Robert Bigelow, the power behind Bigelow Aerospace, warned yesterday that within 10-15 years China could claim huge areas of the Moon, and the resources therein, as Chinese territory, thus staking a claim to immense wealth and world leadership.
Mr. Bigelow also noted that even though American astronauts have landed on the Moon, the United States doesn't claim one square foot of the "damn place." That's true, and the reason is that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits any nation from making such territorial claims on any celestial body. The OST is still the governing law in this area. That's not to say China couldn't announce it was no longer bound by the OST, but making a claim of lunar ownership stick would likely be extremely difficult and detrimental to China's standing in the world.
BA, of course, is planning to use its inflatable module technology to build lunar bases and colonies in the relatively near future. Attempting to preserve future business opportunities is surely legitimate for any businessperson, and doing that might be at least part of what Mr. Bigelow had in mind.
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If China ends up being the dominate economy on Earth at that time then the ruling oligarchy in China can pretty much do what they want on Earth and beyond.
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