Metafire

The rules for the United State Space Stations were developed to allow the small groups of people and their formations into colonies to have a maximum degree of autonomy. They were American citizens, of course, and they were expected to abide by the laws of the United States. Furthermore, certain colonial government laws were developed under the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia to provide a legal basis for 'local law.' However, colonists were largely not employees of the U.S. Government. A certain percentage of people would be lost. The actual figure was about one in thirty rockets. Since these were citizen volunteers, the lossage was deemed to be, for legal purposes, an agreed on risk. The management in the NSP wisely allowed groups to form around the country and to develop their own plans for self-support and merger. Rather than use space for discovery, the government had decided to use space for settlement, as the Russians were doing. This was, in fact, not so different in expense from the great land giveaways by the government in the 1800s. It just took the Russians to invent the idea.

Several NSP panels and committees were formed that reviewed petitions, established support policies, and developed contracts. Also the NSP established several consulting offices to serve the newly formed groups of individuals.

A practice that caught hold early was incorporation as a company. The probable cause for this, rather than, for example, establishing a group as a "village" in the District of Columbia, was that a group had to show economic viability. The Internet provided a mechanism for information services and other information products that could be sent and distributed electronically. It was not necessary that a group be able to return to Earth in order to participate productively in Earth's economy. In fact, the space stations had very inexpensive means of establishing the interconnects due to the optical line of sight in the vacuum of space. Many colonial companies made money providing alternate service paths and high speed 'presence service' for people on Earth.