In one of my stories, there is a fairly complex part of the plot involving space ships, impending war, skirmishes, and –political boundaries. That last item is where I've gotten stuck.

See, I know that there are sea rights on earth in various places, and probably even more commonly in the past. You know – this country controls this area of the sea, this country controls this bit, etc. And I think this concept would end up cropping up in my futuristic setting, where most societies have extensive space travel and space harvesting.

But how on earth do they decide boundaries to the various areas of political space rights? Right now I'm not trying to portion all of explored space (after all, nobody tried to parcel off all of the oceans either – there's not all that much point when there's so awfully much ocean), but, at the moment, am most concerned with parceling off the space surrounding a particular star. (The space surrounding stars is by far the most used for harvesting and other similar things.)

Should the boundaries be based off of the star's surface? Or off the position of the other stars (in other words – should the boundaries remain static in relation to the rest of space even though the star is rotating)? Or off the star's satellites (planets etc.)? And how should they be shaped?

Does anyone have any ideas that make sense, maybe?

To my mind, stellar political boundaries would be determined by the political group's sphere of influence. Let me use our solar system as an example.

We could, conceivably, have outposts and settlements as far out as the moons of Saturn, and mobile mining bases as far out as the Kuiper Belt. Depending on our military strength, the political boundaries around our solar system would be akin to a thick disk of space encompassing the Kuiper Belt, but probably not going beyond it. That's my theory, anyway: a disk, perhaps two or three AU thick and extending as far as there are outposts within the system.

Now, what happens when we start expanding to other solar systems? Centauri is the likeliest, so let's go there. Assuming there are no aliens living there ( ), what happens to our 'space rights'? Do we suddenly 'own' all the intervening space, in addition to both systems?

I would say no, and this is where treaties come in handy. Well-designed treaties can allow for 'sovereign' corridors of space, owned and used by a single political power and their allies; probably demarcated by some form of marker buoys; and, in times of conflict, defended by that power. Think trade roads.

In general, I would say the best way to determine space rights is on a basis of relative military power and extent of usage. Basically, your political groups hold what they can use with the power they have. Treaties, however, would be the best way to make the boundaries clear to other powers ("You've proven you can hold this, so hold it you will" or "I won't impinge on this system of yours if you won't impinge on this one of mine") and to the reader.

Hope that helps!

Generally, I would expect the ownership of space to be based around what planets and systems are controlled by whom. For instance, if a solar system is fully controlled by a particular political body, I'd expect them to control the entire thing, out to whatever distance is agreed upon or simply to whatever distance they can plausibly defend. But when a system is controlled by multiple nations or whatever, that's more complicated. I'd expect it to again be based off of what planets and moons they control, though. It could be determined by a particular treaty, but if it's a reasonably common occurrence there might be a standard way of doing it. Maybe consider basing it at least partly off of the range of weapons, so that they control pretty much everything they can shoot from the surface, and maybe a bit more. Or it could be something else.

Plus, space is 3d (even though I just realized the Solar System is apparently 2D O.o) So wouldn't a realm of control be similar to a sphere around a central star? So a territory would be a collection of 'bubbles' which are pockets around each star that the nation controls. This is pretty similar to Jakorosin's disc idea, but with 3d space in mind. Of course, if there's nothing in said space, then it's pretty useless.

That was what I had in mind when I proposed the disk. As I said, it's 2-3 AU thick (looking at it edge-on). Because a sphere around a star would both be difficult to hold militarily, and most of the space above and below the ecliptic would be wasted, a disk makes more sense.

Mmm, lots of interesting thoughts.

Mm, yeah, trade roads. Makes sense. That definitely seems like it would play a big role in this.

Exactly. That's probably how all of them are formed.

What I'm trying to figure out is what exactly these bits of space look like. I know trade routes have something in this, but harvesting areas also plays a pretty major role, and the right to exploration (like the Spanish claiming that they were the only ones allowed to sail to the New World) too maybe?

A standard way of doing it...that might be a good idea. It would certainly make things a bit simpler.

You have just stated the biggest problem I have with this whole mess. Space is 3D.

It would be like that if I was trying to make this as simple as possible, but I'm not. A star and a star's whitespace could, the way I'm envisioning it, be controlled by several different political powers at once. Each would have different parts and different rights.

Yeah...I'm going to start another thread on my harvesting idea. But suffice it to say, one of my base assumptions while figuring this out is that not all space is useless, even empty parts, though a lot of it admittedly is. And of course, there's also trade routes and rights to exploration, like I mentioned up there.

I'm thinking of space rights along complex lines. Right now I'm not even thinking about multiple star systems, though I might at some point.... My story involves travel only within the limits of a single star's whitespace – the area around it which is substantially illuminated by it. And I'm envisioning, in my imagination, a space rights map a lot less simple than stars and satellites being portioned off – I'm thinking more like a system constantly shifting and all mixed up, like a chunk of clock work, never wholly static because of the fact that nothing in space likes staying still. A space ship could be going somewhere, discover they're in the wrong year to take a direct course because of a trash field, change course, lose some of their engine power because of an accident or a fault, and end up slipping into the edge of a political nemesis' territory, in imminent danger of being blasted without a moment's notice. Or a ship could be on one side of a star, and then end up on the other side in an impossible amount of time through a supernatural freak (this is something that happens in my book, yes...), and be in someone else's political territory, despite the fact that the ship was previously a satellite of the star – orbiting it.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of political boundaries being recorded and calculated based on the position of constellations, perhaps? I was avoiding the idea of markers...I had a theory that people in the future would be avoiding putting things in space, especially considering that a collision with something at the speed which would be necessary for space travel to even be feasible would be no minor thing. Is that a reasonable assumption, do y'all think?

They would definitely put things in space, but they would be large enough and "loud" enough to be detected far enough out in advance to avoid collisions. They'd be sensor satellites, scientific satellites, traffic control buoys, automated weapons platforms, possibly solar collectors, and so on.

People really like cluttering up space.

I know Star Trek did quite a bit of stuff with "Klingon space" and "neutral zone" and the like, so you might look to them for inspiration.

I agree that, most realistically, rights would be based around planets and other objects/surfaces of land. I'm thinking in terms of restricted airspace--while we don't technically "own" the air, we consider flying over particular parcels of land that we own to be a threat. But it's all based off of the land beneath.

This is one case where "Space is an ocean" is a very useful pattern to follow. Look at how naval battles are fought, and how current countries agree on shipping rights and who owns what water ways, etc. I beleive that every country owns their own coasts and all the water out to a certain distance and then it's a free for all, but I'm sure there are complications elsewhere in space and time. Everyone has stuff out there in the water, but it's all international, I believe.