Bill Confirming Property Rights For Asteroid Miners Passes the Senate (examiner.com)

MarkWhittington writes: The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee announced the passage of a bill called H.R.2262 — SPACE Act of 2015, which is designed to facilitate commercial space. The bill has a number of provisions for that purpose, including extending the "learning period" during which the government would be restricted from imposing regulations on the commercial launch industry to September 2023. The most interesting and potentially far-reaching provision concerned property rights for companies proposing to mine asteroids for their resources. In essence, the bill confirms that private companies own what they mine. The bill is a compromise between previous Senate and House versions.

Comments

National level?

[Big Hairy Ian]

How can this be at the national level? Surely this is something that should be hashed out at the UN rather than proposing national laws for something that is already outside your jurisdiction.

Re:National level?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> How can this be at the national level?

The assumption seems to be that the US will get there first and claim whatever it finds for the US. (Seems reasonable.)

>> Surely this is something that should be hashed out at the UN

Surely you understand that the US only uses the UN when it needs to have a resolution bottled up in committees until the news cycle moves on. When we're talking about money, life or property the UN has and will be ignored.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has been operating under "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is also mine" for decades now, extra-terrestrial resource-grabs won't be any different.

Re:National level?

[bfpierce]

Because it applies to US companies launching from US facilities and returning to US facilities. If the UN wants to handle organization of space based 'land grabs' that's on them, not on US Congress.

Re:National level?

[Nidi62]

How can this be at the national level? Surely this is something that should be hashed out at the UN rather than proposing national laws for something that is already outside your jurisdiction.

If the UN can't even sort out terrestrial territorial claim issues like the Arctic Circle, do we really want them dealing with territorial issues in space? And what better system can you think of that the UN could actually enforce other than first gets the claim?

Re:National level?

[Richard_at_work]

Its at the national level because its basically the US government saying "*we* won't interfere with miners property rights". That doesn't conflict with someone else interfering with miners property rights.

Re:National level?

[ShanghaiBill]

Other space-faring nations are unlikely to challenge America on this issue, because they have an interest in staking their own claims. Since the asteroid belt contains more than 100 million cubic miles of ore, weighing several quadrillion tonnes, there should be enough to share. Space is big, and there is plenty of stuff out there.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN will always be ignored, it is the strength of it.
The entire point of the UN is to create a method for nations to discuss matters, even when situations are strained. For that to be possible it is necessary that the nations know that UN never can enforce anything against their will.
Instead the UN tries to encourage batter behavior on a voluntary basis. Instead of telling the worst human rights offender what to do (Because they wouldn't listen anyway.) you appoint one of them to be in charge of the human rights council. It might seem counterintuitive, but that puts a representative from that nation in a position where he or she has to think about those issues and that will put them less on the offensive.

Re:National level?

[GLMDesigns]

Because the UN has no authority. Ultimately this will apply to only the entities (individual or corporate) under the jurisdiction of the US. It does not apply to China or France or Russia or Zimbabwe.

Re:National level?

[Applehu Akbar]

Under the UN Space Treaty, all government on space settlements must arise from the culture of the settlement itself, rather than being imposed from Earth. A law like SPACE can only affect how our own legal system treats space settlers within our own jurisdiction.

The one exception is that if drug production and/or usage in space becomes an issue. In that case the DEA (if recreational) or the FDA (if pharma) would be given the budget snd manpower to build starships, if necessary, to enforce its galactic powers.

Re:National level?

[Raseri]

A better question is, Who thinks asteroid mining is economically feasible to the extent that they needed a law regarding property rights for it? This supposes that the money that can be gained from asteroid mining would exceed the cost of launching mining equipment into space, mining the asteroid, hauling the ore to Earth, landing it safely, and processing it into a usable form, all of which seems like it would be prohibitively expensive. This would only be the case if the materials which compose asteroids were substantially different from materials that can be obtained on Earth, but they don't seem to be: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activit...

Re:National level?

[idontgno]

The history of claim-jumping argues against you. More efficient than prospecting on your own someplace away from other claims, is to let someone else do your prospecting for you and then take the claim for your own. If they're working an asteroid, presumably it's rich enough to make it worth taking from them.

The Earth is big but humanity has always been willing to kill each other for chosen and desirable bits of it. Space probably won't be different, because even if Space is different, humanity is still humanity.

Re:National level?

[blue9steel]

A better question is, Who thinks asteroid mining is economically feasible to the extent that they needed a law regarding property rights for it?

