Tony, On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 1:08 PM Tony Li <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Hi John, > > So the Internet numbers community is made of up of regions, and the > community in each region organizes itself into an RIR… > > Ok, so which region does Mars fall into? > The Moon and Mars are irrelevant to this discussion; there are no people, no legal system, no contracts, or no companies on the Moon or Mars. For missions to those bodies, all those things exist here on Earth, not on the Moon or Mars. Maybe someday in the far future, we will have colonized the Moon and Mars, and they will have all those things, and then we can talk about independent RIRs for the Moon and Mars, but that is mostly science fiction at this point. Today, and for the foreseeable future, missions to the Moon and Mars are operated from here on Earth, and their governance also exists here on Earth, and within various countries on Earth. I think the proper example for missions to the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies is Antarctica. While technically Antarctica is in ARIN's service region, entities that operate bases there obtain Internet resources from the RIR for the home country of the operating entity, or from the service provider they use for connectivity. This is so the administrative and technical people work with those they are familiar with, and contracts are formed in accordance with the legal systems in the RIR's service region. I apologize for not being clear. Let me see if I can do better. The point > is to have a single point of contact where agencies can place address space > requests for outer space. Whether that is an existing or new RIR is a > detail. The goal is aggregation for efficient routing. How do we get > there? If I need to say something differently, please send text. > > Tony > Are you really sure the organizations that will use these resource blocks want a single contact and a single contracting entity within a single legal jurisdiction? NASA and US-based commercial space entities would likely be fine with contracting through ARIN and under US Law. However, ESA and European commercial space entities might prefer contracting through RIPE with Dutch and EU Laws. Furthermore, China and India might prefer to continue working with APNIC as they do now. Unfortunately, today, the Earth's political and legal environment will shape operations and the governance of missions to the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies, and the Internet Technical community isn't going to be able to change that. Now, I would support allocating an IPv6 prefix outside 2000::/3 and a block of ASNs for Outer Space and for entities supporting spacecraft and missions to the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies. The distinction should be that satellites that provide service to Earth come from 2000::/3. However, satellites, ground stations, and other systems, such as ground simulators that support missions to the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies, should use this new prefix and block of ASNs. But allocations from this block should be administered and registered through the current RIRs, in my opinion. Unless you want to invite an international treaty organization to administer the blocks, however, the Internet technical community has to date resisted the involvement of such an organization in Internet resource management. So, my vision would be for the TIPTOP WG to produce a document proposing the allocation of an IPv6 block outside of 2000::/3 and a block of ASNs, define the qualifications for use of the block, and request that IANA and the RIRs develop policies to ensure allocations to organizations are consistent with those qualifications. Thanks. -- Thank you / Ho Pidamayado / Miigwech =============================================== David Farmer Email:[email protected] Networking & Telecommunication Services Office of Information Technology University of Minnesota 2829 University Ave SE Phone: 612-626-0815 Minneapolis, MN 55414 Cell: 612-812-9952 ===============================================
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