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Asteroid Mining Bill Introduced In Congress To Protect Private Property Rights
MarkWhittington writes: "Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) announced on Thursday that he was introducing a bill along with Rep, Derek Kilmer (D-WA) called the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act of 2014 (PDF). The act is designed to protect the private property rights for entities mining asteroids and to otherwise encourage asteroid mining. The bill is in apparent reaction to efforts by companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries to locate and mine Earth approaching asteroids for their resources.
The crucial part of the short piece of legislation states that the resources mined from an asteroid would be the property of the entity undertaking the operation. This language gets around the provision of the Outer Space Treaty that says states are forbidden to establish national sovereignty over celestial bodies, which would be a prerequisite to the United States allowing a private entity to own an asteroid. It rather grants mineral rights to the asteroid, something the treaty does not mention. There is no enforcement mechanism in the event of a dispute with another country, however."
The crucial part of the short piece of legislation states that the resources mined from an asteroid would be the property of the entity undertaking the operation. This language gets around the provision of the Outer Space Treaty that says states are forbidden to establish national sovereignty over celestial bodies, which would be a prerequisite to the United States allowing a private entity to own an asteroid. It rather grants mineral rights to the asteroid, something the treaty does not mention. There is no enforcement mechanism in the event of a dispute with another country, however."
That acronym is so massive we'll need Roland Emmerich to make a movie about it hitting the Senate floor.
How can any nation grant right over something outside its sovereignty?
i was afraid that privateers were running out of things to rape here on earth
In event of dispute, deliver minerals to other claimant. Without controlled deceleration.
Asteroid mining is the only way we're going to build large structures in space anytime "soon". There's plenty of asteroids, this issue can be revisited later.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Any company rich enough to get there can probably afford to hire people to defend its claim. Within a few years, they'll probably be rich enough to outright buy a company like Blackwater to serve as a small army to defend their claim if need be. That's the real danger here.
This law merely codifies what has already developed as the consensus among significant space-faring nations.
Since the world already accepts the premise that objects originating in outer space and brought to earth belong to those who retrieved them them (currently only Gov't agencies, but foreseeably private actors as well), and Article IX of the OST establishes a right to non-interference with outer space activities (outside of explicitly banned activities such as militarization, etc.), the lack of sovereignty or property rights over celestial bodies already presents no legal bar to their mineral exploitation.
Of course, the flip side of this is that someone else could completely legally set up a mining operation on the other side of the asteroid, and provided they are not interfering with your own operations, there is really nothing you could do to enforce a "claim" in the sense that we do here on earth.
As I read it, this introduced bill does nothing to change existing rights and duties under the current legal framework, but I suppose it does provide some assurance to prospective miners that, in the U.S. legal system at least, there will be no drastic changes to the current understanding.
IANAL (yet) but have interned at NASA.
So, if you as a country don't have the right to claim sovereignty over these celestial bodies ... then how on Earth (or space) do you have the authority to grant mineral rights? They're not your rights to give are they?
This is using authority you don't have to grant mineral rights to corporations. Can the US grant mineral rights to nations they don't control too? Because that's awfully special.
This just sounds like the typical ignore the intent of the treaty and make sure corporations have more avenues to make money without restriction.
Always nice when lawmakers pass laws over stuff they really have no jurisdiction.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Neither the US Congress, nor the United Nations, have any jurisdiction over anything outside LEO (Low Earth Orbit)
Seems to me they would have to pay import tarrifs to bring the resources back planetside....
Free Pie! The Pie is Also Evil!
1) First, the silliness with bill names really needs to stop; one imagines a giglling kindergartner sitting "playing" Congressman typing out stupid acronyms while lobbyists sit in the background actually crafting the legislative language.
2) Then again, there are so many vagaries in the language of this bill, it's almost comical that it would be presented as legislation.
First, the bill keeps referring to "asteroids in outer space" - WTF is "outer space" precisely? Anything ex-atmospheric? Above the Karman Line? Anything in orbit? Anything outside lunar orbit?
