[tus666]

The question is unexplored territory, pun intended.

The FAA could deny approval for launch, but its unclear what the basis would be. What happens on Mars is out of it's jurisdiction, literally.

The UN governs Earth, not Mars. It could expand to cover Mars I suppose. It's the sort of pointless activity you could imagine the European Parliament obsessing over, but there is little they could do about an American launch company.

But the reality is we are centuries away from something approaching a land-rush on Mars, or actual competition between nations for control of anything.

I suspect it will be a "watch and wait and see" situation.

[verzali]

https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/int...

Although it covers states, not individuals, and was signed in the 1960s. That said, most space law still derives from these outdated laws and treaties and we're sorely in need of an updated approach that recognises things work differently now. Even if not for Mars, we need it to work better in orbit and on the Moon.

[ggm]

I agree we're centuries away, so there's that. But being pejorative about the force of law and writing it off as useless european hand-wringing I think misses the point: Elon is either going to pussy out, and not actually put people into space, or is going to, and they're going to die.

Since he doesn't have a matter transporter, he has to transit from a legal regime his company assets exist in, to some mythical point where the jurisdictional boundary lies. I think that is likely to be where alignment of the limits to US lawfare, and the headache of privatized use of space combine.

If I was China, I'd refuse to recognise any claim to ownership of assets beyond Geosynchronous. I wouldn't deliberately go to the lagrange points and graffiti the JWST, but I'd sure as hell make sure Musk knew that if he finds magnetic monopoles or tritium supplies, China expects it's cut. (magnetic monopoles don't exist.)