Who owns the sky?

Civics 101

NHPR

History, Government, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you own land in the United States, do you own the air above it, too? Justine Paradis, Senior Producer at Outside/In from NHPR brings us the airy truth of property rights in air and space in this special collaboration. The answer will take us from Ancient Rome (as it occasionally does) to the United States courts, from a world when air travel was science fiction to the world where we know there are valuable resources on the moon... and we all want them. Guests for this episode are Colin Jerolmack, Michael Heller, George Anthony Long, and Deondre Smiles. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Nate Hedge, joined today by Nick Keppityche and Hannah McCarthy.
0:03.0	Hello.
0:03.8	Hello Nate.
0:04.7	Hi.
0:05.6	So our episode begins with a tale, which we might call the chicken and the airplane.
0:14.1	Well, this sounds a little bit like a fable.
0:16.2	Is the chicken going to get a thorn stuck in its paw?
0:19.9	I don't think chickens have paws.
0:21.5	It's talent.
0:22.5	Like I like to paw better.
0:27.1	It's 1942 well into the Second World War.
0:29.6	It's been five years since Amelia Earhart disappeared into the Pacific Ocean.
0:33.8	Okay.
0:34.0	So airplanes are still a relatively new invention, but they're not brand new.
0:38.8	You're not going to necessarily think it's like a dragon in the sky.
0:42.0	Exactly.
0:43.2	So this guy, Thomas Lee Cosby, is this chicken farmer in South Carolina.
0:47.8	He lives less than half a mile from a municipal airport, which wasn't a big deal
0:52.3	until the US military leased the airport in 1942.
0:56.5	And so this is wartime.
1:00.6	So we've got heavy bombers, transports, fighter planes, they're taking off, they're landing,
1:06.7	oftentimes right over Cosby's farm.
	...

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