Second, I believe even astronomers are having Platonic debates over the precise meanings of such terms as 'asteroid', 'planetoid', and 'moon'. Heck, in wiki's intro to "asteroid", the bulk of the opening paragraph sort of dissolves asymptotically trying to grab specifics. This document constantly references asteroids without bothering even to define what they're talking about. It might include Ceres or Vesta, but could it include the Moon? How about Phobos? Pluto?
Of course, most people have comfortable working definitions of the above, insofar as they care. But when the first rover starts drilling into the Moon, or Mars, or heck, taps into an agglomeration of someone else's space junk asserting it's "space debris that's formed an asteroid" these sorts of vagaries cause massive legal issues.
More evidence - as if the US public needed it - that our congressvermin are just idiots.
-Styopa
It will just protect the 'interests' of an American corporation. See the US 'interventions', the US has never invaded anyone; in Panama, Columbia, Honduras, Cuba, Honduras again, Panama again, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. And that ignores invading Mexico in the 1840's to support Texans' 'property rights', aka slavery, and on others. Oh, and that list is just up to about 1915.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"Can't?" Ok, I'll bite: what happens when you try? (Did you get an error message? What did it say?)
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
You know, I've seen this cited several times lately.
Show us, exactly, where the law says this.
It's illegal to be in possession of stolen goods. This is not grade 3.
So, you believe if I can take it from you by force, it's mine?
Well, here's hoping someone takes your stuff from you, and then we'll see if you stand by that statement.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sure there is. Radar-guided missiles. Etc.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Neither the US Congress, nor the United Nations, have any jurisdiction over anything outside LEO (Low Earth Orbit)
You have de-facto jurisdiction wherever you have the power to assert it.
The American Revolution was about 150 years in the making --- population in 1776, around two million, any disruption in foreign trade wounding, but not fatal. Coastal cities vulnerable, but any penetration into the interior likely to end in disaster. (Saratoga)
The out-world colony for the foreseeable future will be and must be self-sustaining in the sense that it is in no immediate danger of running out of food or air. But it will be small and fragile --- in no position to cut its ties with the earth.
Seems to me they would have to pay import tarrifs to bring the resources back planetside....
.Letting someone have the high ground with big rocks at their disposal could have some interesting dynamics.
They impose a 50% tariff, so you drop it on their head.
"We collected 32 tons of almost pure iron today, your percentage will be arriving in 3, 2, 1..."
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Possession is 90% of the law, defense is the other 10%
Show us, exactly, where the law says this.
LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
It's illegal to be in possession of stolen goods. This is not grade 3.
Seem to remember quite recently Russians and Kurds grabbing land that doesn't exactly belong to them. They appear to be getting away with it while the whole world sits watches the theft take place.
So, you believe if I can take it from you by force, it's mine?
There are two distinct legal worlds. Confuse them at your peril.
1. Intra-country world where rules are enforced by state having obtained more or less a monopoly on projection of violence within state borders to those who elect to disobey laws of said country.
2. Rouge lawless world of inter-country relationships where no such monopoly exists. International systems like the UN wield no real power. In this world your ability to project violence or develop a coalition of states willing to project violence very much dictates what you can or can not get away with.
To put it in even simpler terms when Ban Ki-moon pleads for the bloodshed in Gaza/Israel to stop he is asking ..nicely...... he is not ordering.
When a judge orders you to pay Palimony the judge is not asking he is ordering you to pay under threat of violence.
That's some forethought....they managed to get treaties signed, what, 30 years ago, that no countries can own things in outer space. So that leaves....corporations!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
That would be something if they had the ability to control the path of these asteroids. Something tells me that the energy costs of directing one of them at a target on earth would be ridiculous. Also, unless said company wants to then operate solely in space, there would be retaliations against any Earth based resources they possess.
So they better contribute enough campaign contributions to remain classified as "emerging"...
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
Not only will the US agree to defend your mineral extraction with a publicly funded military (by recognizing your extraction rights), they will disclaim any right to tax you on your gains (by not trying to claim sovereignty).
Privatize the profits, nationalize the risks!