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Comment by programminggeek | Hacker News Reader

Can we stake a claim on Mars yet? I figure it'd be relatively cheap to fly something to Mars, say you own the whole planet and recoup more than the $60 million to get there...

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The outer space treaty says you can't stake a claim but your property rights are still respected under the treaty. That is, if you have a habitat on the surface of Mars, for all intents and purposes that land is yours though there is an obligation to provide for visits from representatives other countries on a reciprocal basis.

Does the treaty apply to private corporations? How does that work?

Why would anyone respect your claim?

You would have a hard time finding a court to enforce your claim too, since the Outer Space Treaty states:

Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

Seriously, depending on how long your game is, it might make sense. You would expect at first the claim would be completely disregarded, and then in some number of centuries enough inter-planetary infrastructure could develop that includes a legal framework under which you could sue for damages. Or, something...

I wonder if you could send over some type of networking equipment, and then anticipate charging one heck of a bandwidth premium?

I have a feeling that those claims aren't valid if you, or your robots aren't standing on them.

If you can defend it, you can keep it

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