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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."
Is it just me, or does the phrase "a space law expert at the University of Mississippi" cause you to giggle just a little bit?
Yeah, no kidding. They are worried the Chinese are gonna colonize space, and we will be left behind, so they come up with this property bullshit. Dude, property is about respecting others rights. If you go to outer space, and you take a piece of rock from an asteroid, and build a space station from it. people down here in the USA are gonna cry foul, it's common property, you can't take it, it's ours too, but the fact is unless they can send the police over to claim it was theft, or the military, it's all just bullshit. That's where the rubber meets the road. Space war. Over a piece of rock. Who owns is. History of human civilization, who gets what, who owns what, who controls what, west side, west side, nigga die over a block you don't even own, you paying rent, mofo. Maybe we should convince the Chinese to pay us rent for using the asteroid or Moon materials for their space stations, in case they succeed making it there before us.
To anyone who sues over this chuck of space rock I claim, fine, I'll send it right to you...
Problem solved...
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
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.
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Sounds like what needs to happen is a recognition that when an entity mines in space, it can claim that its value-add in extracting those resources gives a claim to those extracted resources and only those extracted resources, with the possible exception of an active, ongoing extraction operation having the right to exclusive use of the mine and only the mine while the operation is active. Once the operation is inactive then it's fair-game for others to start using it too.
I don't see a lot of threat in the Chinese or any other power colonizing space and managing to keep hold of their colonies. Space exploration is in the same place as "New World" exploration was at the first voyage of Columbus, in the sense that as as species we don't really have the developed means to take territory and hold it, and I expect that it'll go through a revolutionary-era as well, when those that have actually done the colonizing or the progeny thereof decides that they don't really need the mother-country anymore. That period might be harder if the colonies don't find ways to be self-sufficient, but given the sheer cost in sending supplies, any colony would have to be self-sufficient to be financially practical. Like the United States was in the 1770s, space colonies will be too far away from the motherland to be easily held if those colonies want to break away, as it'll be too expensive garrison them and simply won't be worth the effort.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The Space treaty may make it illegal but no sanctions are specified. If the USG depenalizes space homesteading and allows people to sell ressources brought back from space, the treaty will be dead. Prior examples: The treaties the USG signed & then ignored with Indian tribes during the 19th century.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Sounds to me like it says that whoever gets the iron, gold, iridium, space fairy dust, whatever from an asteroid owns it. I don't see how that is different from what happens on earth (aside from the space fairy dust). Whoever digs the hole generally owns the minerals extracted. What I didn't see is how they determine who owns the mine or has rights to mine a particular rock. Being a pretty extreme environment, at first it may just boil down to possession is nine tenths of the law. But I personally don't see any issues with this. Whoever gets the stuff out should own it. Just as long as they don't fuck up returning material to earth and accidentally drop a football field size chunk of iron or nickel (or whatever) on a city at orbital velocities. Maybe better to make the finished goods on the moon if they need gravity, or in lunar orbit first. Keep the big dangerous shit away from the planet.
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I was there at the hearing, and I think the summary is pretty far from the true situation.
First, Prof. Gabrynowicz is in the minority in the legal community on this (her response is also to work for international consensus on these issues, which is not going to happen.
Second, the Asteroid Act has been vetted by the State Department (and by a whole bunch of interested parties) and it certainly is in agreement with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (even Prof. Gabrynowicz didn't claim otherwise).
Third, all of the space powers appear to be in agreement with the basic principle expressed by the Asteroid Act - that space mining is a lot like deep sea fishing - you can't claim your fishing hole, but you get to keep what you take.
For a more balanced explanation as to why the Act is needed as a US instantiation of the '67 Outer Space Treaty to clarify the rules for US Corporations, see Dean Larson's WSJ Op Ed (or my own take on it).
> when those that have actually done the colonizing or the progeny thereof decides that they don't really need the mother-country anymore.
I'd be alright with that, but the problem is that space isn't like the surface of the Earth where you have neatly demarcated areas that you can lay claim to and you have to actually travel to in order to use. You could have companies pushing around asteroids and bumping them into Earth orbit, extracting resources, without sending even a single person over to the actual asteroid (all done with a bunch of robotic probes). You will inevitably get two companies (or countries) fighting over who gets the right to push which asteroid around. Neither of them are even near the asteroid, and no colony will be set up on the asteroid since it's probably far too small to support an independent human population by itself.
I guess a good analogy would be the Pacific islands and not the 13 colonies. The pacific islands changed hands so many times and many still have debatable levels of 'belonging' to another country. Now imagine if the pacific islands were free to roam around...
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
You are bound by the treaties your country signed.
Yes: You, and the states, and their courts, are bound by them (to the extent they are clear or were implemented by federal enabling legislation).
In fact, they have more legal weight in the US than laws passed by your own Congress.
NO! They have EXACTLY the same weight as federal law. Both treaties and federal law are trumped by the Constitution, and both are also creatures of Congress, They can be modulated, and destroyed (at least in how they are effective within the country) by congressional action.
The idea that they're any stronger or more permanent than federal legislation comes from a (very common) misreading of the Supremacy Clause:
This says that the Constitution, Federal Law, and Treaties trump state law in state and federal courts. It says nothing about the relative power among the three.
The misreading is to interpret "all treaties made ... shall be the supreme law of the land ..." to mean that treaties effectively amend the constitution. This is wrong. You can see it by noticing the same kind of misreading also makes federal law equivalent to a constitutional amendment - which it clearly is not.
In fact the Supreme Court has spoken on the relation between the Constitution and treaties: In Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957), the Supreme Court held stated that the U.S. Constitution supersedes international treaties ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Treaties are abrogated, at the federal level, all the time, and there are a number of mechanisms for doing so.
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I guess that's one way to make pirates leave cargo ships alone...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.