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Ajay MenonLaw & EconomicsOctober 27
th
, 20091
st
Paper: Sunlight & AsteroidsSunlight and AsteroidsIn order to conceive of a future where there are property rights to asteroids and sunlight someassumptions need to be made. The first assumption is that when people do start to leave the Earth for other planets (or asteroids in this case), it will be an internationally coordinated event much like thecreation of the International Space Station. The second assumption is that there will still be people onearth, so the sun can't be completely enveloped, blocking it out from the whole world. The thirdassumption is that we haven't encountered any aliens that have already claimed the asteroids as their own or something like that. The last assumption is that every asteroid will be identified and named.When it comes to property rights and asteroids, transaction costs should be very high as a result,the international community would be wise if they went about minimizing these before they allowedthe asteroids to be owned. In order to facilitate this, I imagine that an international space agency, or something equivalent will be established.The first step that would need to happen is that any asteroids that are abjectly inhospitable tohuman life, because they are made out of a material that is too dangerous to live or work on, need to beidentified. If someone wants to own them anyway, they will not be prevented from doing so, but theyshould have full information, otherwise resources are just being wasted. Next, the agency will have toidentify and name or number all asteroids, as well as ascertain a rough approximation of their size. Thisis important because it will make assigning property rights easier, if the buyers are able to easilyidentify what asteroids they are bidding on. Now, they need to be assigned to their respective owners.Historically, there have been more than a few ways of initially assigning property rights. In thestate of Oklahoma, they decided to let people race for the land, but the people that followed the rulesfound out that some people had cheated. People used to just move to where no one owned land, and
 
then they claimed that as their own. In the case of space, both of these could prove cost prohibitive. If the agency decided to follow the Oklahoma model and go with a mad dash for asteroids, a lot of resources would be wasted when people inevitably chiseled, just like the sooner did. The best systemfor assigning property rights in the case of asteroids would be that of an auction.An auction circumvents the problems that were faced by settlers in Oklahoma, but does createsome new ones. The first one is how do you know what you're buying. In the case of auctions today, potential buyers have the chance to inspect the good that they are contemplating purchasing, and thendeciding how much they want it. In the case of an asteroid, the information that was accumulated bythe international space agency will have to serve that role.The best part of an auction based system is that the asteroid will go to whomever values it thehighest. If one individual is not capable of raising the funds necessary to buy the asteroid that theydesire, they are free to go in with a group. The percentage of the asteroid, and what part of the asteroidthat they own will be discussed with the other members of the group, transaction costs being low, andwith the power to negotiate they should have no trouble doing this. Now that the property rights have been assigned, the next question is what rights do the ownersof these asteroids in fact have? Without a doubt, the most important right is the right not to be hit byother asteroids. Without this right, their investment could be damaged, if their property is dented, or  potentially destroyed should another asteroid crash into theirs, smashing it to smithereens. They alsohave the right to move them around. To fulfill both of these rights, thrusters exist which allow asteroidsto be maneuverable. Aside from this right, you retain the traditional rights to possess, use, improve,consume, deplete, sell, donate, transfer, lease, and exclude it. The traditional right to destroy it on theother hand is abridge, because if you tried to destroy it, you would adversely effect your neighbors. Youcan only destroy you property here, if you can negotiate compensation with your neighbors beforehand, or are able to use your thrusters to move it somewhere where it's destruction will not effectanyone.
 
The next case is sunlight, how we can own it, and who gets it. The scenario that this plays out inis one on which a future earth has become overpopulated and as a result, some people have moved toother planets, such as Mars, Neptune and Uranus. While humankind has solved the problems created bygravity as well as atmospheric problems through technology, the solutions require a massive amount of energy, and the preferred energy source is that of sunlight. The problem is the distance of these planetsfrom the sun. The proposed solution to this is the creation of sunlight catchers positioned around thesun that are able to transmit the energy back to the planet in question. The question we are now facedwith is how to assign the right to station these sunlight catchers.The first thing that must be considered is that there are still people living on earth, so one can'tsimply wrap the sun and transmit all of it's energy it the outer planets. The second thing is that if thesun catchers orbit the sun, they could interfere with each others ability to collect sunlight. This wouldviolate the property rights of the owners of the other sunlight catchers. The proposed solution to this isthe creation of a slotting system.The orbit of each slot should be at an angle to each other to minimize the amount of time of anyoverlap. They should also be placed at varying depths to minimize the odds of them crashing into eachother. Each slot, would also come with it's own energy wave that is used to send the energy waves back home.The slots for the sun light catchers would also be auctioned off. The owners of each slot wouldhave the traditional property rights to possess, use, improve, consume, deplete, sell, donate, transfer,lease, and exclude. In the future being envisioned here, each individual or family would not own their own sunlight catcher (unless they were very wealthy), rather the equivalent of power companies would bid on and purchase the slots, launch their own sun light catcher, be responsible for maintenance,transmitting the energy back to the planet in question, and then sending it to their customers houses.In the future when property rights are needed for asteroids and sunlight there are going to bemany ways to distribute them. It is contended here that a system of property rights that are assigned via
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