Some 100% real Hansard quotes from my look at the history of space environmentalism in the 1950s-60s.

1. M. Foot (16/05/1963): "Does [the PM] think that the United States Government have the right to treat the Universe as if it belonged to them - like some Latin-American State?"

2. Sir Legge-Bourke (16/05/1963): “May I ask whether [the PM]... can use his influence to ensure... that we are not led into a sort of cold war in space involving the distribution of haberdashery all over the universe?”

& the winner for Most British Take on the Space Race is...

3. Vis. Hailsham (11/06/1959): [after being asked if the Moon & stars had "sovereignty over themselves"] "... My Lords, I do not recognise the moon and stars as being sentient creatures which could have sovereignty over themselves."

Dentists *hated* him - molars ground to nubs.

4. Vis. Hailsham (11/06/1959): "... Her Majesty's Government have not sought or received any advice as to whether sentient creatures live in other worlds."

He then reportedly went foetal, shrieking "JEsus chRIST, you're *MPs* & y'all think we chat to CAVE ALIENS & the MOON??"

5. Okay, my insomniac brain needed more, so I took a deep dive into @CaitStorr's forthcoming chapter (it's the kind of writing that I gave poetry slam fingersnaps throughout).

So here's a few more relevant quotes on space extraction, colonialism, & environmentalism.

6. Fun fact - 1 of the earliest UN speeches on int'l gov in space was by Chile... a "Mr. Pinochet".

"A logical step would be to hand over the control of outer space either to a body of the United Nations or to a body linked with the United Nations." (12 Nov 1958, A/C.1/PV.982).

7. By 1925, Fauchille had dreamed "a kind of plural condominium... [of] brothers of the family of nations. The international community cannot be an empty word. It is therefore to all the States that all the wealth of the Poles must go..." (Fauchille 1925 8th edn, vol 1, 658-9).

8. And finally, if anyone needed an example of int'l legal reproduction, I gotchu. Here's Australia politely telling all those young upstart states to simmer down and let the Big Powers talk. (11 Dec 1959, A/C.1/PV.1079, 44-45)

9. PS - don't worry, imperialists got int'l gov regimes too! Like Cox's "UN space police agency to control and patrol the interplanetary regions"... oh, & also "the Poles, oceans and uncivilized desert and jungle regions." (DW Cox 1957, 71)

Anyone order a World Police Force?