Thinking On Paper ask who owns the Moon, whether the Outer Space Treaty still holds, why 80% of space investment is defence, what the Wolf Amendment did to US-China relations in orbit, whether asteroid mining legislation was written by the companies who'd profit from it, and why the book Space to Grow ends on a warning about war, not wonder.

Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/MVBxjZCGfxY

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The space race between the US and China has never been about exploration. 80% of current space investment is defence-related. In the final episode of the Thinking on Paper Book Club series on Space to Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, Mark and Jeremy trace the politics of space ownership, space law, and who owns the Moon.

From the 1967 Outer Space Treaty through Planetary Resources and asteroid mining legislation, the Wolf Amendment that banned NASA from collaborating with China, China building its own space station in response, Trump designating space as a theater of war in 2018, and the Rumsfeld Commission warning of a "space Pearl Harbor."

The episode covers John Locke's labour theory of property and how it applies to mining asteroids worth 100,000 times global GDP, the prisoner's dilemma between the US and China, why there would be no space industry without national security, and Neil deGrasse Tyson on the absurdity of claiming ownership over atoms forged in dying stars. 59 active conflicts currently on Earth as of the 2025 Global Peace Index.

The book's final chapter asks whether humanity can reach space without turning it into another battlefield.

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Chapters

(00:00) Global Conflict and Space Resources

(02:04) Human Nature and Space Exploration

(03:28) The Economics of Asteroid Mining

(05:53) Legal Frameworks for Space Mining

(11:05) The Space Resource Exploration Act

(13:01) International Reactions to Space Mining Legislation

(17:19) Philosophical Perspectives on Space Ownership

(20:14) The Role of National Security in Space

(20:40) The Role of Government in Space Innovation

(21:34) National Security and the Space Industry

(23:10) Weaponization of Space: A New Era

(24:47) The Prisoner's Dilemma in Space Cooperation

(26:40) Humanity's Moral Compass in Space Exploration

(27:03) The Future of Humanity in Space

Space technology investment is surging into 2026. Confidence is high. The ten largest funding rounds total over $3.7 billion. And it's only April.

Defence and national security contracts are driving much of the momentum, with companies like Stoke Space, Sierra Space and Cesium Astro attracting hundreds of millions on the strength of government partnerships.

Infrastructure remains the dominant investment thesis — from encrypted GPS alternatives and space-based weather platforms to satellite communications and reusable launch vehicles — reflecting a market that is still building the foundational layer needed for commercial space to scale.

The biggest surprise sits at the top of the list: Beijing-based iSpace China claimed the single largest raise at $729 million, confirming the US V China space race is very much happening.

Meanwhile, three companies have crossed the unicorn threshold — StarCloud, Tomorrow.io and Sierra Space, the latter commanding a confirmed $8 billion valuation.

Human spaceflight and space station ambition round out the upper tier, with Vast Space and Axiom Space collectively raising $850 million to build the commercial space stations and crew infrastructure that will replace the ISS when it retires later this decade.

The Top 10 In Full

iSpace China — $729M

Sierra Space — $550M (Series C)

Vast Space — $500M (Series A)

Cesium Astro — $470M

Axiom Space — $350M

Stoke Space — $350M

PLD Space — €210M (Series C)

Tomorrow.io — $175M

Xona Space — $170M (Series C)

StarCloud — $170M

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Chapters

(00:00) Starcloud

(00:52) Xona Space

(03:27) Tomorrow IO

(06:01) PLD Space

(08:00) Stoke Space

(10:18) Axiom Space

(12:29) Cesium Astro

(14:50) VAST Space

(19:02) Sierra Space

(21:47) I-Space (Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd.)

The Martens Clause, a legal principle drafted by Russian-Imperial diplomat Fyodor Martens during the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899, established that even in the absence of specific written law, nations and individuals remain bound by "the laws of humanity and the requirements of public conscience."

Originally conceived as a compromise to prevent the collapse of early international humanitarian law negotiations - when smaller nations like Belgium objected to how occupying powers classified resistance fighters - the clause became a foundational backstop in international law.

It was subsequently invoked in some of the most consequential legal proceedings of the twentieth century, including the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46 to counter arguments that prosecuting Nazi war crimes constituted retroactive legislation, the 1949 Corfu Channel case where Albania was held responsible for failing to warn shipping of mines in its territorial waters, and the 1986 ICJ ruling against the United States for mining Nicaraguan harbors and supporting the Contra insurgency.

Mark & Jeremy from Thinking On Paper are now asking whether this 127-year-old principle could serve as what some are calling a "minimum viable architecture" for governing emerging technologies — particularly artificial intelligence, commercial space operations, and quantum computing — where the pace of innovation vastly outstrips the speed of regulation.

Jeremy argues that the clause's core logic — that something not being explicitly prohibited does not make it automatically permitted — could provide a much-needed ethical and legal floor beneath industries currently operating in regulatory grey zones, from AI training on copyrighted data to autonomous weapons systems and asteroid mining rights.

Mark counters that the clause has historically only been applied retroactively to clear moral atrocities, and that its deliberately vague language, while effective at building diplomatic consensus, lacks the specificity needed to adjudicate the morally ambiguous questions at the frontier of technology, such as algorithmic bias, AI decision-making opacity, and the concentration of technical power among a small number of corporations and nation-states.

Please enjoy the show.

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🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠

📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠

🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠

🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠

To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz

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(00:00) The First Peace Conference: A Historical Perspective

(07:37) The Martin's Clause: Implications for Modern Governance

(10:05) Space Tech and the Outer Space Treaty

(13:58) AI and the Need for Ethical Frameworks

(17:21) Accountability in Technology Deployment

(22:56) The Future of Humanity: Collaboration vs. Competition