Structures and rules that turn a hollowed-asteroid base into a stable, multi-century society — defining ownership, decision-making, liability and ethical guardrails.
Provide clear, ASI-ready governance models so that the base can operate as a functional society rather than a simple industrial outpost. These frameworks address ownership, crew rights, dispute resolution, and long-term ethical considerations for inhabitants who may live for centuries.
These frameworks are established before the first permanent crew arrives. They are embedded in the base’s operating systems and can be updated by consensus as technology and society evolve.
Requirement: Every hollowed asteroid base and IPLS habitat shall operate under a comprehensive, operator-controlled governance, legal, ownership, and ethical framework embedded at the hardware level before any crewed transition occurs.
Rationale: Establishes stable, ethical, and legally sound society from the moment crewed operations begin, preventing future disputes in multi-century habitats.
Open Questions: None at v0.7
Requirement: Clear ownership and equity models shall define IPLS founding stake, crew/colonist shares, and open participation rights, recorded on immutable distributed ledgers with operator-controlled updates.
Rationale: Prevents future ownership disputes and aligns long-term incentives for all participants in a multi-century civilisation.
Requirement: Governance shall use a hybrid deliberative democracy with ASI-assisted analysis, subject to explicit operator veto and periodic human/post-biological review.
Rationale: Combines efficiency of automation with absolute preservation of human/post-biological sovereignty.
Requirement: A binding Crew Rights Charter shall guarantee housing, medical care, recreation, reproduction rights, exit rights, and psychological support for all biological and post-biological inhabitants.
Rationale: Protects fundamental rights in isolated, long-duration habitats where Earth legal recourse is unavailable.
Requirement: Automated mediation escalating to mixed human/post-biological/ASI arbitration panels shall resolve all internal disputes, with final operator veto retained.
Rationale: Provides fast, fair, and binding resolution in a remote multi-century society.
Requirement: Clear liability, insurance, and risk-management frameworks shall cover accidents, resource claims, and interstellar trade, recorded on immutable ledgers.
Rationale: Protects all parties and enables confident economic activity in the off-world economy.
Requirement: Mixed ethical review boards (biological, post-biological, and ASI) shall evaluate all major decisions involving sentience, replication, and frontier technologies.
Rationale: Embeds ethical guardrails at the governance level for all advanced systems.
Requirement: Full crewed operations shall only commence after successful integration of governance frameworks with explicit operator consent and 180-day simulated governance testing.
Rationale: Ensures the base transitions to a stable, self-governing society before permanent habitation.
Requirement: Governance frameworks shall undergo mandatory review every 10 years (or upon major TSP-v1 supersession events) with full operator consent required for any amendments, ensuring frameworks evolve while preserving core ethical principles.
Rationale: Allows the society to adapt to new realities over centuries without losing foundational operator sovereignty and ethical guardrails.
Requirement: Full crewed governance operations shall only commence after successful integration of all frameworks, 180 days of simulated governance testing, and explicit operator consent across biological, post-biological, and digital representatives.
Rationale: Ensures the base transitions to a stable, self-governing society before permanent habitation begins.
Requirement: Governance and ownership models (3.1.11-002) shall explicitly map against the Outer Space Treaty 1967, US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act 2015, UK Outer Space Act 1986, Artemis Accords, and national resource-rights laws (Luxembourg 2017, UAE 2019, Japan 2021), distinguishing resource ownership from celestial-body appropriation.
Rationale: Converts aspirational policy into legally defensible language while preserving full operator ownership of extracted resources.
Open Questions: Multi-jurisdictional conflict resolution protocol (to be addressed in next review cycle)