice.html; http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-03-06-moon-water_x.htm):

"Whether lunar ice exists or not, its legal status can be a good intellectual exercise," suggested Virgiliu Pop, a PhD candidate at Glasgow University in Scotland and a specialist in space law focused on property rights in outer space.
Pop is author of Unreal Estate: The Men who Sold the Moon (Exposure Publishing, 2006).
Interestingly enough, Pop pointed out, the legal status of ice right here on Earth is not completely settled. There is no set answer to the question who owns Earth's South Pole, he advised.
In Antarctica, there is a small sliver, reaching down to the South Pole, claimed at the same time by the United Kingdom, Chile, and Argentina. The 1959 Antarctic
Treaty may have frozen territorial claims, but that document did not clarify who
owns what in Antarctica, Pop said.
"Nonetheless, ice is used by scientific expeditions. Yet, in Antarctica, ice is abundant. At the same time, while Antarctic icebergs have no clear legal status either, several icebergs have been mined for ice without any protests," Pop explained.