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The Great Meteor Grab

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-may-not-own-rocks-in-space dept.

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."

13 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Putting the cart before the horse. by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Putting the cart before the horse. by SomePgmr · · Score: 5, Funny

      I guess the other side of that is, "Why come up with a way to mine an asteroid if the legal semantics won't allow you to mine it anyway?"

      I agree that it's probably not a huge issue that can't be ironed* out, though.

      * Yeah, I did that. Deal with it.

    2. Re:Putting the cart before the horse. by Xylaan · · Score: 5, Informative
      From the article, however, the regulations that are being discussed are for meteorites on federal lands. From the article:

      Courts have long established that meteorites belong to the owner of the surface estate. Therefore, meteorites found on public lands are part of the BLM’s surface estate, belong to the federal government, and must be managed as natural resources in accordance with the FLPMA of 1976."

      In this case, I'm thinking that claiming that these changes will somehow apply to asteroids in space is a very long stretch. Especially since they don't apply to the significant volume of privately owned land in this country, let alone the rest of the world.

    3. Re:Putting the cart before the horse. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

      Likewise, if we were up to our fucking necks in "antiquities", there'd probably be a lot less concern about preserving them.

      Watch what you say there, Mr. 4 digit UID. You're not getting any younger. You may want to be preserved a bit longer even if there are a lot of us baby boomers flopping around.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    4. Re:Putting the cart before the horse. by slew · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, but when the US starts planting flags on more heavenly bodies, they may be able to define them as "Federal Land", subject to BLM regulation.

      Not likely, the US is a signator to the Outer Space Treaty...

      Article II
      Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

    5. Re:Putting the cart before the horse. by Sean · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That will be ignored as soon as the capability to occupy celestial bodies exists.

    6. Re:Putting the cart before the horse. by tsotha · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Lately Congress seems to recognize no limits to its jurisdiction. If they can extradite people for violating US drug laws in other countries, extradite British bankers who never set foot in the US for violating US banking laws, arrest Canadians for running poker websites, and tax expats for ten years after citizenship is renounced, there really isn't any place in the universe in which US law doesn't apply. Assuming they have the muscle to enforce it, I guess. As an American I have no idea why other countries put up with this nonsense, but there it is.

  2. Don't worry about it by davidwr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Don't worry about it by deimtee · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The implication is in landing what you mined from the asteroid.
      Large scale metal mining and retrieval is likely to use very large, roughly formed, vaguely aerodynamic bodies with cheap re-entry shields. Basically, form the metal into a plane shape, whack a shield on the front and drop it in a desert. Scrap it for the metal in it. Any valuable metals you put in the centre, if the wingtips burn off a bit, so what. :)
      The problem comes when the thing misses your couple of square miles of desert, and the BLM says they now own your multimegabucks worth of rare metals.

      --
      I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
  3. Talk about crying wolf by Nebulo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  4. Words have meanings by 0racle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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."
  5. Total crap -- /. summary is wrong (stunning!) by GodInHell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Total crap -- /. summary is wrong (stunning!) by GodInHell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Specifically: the "precedent" here is actually very old that valuable minerals found on the unburdened (i.e. not covered in dirt) parts of land belong to the owner of that property. These regulations are just clarifying that /yes/ meteorites are valuable minerals - when found on the surface of federal lands they belong to the federal government and you can't just take them because you want to. Also, you cannot just go into public lands and take a fencepost because you think it'd make a nice addition to your yard.