Kinda beside the point but… arent geostationary slots a type of “space real estate” ? Somehow ITU can still regulate and allocate their use, and if im not mistaken its on “first come, first serve” principles.

If it is likely that explorers or colonists will mutiny to throw off the shackles of a Terran bureacracy, why would any Terran bureacracy with an ounce of common sense pay hundreds of billions of dollars to fund settlers who will only rebel anyways?

Reminds me of some college kids:

Mom, Dad, I despise everything you stand for and the way you have totally ruined your lives. Now send me five hundred dollars, okay?

The UN gonna send troops to take those people back? Nope, I see it akin to those people who choose to live on a boat in international waters. the UN does nothing to those people and unless they begin to commit piracy.

Though on Dinkin’s thought, why not go one step further and create a Federalist Space Agency, where individual states contribute reasources to it? Hmm, I’m liking this idea.

However, unlike the situation President Lincoln faced, neither the Moon nor Mars nor the NEOs have been acknowledged as being within the perview of the United States government to give away. If Lincoln wanted to initiate a policy that eventually led to Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise looking Far and Away to free land and a new start in Oklahoma, Lincoln had the advantage of already owning Oklahoma.

As Taylor Dinerman previously noted (brilliantly, may I add) the Moon may well come to be a late 21st or 22nd century analouge to the British base at Gibraltar during the Age of Sail. Therefore, should we be sanguine and expect France, Russia and China to sit back and passively allow Americans to homestead celestial real estate?

Many centuries ago, Machiavelli wrote that sending out civilian settlers (colonists) is a far less expensive and a far more effective means for a Prince to control distant territories than sending a professional military.