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The Great Meteor Grab
RocketAcademy writes "New regulations by the Federal government define asteroidal material to be an antiquity, like arrowheads and pottery, rather than a mineral — and, therefore, not subject to U.S. mining law or eligible for mining claims. At the moment, these regulations only apply to asteroidal materials that have fallen to Earth as meteorites. However, they create a precedent that could adversely affect the plans of companies such as Planetary Resources, who intend to mine asteroids in space."
Talk about worrying about the wrong problems. Why worry about how this is regulated before anyone can even come close to doing it?
First come up with a way to mine an asteroid, then you can worry about the legal semantics.
The well-funded asteroid-miners will be able to buy the politicians and get the rules changed before they launch and call it a cost of doing business.
The not as well funded ones... well, it wouldn't be the first time lack of excess capital to pay lawyers or lobbyists stopped a project before it started.
Besides, if only the US has this law, then companies will just launch under other nations' flags and sell the minerals to countries that don't have a problem with mining asteroids.
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Quickly! Grab it all, so that we may form swords and shields out of it!
Get rid of the government.
The article makes a huge logical leap: that US laws governing items on federal lands somehow apply to items that are not on federal lands (for example, the asteroid belt). This is akin to saying that US antiquity laws would prevent a US citizen from prospecting for fossils in, say, Canada. What a load of baloney. The author is trying to conflate and confuse two issues (mining in space and prospecting on US federal lands) which are utterly unrelated.
Nebulo
Earth laws don't apply in space and neither does eminent domain.
So earth laws can f'off, I want my Orion spacecraft traveling to Alpha Centauri.
I just built an autonomous spaceship and 3 asteroid mining robots. Wish they would give us a heads up every once in a while.
-badford
1. Mine asteroids
2. eBay
3. Profit
What "laws" again? Do things, sell results, profit.
I doubt it's a problem. An Asteroid is not a Meteorite.
"A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface" - Wikipedia - Meteorite
So unless someone plans on mining an asteroid by slamming it into the planet, they probably don't have to deal with laws pertaining to meteorites. There is also the fact that US law does not extend to the Asteroid Belt.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The attached articles are talking about regulations for metorites found on the surface of federal land. Last time I checked (1) asteroids aren't metorites until they fall out of the sky[1]; (2) asteroids in space aren't found on the surface of federal lands; and (3) the U.S. Gov't has no jurisdiction out where thar be asteroids.
Total fail.
1. "A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface." Wiki source.
Meteorites are worth a nice piece of change. This is nothing but a way to collect revenue from commercial collectors. Probably defined as anyone who auctions one on ebay.
Who was planing to mine an asteroid... in US jurisdiction? Asteroids are sort of outside the US border I would say...
And let's not talk about the fact that we don't even have the ability to send a man to the moon like we did decades ago (or even supersonic commercial flights like we also did decades ago), and TFS is worried about what all those miners we are going to send to the asteroids are going to do???
And I thought we couldn't go lower than another bitcoin post...
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"New regulations by the Federal government define asteroidal material to be an antiquity, like arrowheads and pottery, rather than a mineral — and, therefore, not subject to U.S. mining law or eligible for mining claims. At the moment, these regulations only apply to asteroidal materials that have fallen to Earth as meteorites. However, they create a precedent that could adversely affect the plans of companies such as Planetary Resources, who intend to mine asteroids in space."
i fail to see how NOT being subject to mining laws would adversely affect space mining.
1. Move headquarters north to Canada
2. Contract Russian companies to launch your spacecraft
3, Sell minerals on open market
4. Profit
Cart before the horse. I'm sure f you landed something on a meteorite and proceeded to mine the thing you could establish you could use Adverse possession to lay claim to it. All this does is prevent companies from laying claim to an asteroid before they are even able to reach it which could possible stifle companies that are actually able to get to it.
You can turn an asteroid into a meteorite by letting it fall to the Earth's surface. An asteroid, however, is not a meteorite until it does so. The words have two very different meanings. Any law that applies to meteorites fallen to Earth does not apply to asteroids in space. On top of that, US law does not apply to space anyway.
It's irrelevant nonsense.
Are you seriously freaking about about something that has only one company in its entire industry and is more of a theory than an actual practice? wow...
Why remain under US jurisdiction? Just pack up and move. Bring your space-mined stuff down in another jurisdiction.
This is nothing but some paranoid right-wing fucktard upset that the government is acting in the public interesting regarding land that the public owns. Nothing to see here.
STFU
Damn, I better stake my claim before it's too late. Move over Dennis Hope , there's a new real estate mogul on the market. Asteroids for sale here, only $500 each!
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
Only as far as it stands to reason that the US can claim jurisdiction in space.
The United States has sovereignty over asteroids now?
Why is a federal reg which allows for meteorite collection on public land bad for asteroid mining? This favors, in a small way, the exploitation of extraterrestrial resources, and so I would view it as a positive (if very weak) precedent.
Note, BTW, that asteroid are not public land under the Outer Space Treaty.
Everything here on earth fell from up there at one time or another. If 'everything' here on earth is now off limits then there could be no mining of anything, anywhere. Problem solved, or created, all depending on your position in the debate.
You own what you produce or mine, not the natural resource. That will help reduce speculation that's so rampant in today's real estate market.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The best way to make a successful business these days is to get stuck in and BE SUCCESSFUL long before the legislation catches up with you.
The recent Banking-and-Finance Charlie Foxtrot proves that if you make ENOUGH money The Government will drop their pants to support you no matter what you do (ie no matter how immoral and unethical your actions may have been).
