How Do We Rule The Universe?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2017
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Governing moon miners, asteroid hunters and space junk sounds pretty tricky, but we better get our act together. This year the majority of space launches included commercial enterprises. Space is no longer just the playground of governments but companies; companies that want to mine the moon for water that they could sell as rocket fuel, companies that want to mine the moon for helium -3 which could be sold and used as energy back on earth and companies that want to mine asteroids for platinum that they could sell for huge profits. But is this legal? The Outer Space Treaty, a set of laws written in the 1960s, says no state can conquer or own the moon or any other celestial body. So if you can’t own the moon, can you sell what you find on it? Perhaps it’s time for a new set of laws. So, how do we rule the universe?
(digital illustration: Somewhere in the Universe: NASA's Kepler mission discovers a world orbiting two stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Coming soon, the assassination, an investigation into a true story that shook the world. |
| 0:07.0 | A new podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:10.0 | Subscribe to the assassination now, and you'll get every episode automatically. |
| 0:15.0 | Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service with me Ruth Alexander. |
| 0:25.0 | Each week we bring you four expert witnesses, answering one pressing question from the news. |
| 0:31.0 | T-minous 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,000, 3, 2, 1, 0. |
| 0:45.0 | Lift off at the |
| 0:48.0 | The Slim White Rocket |
| 0:50.0 | powers into the blue sky above Florida, past the clouds and on through the Earth's atmosphere. |
| 0:57.0 | The vehicle has just passed through supersonic territory. |
| 1:02.0 | Three minutes in and several thousand kilometers above Earth. The |
| 1:06.7 | rocket's nine engines cut. The successful separation. |
| 1:15.0 | The crowd watching the on board cameras back down below at NASA's launch site, celebrate. |
| 1:20.0 | The rocket separates into two. |
| 1:25.0 | One half starts to descend. |
| 1:27.0 | The other, carrying a small spacecraft, |
| 1:30.0 | known as a dragon, powers on into space. |
| 1:34.0 | The dragon's taking supplies to the international space station. |
| 1:40.0 | Five years ago, it was the first commercial spacecraft to complete such a mission. |
| 1:47.0 | This year, there were more than 50 space launches involving commercial players. players. |
| 1:54.0 | The new space race is on, |
| 1:57.0 | and this time the rivals aren't countries, |
... |
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