Only The USA Can Claim The Moon as a State
On July 20th, 1969, the USA was the first country to sponsor putting an American on the Moon.
The cost of the Apollo program to completion of Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong returned to America safely from walking on the Moon, was about $217 billion in 2024 inflationary dollars.
Western Civilization has a tradition of granting political dominion of newly discovered lands to the discovering people. Ideally, this would be an individual or private company. But, in some cases, a political country sponsors the discovery.
Historically, Christopher Columbus approached Queen Isabella about making a voyage of discovery across the ocean to the west of Spain. The Spanish politically subsidized the expedition and thus received much of the proceeds, even though there were terms Columbus negotiated on before he set sail. Among these were an agreement with Isabella that Columbus would be governor of any lands he discovered.
The argument has been there for a USA admission of Moon statehood. And, it has been there since July of 1969--whereas, no other country can intervene. Surely, President Trump doesn't think that America spent $217,000,000,000 just to jump around in low gravity and sample some moon rocks! The Moon is ours to claim and it always will be until Congress votes for an act of admission and the President signs it into law.
Mankind as we know it has only advanced, so far, around the surface of the Earth and to the Moon. But, with the understanding of what is required to claim new lands, it raises the question: "What's next?". Mars, Jupiter, Saturn? Columbus and Armstrong both represented the financing of host countries that won new lands. Could the first man on Mars be the result of completely private financing? Perhaps one man would not own the entire expedition, but many could have shares in that business. If so, then the company who landed a human on Mars and then brought the new Martian back to Earth safely would win the private property prize, that being "Ownership of Mars".
Paul Wharton
American Galileo
