Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 136: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION _onised there will be little need for new laws of terri- torial nature. The laws apply- ing to Earth will apply to the planets, so that each planet comes to have so many miles —expressed as concentration of gases, perhaps—of “‘terri- torial space.””> The Moon is another matter. It has no atmosphere to serve as a natural limit on territorial space. Probably, there will be an agreement reached, whereby the Moon enjoys territorial space equivalent to what it would have if it had an atmosphere—a topic for more argument! Perhaps the best solution of all for this problem of territorial space would be to take the Earth as standard, and give all celestial bodies a mileage equal to Earth’s territorial space. Then, if asteroids were colonised, we should find “‘worlds”’ which have more territorial space than land. Next in importance of new problems will be the question of ownership of celestial bodies. On Earth the tacit agreement has been a matter of ‘“‘first find, first have.” ‘Whichever nation has sent 135 « men to a new land has annexed that land as part of its property. Later conflicts may have made the land change hands once or twice, but that is not a egal process, Will the same principle apply where celestial bodies are involved ? In actuality, the answer will very probably be affirmative, for that is the way that military minds work, and it will be militarists who first land on other worlds. Never- theless there will be large sections of Earth’s population who will feel that such a system is outdated. The old method of “catch as catch can’ will no longer be equit- able. It will be felt that the resources of the Moon, Venus, Mars and so on, should be made available to the whole of Earth’s peoples, not just to those who happen to have been first in the race to make a spaceship. This is an en- lightened view and presages an enlightened era. But, of course, in a truly enlightened era there would be no milit- arists. Until the need, or apparent need, for national armament in all its aspects conmicloooks.com