Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

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Image credit: Barbara David

Lagrange points are special locations in space where the gravitational forces from a pair of large celestial bodies interact in out of the ordinary ways.

Lagrange points are named in honor of Italian-French mathematician Josephy-Louis Lagrange.

They offer unique advantages for human-made space objects to loiter indefinitely with minimal expenditure of propulsive energy. These locales are increasingly populated by spacecraft of many nations.

Enter a legal question in wait-a-minute style: should those locations be treated as “the common heritage of mankind?”

Image credit: NASA

Professor David Koplow of the Georgetown University Law Center makes the case in an article just published by the Michigan Journal of International Law. The paper is titled “Pave Outer Space and Put Up A Parking Lot: Lagrange Points Should Be the Common Heritage of Mankind.”

L-point use

But first a few “pointers” about L-points.

For example, the L1 point of the Earth-Sun system affords a continuous view of the Sun and is home to the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite – a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Then there’s the outward looking James Webb Space Telescope nicely parked in Sun-Earth L2, roughly 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth.

Image credit: NASA, STScI, CSA

Also the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) is stationed at the Sun–Earth L1 Lagrange Point

Lastly, in the Earth-Moon system, five Lagrange points are numbered from L1 to L5. The L5 point was popularized by the late Gerard O’Neill and the L5 Society, seen as perfect for establishing a space colony.

Suitable rules

“Lagrange points are scarce and potentially very useful for commercial, civil, and military applications,” Koplow tells Inside Outer Space. “This is a rare opportunity for the international community to develop suitable rules in advance of the rush for the scarce ‘parking places’ in space.”

Lagrange points constitute a limited resource that is just beginning to be occupied, Koplow points out in the paper. “Existing international law is inadequate for optimal governance of their future occupation and use,” he states.

Koplow points out that not all sectors of space are equally valuable for all applications. The most desirable venues can become crowded, “affording a premium for those who gain access first and impeding the development of a fair and efficient all-inclusive international legal regime.”

Image credit: NASA Ames Research Center/Rick Guidice

First come, first served?

In Koplow’s view, space is a venue for multiple forms of competition, and some of that may spread to the Lagrange points. The question, to be resolved sooner or later, he adds, is what will be the rules for allocating access and use – first come, first served, or some more equitable system for sharing the benefits?

“The concept of the ‘common heritage of mankind’ refers to a system that allocates control over a scarce resource to the entire world, instead of to the countries and companies that happen to get there first,” Koplow told Inside Outer Space. “The concept has been applied – always with great controversy – in other shared spaces, and I argue that it should be extended to the Lagrange points,” he concludes.

The Michigan Journal of International Law (MJIL) article — “Pave Outer Space and Put Up a Parking Lot: Lagrange Points Should Be the Common Heritage of Mankind” — is available (for free) on-line at:

https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/

MJIL is a student-run law journal published by the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David