If you WAIT for the legislation first, said laws will have been funded by lobbyists of EXISTING INTERESTS supporting their own outdated business models.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Where this law /might/ apply is if someone were to recover metals and minerals from a meteor strike on federal land. In Canada, there are the remnants of a very old meteor strike (of the nickel/iron kind) at Sudbury Ontario (and other places) which has fueled long-lasting nickel mining and iron-ore mining industries.
ISTM that, should a nickel-iron meteor strike US federal lands, nickel, iron, and gold extraction from such a strike would NOT be considered "mining", and would not be regulated as such.
Just my two cents
US law applies on US soil. Space is not US soil. It's laws don't apply.
a US law applying to material in Space. OFFS!
There was an unknown error in the submission.
I'm in no way a scientist. My concern is that, maybe, those asteroids form a protective shield, although permeable, might protect earth from energy that could be lethal. Am I just being paranoid?
Speed limits on public roads are going to set a precedent when we develop teleportation, and may set this technology back decades.
And don't forget about the import tariffs when I start making gold using nucleosynthesis from hydrogen in air that make have drifted over from China!
Its out of any one countries jurisdiction. That's why some can have "illegal" activities occur legally, off of any countries coast. Space is really out of any ONE countries jurisdiction.
That's the title of the actual Space.com post. It details how the US Bureau of Land Management has released a notice of how it will regulate the collection of meteorites on public lands. That's it.
It has nothing to do with asteroid mining. Any inference of how this would map to any asteroid mining is a wild-ass ... inference.
When people are able to mine asteroids, any "governing body" in a planetary gravity well is not going to be able to enforce early 21st century administrative law on entities that can *deliver product at will*.
Anyone capable of mining an asteroid, is capable of dropping bombs on any part of Earth. Checkmate.
No... but if somebody tries to take it away from you, you can try and go and try to take it away from them right back. It doesn't belong to anybody, that's the point.
As long as you can resolve the dispute without resorting to any form of violence against the other party (which would be a violation of human rights, which are assumed to not be subject to national borders), there's no problem.
And if they don't like it, they can come up to space themselves and stop you... Oh snap! Forgot! No launch systems capable of reaching space, unless the person dropping the rebar chooses to sell them to you, or you can get close enough to their launch site with your weapons while it's raining rebar. Whose dumb idea was that again?
Maybe the can contact Energia, and not get outbid by a space tourist this time...
Actually, US law shouldn't extend beyond the USA borders :D
US laws apply to US flagged vessels. It will probably work for spacecraft much like it works for boats.
Unless the materials mined in space magically disappear, will they not have survived their impact with the Earth's surface when their spaceship lands?
By definition controlled landings are not impacts.
Who gives a damn what the US government thinks or wants in this regard? Maybe these dumb regulations apply to US companies. Just don't be one then. If you are a British or Canadian company, do you really give a damn what the US government thinks?
But the US of A does not own space. So anything there is up for grabs. USA may have laws and restrictions on what happens to meteorites brought back to their country but there are other countries who would welcome the minerals.
That will be modified as soon as the capability and the superiour firepower to occupy and defend celestial bodies exists.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Sounds like the Great Empire is trying to make rules for the New Colonies.
What's the problem, ever? Just move to any other jurisdiction which does not ban space mining, like the Russian one.
Meanwhile, over here in the real world, 14000 people are at risk of fungal meningitis, 186 have been diagnosed, and 14 or more people have died. Those who contract the disease and recover can suffer permanent damage. According to WebMD http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20121012/fungal-meningitis-qa?page=3
This could all have been avoided, but the freedom loving drug industry was able to avoid all the needless bureaucracy and expense involved in testing and adhering to safety standards. Who cares about risk when we're making good money here?
So let's just drum up some fake outrage about the evil government, and pretend this whole bad drug thing didn't happen.
(I have two friends who have gotten injections of these drugs for chronic back problems, and they both gratefully reported that they had not had this procedure in over a year. Now if we could just take all the recalled vials and dispose of the drugs by injecting libertarians then we could solved two problems at once.)
Why is Snark Required?
All because a metorite collector, sold some metorites, we get a new law. Sounds like he made some big money off the collection. Probably didn't. This law said in affect, there are three(3) types of collectors. And they have three types of rules that apply to their collections.The you and me, who can only have 10 pounds of the fallen stones. The Scientist, and the Hunter, the regs for the scientist are laid out, and the hunter has fees, now you and me don't have a fee to be on the BLM land, they just want to know who, and why you are there, and don't disturb the business that are raping us there.
Not surprising that they are dreaming up yet more regulations, rather than concentrating on the problem they have already created - i.e., lack of jobs and killing the economy.
I look forward to our Post Terran Minerals Corporation overlords. I can't wait to play Descent in real life. The machines do not need us, especially in space.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
no doubt this is to make importation of those russian diamonds illegal
Why worry about future problems? Because the current problem (absence of any manned deep space vehicle and absence of any serious plans to create one) seems to be insurmountable.
All the geeky news stories about deep space projects are just a little sad. We love to fantasize about doing fancy things, but we can't face the basic problems that need to be solved before we can do them.
Read the book. Learn from Heinlein's lessons. Apply the same to large asteroids/mini-planets. Vesta is a good example. Easy access to smaller rocks for use as missiles towards Earth. Precision guidance of a 100 meter rock right on top of someone's tawdry fiefdom? Maybe not in the next few years but someday, oh yes, someday.
nar
Another stupid regulations by the Federal government. Maybe they will tax sun and oxygen next ?
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