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Congress Can't Make Asteroid Mining Legal (But It's Trying, Anyway)
Jason Koebler writes: Earlier this week, the House Science Committee examined the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act, a bill that would ensure that "any resources obtained in outer space from an asteroid are the property of the entity that obtained such resources."
The problem is, that idea doesn't really mesh at all with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, a document that suggests space is a shared resource: "Unlike some other global commons, no agreement has been reached at to whether title to extracted space resources passes to the extracting entity," Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space law expert at the University of Mississippi said (PDF). "There is no legal clarity regarding the ownership status of the extracted resources. It is foreseeable that the entity's actions will be challenged at law and in politics."
The problem is, that idea doesn't really mesh at all with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, a document that suggests space is a shared resource: "Unlike some other global commons, no agreement has been reached at to whether title to extracted space resources passes to the extracting entity," Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space law expert at the University of Mississippi said (PDF). "There is no legal clarity regarding the ownership status of the extracted resources. It is foreseeable that the entity's actions will be challenged at law and in politics."
And there's gotta be a ton of gold at the center of the earth, and platinum, same at the center of the Moon. The Big Dig. How low can you go. Inside the Moon, it does not get very hot, no molten lava to contend with. Who can get there first, and start the digging for them heavy noble elements of platinum, iridium, osmium, gold, all mixed in with nickel and iron. If the theory that the Moon was ejected from the Earth from a massive asteroid impact is correct. Inner planets don't have much moons, for whatever reason, our Moon is special. If the Moon was ejected in a molten lava state, then the heavy, non-oxygen-bound stuff (such as noble metals) had a chance to stratify and collect at the core (It's kind of interesting that there'd be any gold and platinum in the lithosphere of Earth, but volcanoes spit stuff up from real deep, moreover a lot of our nickel-platinum mines are actually asteroid-meteorite crash sites embedded into the lithosphere, that did not have a chance to sink deep.) All they gotta do is some seismic listening experiments to see if the Moon has a dense core, unless you can see through it with ultrahigh energy xrays or even neutrino observations, something that goes through it, and then you don't need seismic experiments. But otherwise it's time to blow some nukes up on the Moon, and place seismic sensors throughout its surface, to listen and probe its internal structure. If it has a core, and it's not molten, it's time for that gold rush, or more like platinum-nickel rush.
Technically, no.
You are bound by the treaties your country signed. In fact, they have more legal weight in the US than laws passed by your own Congress.
As an example, the US has signed Data Treaties with the EU and with Canada that give citizens of those countries more rights to privacy than you as an American would have (exception: if you are also a citizen of an EU country or Canada, you gain those rights in the US as well).
Same goes for any treaties signed for non-countries such as Antarctica (which you are bound to) and space (where those exist).
That's the law. That you choose to be a space pirate, is your own problem. I recommend wearing a gold colored space pirate outfit, with a cape and a cool helmet.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Article VIII of the treaty states:
"Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth."
So if someone attached rocket engines to a small asteroid and moved it, for example, that could be considered "constructing an object" and they would own the whole thing, including the asteroid which is one of its "component parts".
There is current application of space law in terms of being an extension of international law though. Commercial enterprises working in a space environment or having a significant part or feature of their business (speaking about just space-related assets) is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Much of that is of course in the telecommunications industry (where it gets tricky to distinguish what is an Earth-based asset and what is space-based), but it also includes some emerging industries including mining operations.
It is a real academic discipline, and surprisingly the University of Mississippi is one of the major centers. Giggle all you want, this guy is cited in professional journals and taken seriously by executives at companies who conduct business activities in space. The guys that have the bucks matter, not some casual poster on Slashdot.
The Moon has more surface area that North America. Even if all of the nations of the Earth conspired and made a deliberate effort to explode the Moon, it can't be done. Mining operations that would produce minerals in quantities equal to the entire mining production of humanity from before the Sumerian empires until now and doing that on an annual basis would take billions of years to mine out enough of the Moon for you to even notice something was happening.
Relax, the Moon is going to be just fine even with extensive strip mining, and arguably it is better to have it happen up there than down here on the Earth while killing habitat for many animals and destroying whole ecosystems.
Only the smallest of asteroids will ever be completely mined out before mankind will have settled and occupied the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy.
The reason you can make a claim in North America and have it stick is due to the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army. They are the guys that make it possible to make a mining claim and not have to worry about having some 2-bit thug come along and take your mine from you. That is what makes civilization possible. As much as Canada wants to assert their independence, they are dependent upon the U.S. military to make sure Russia doesn't go and sack the northern part of their country (or the whole country for that matter). Ditto for Mexico (in spite of the gangs in northern Mexico.... proving my point and the GP poster above).
The problem with the assumptions about those hoping for peace and tranquility in space is that you don't have sovereignty claims, thus no military of any kind except for pirates and thugs who don't give a damn about treaties or the United Nations. This also includes opportunistic nations that may want to take any space-based assets. That is not an environment you want to be investing billions or perhaps even trillions of dollars worth of money to develop space-based mineral assets.
Yes, space is big, far bigger than you can imagine. None the less, once you start sinking resources into developing a location in space, it becomes a target for aggression. That becomes a fixed point that can be occupied and stolen. Thugs will beat you up simply to steal ten bucks out of your wallet.... what will they do for assets worth billions? That is why you need to have available some friends who are far bigger and badder than any potential thug to allow civilized behavior to flourish.