Utilizing the United Nations Charter People of such like mind want to share their views internationally and in an appropriate legal forum, such as the existing United Nations. Therefore, United Societies in Space will apply for a special UN status as a recognized Non-Governmental Organization (N.G.O.). The N.G.O. approach has become a popular way to translate citizen level idealism into a structured worldwide movement. In this case, it will also prepare the participants, as well as the UN members and staff alike, for the later and more important stages of Metanation development. In the process, USIS will be able to benefit from the resources of both the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs and the UN Committee on the Peacefill Use of Outer Space, as well as the current UN Trusteeship Council. Citizen movements have eclipsed governmental activity as the primary source of social change in the 20th Century, and this strategy if implemented could be the mechanism for this with regard to activities on behalf of high frontier. Utilizing Quasi-Governmental Status There exists in United States law a legal mechanism for creating a quasi-public corporation called an "authority," such as in the New York Port Authority or the Florida Space Authority. It provides a government "imprimatur" to raise and funds for major public undertakings by the sale of bonds within the private sector. This enables governmental entities to cross jurisdictional lines to more effectively manage major programs, and to finance them without tax monies. With proper research and development, it may be possible to prepare a prototype space authority before Metanation is actually constituted. The demonstration model conceived for this purpose is a Lunar Port Authority which could be the means for facilitating retum-to-the-Moon missions, and underwriting transportation, industrialization, and settlement there. It would be modeled after the time-tested quasi-public corporation called "The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)"[13], This conservation project and electric energy provider began with a grant of U.S. properties, condemnation authority for the acquisition of additional property, and a $50,000,000 Revenue Bond Authority in 1945. It now controls that nation's largest energy resource, has never experienced a default, and has reached a good conservation balance with the regional environment. TVA did all this without any U.S. Federal Government guarantee on its bonds, merely legislative authorization of the project. It only offered 3.2% interest on fifty-year obligations issued by it and no commissions. Already the concept is being used in some U.S. states and in other countries to establish terrestrial spaceports for commercial launches into orbit. A unique feature of a Lunar Port Authority prototype, if organized under the U.N. or U.S. law, would be the issuance of leases to promote industrial and scientific development on the Moon, while adhering to the C.H.O.M. concept. The distinguished attorney, author, and former MIT macroengineering professor, Frank Davidson, made this astute observation on the proposed approach [14]: The idea of space governance strikes me as critical; in fact not much will happen 'up there' until we find a way to attract massive investment from the capital markets. By and large, NASA and its
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==