A couple of billionaires are exploring that issue right now. The quantities of precious and heavy metals contained in some asteroids is valued in the trillions. Sure, no one is going to be bringing back iron ore any time soon but there are plenty of other items of interest.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

The vast majority of anything that will dissolve in iron is hugely depleted on the earth's surface, because it all sank to the core where it doesn't really come back from much. Much of what we've got now for those is added later from asteroids - it's very likely that a lot of the rarer metals here that turn out to be quite useful are abundant up there, simply by dint of not having gone through that separation process in planetary formation.

Re:National level?

[Immerman]

I don't know - what is the US policy on terrestrial theft by foreigners? I would assume that theft by foreign actors that occurs outside US jurisdiction gets ignored by US authorities, unless it was something of significant value stolen by someone well-connected, in which case jurisdiction be damned - political pressure and illegitimate military/police action is likely to be brought to bear.

Still, I don't see that there are a lot of other alternatives if we want to encourage space exploitation.

Re:National level?

[aaron4801]

"The United States" doesn't do any mining, only private corporations do. The TPP is a tacit admission that corporations (via ISDS) are above national governments anyway.
The Outer Space Treaty prevents celestial bodies from being claimed as (Earth) national territory, but apparently says nothing about commercialization of such bodies by private entities.

Re:National level?

[sycodon]

What government entity can possibly claim jurisdiction over asteroids or any other object in space?

What they SHOULD be doing is making it clear that if you mine an asteroid, and then accidentally drop it on a city, you are going to jail.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

USA! Don't you know they rule the universe and claim ownership to whatever they like - except sanity and getting on with others.

Re: National level?

[ememisya]

This is more along the lines of, "Go forth and discover the dark seas little billionaires, we won't shoot you down, oh, here are some rules." I'm sure Madagascar had a thing or two to say to weigh in on the issue but US don't care baby.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone gets mad, they can claim a small asteroid and point it toward us...

Re:National level?

[erikkemperman]

Other space-faring nations are unlikely to challenge America on this issue, because they have an interest in staking their own claims. (...) Space is big, and there is plenty of stuff out there.

I'm not sure they wouldn't challenge this. While it may only apply to companies in its jurisdiction, what gives US congress the authority to decide about ownership of stuff in space?

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

if you mine an asteroid, and then accidentally drop it on a city

If you think this is a possibility, then you are very ignorant. Or dumb. Possibly very little.

Re:National level?

[Joe_Dragon]

Burns Slant-Drilling Co will do an under ground claim jump.

Re:National level?

[Type44Q]

Surely this is something that should be hashed out at the UN

If it's outside the jurisdiction of one nation, it's outside the jurisdiction of multiple nations. Hell, it's outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. Senate; perhaps it could be argued that the intent of this bill is simply to recognize that...

Re:National level?

[JasterBobaMereel]

If a company registered in the USA, launches from the USA, mines asteroids in space, and returns to the USA, the the US senate currently says that the company will own what they mined and brought back at least according to the USA... others may dispute this

Taking off elsewhere, landing elsewhere, the journey there and back, and exporting to other countries could be very interesting ...

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Decades? I think you mean centuries.

Re:National level?

[Immerman]

Only an idiot would launch their mining equipment into space and haul the ore back to Earth. The whole point of mining in space is to build stuff IN SPACE, which you can then sell to other people in space at radically lower prices than Earth-made equipment while still maintaining lucrative profit margins. Only the largely useless "waste" byproducts such as gold, platinum, etc are likely to be worth sending back to Earth.

Now, there is of course a chicken-and-egg problem there which requires that at least the first few mining operations do in fact launch their equipment from Earth, and they may well lose money, though there is a chance they can send back enough "waste" to Earth to break even, or at least recoup a large portion of the initial costs.

After that though things can begin to snowball rapidly - evidence suggests that many asteroids contain iron ore of sufficient purity to require little if any refinement before working. And while freefall casting, forging, etc will doubtless present some challenges not present on Earth, they are unlikely to interfere with the production of crude structural components for long. In the worst case you simply do your metalworking under the influence of centrifugal "gravity". Then you only need to send up the "high-tech" components from earth - rarely more than a few percent of the total mass of a piece of industrial machinery. It may be a long time before it's worth it to make CPUs or even circuit boards in space, but girders, hulls, electric motors, etc. can be manufactured with extremely primitive technology. Even fuel tanks and rocket engines are fairly simple when you're not limited by the performance-to-mass constraints needed to escape Earth's gravity well.

Basically it comes down to the colonial mindset - by and large when a new frontier is first exploited it's mostly by those looking to pillage for a quick buck, and space may not be terribly conductive to that seeing as how there's no technologically inferior natives to massacre and plunder. Once it's been shown that people can prosper there though, then the second-wave settlement begins. Send the poor and downtrodden to seek their fortune exploiting the available resources in dangerous territory (while paying juicy interest on the debt they incurred getting there of course). And with the settlers come the traders, after all there's lucrative profits to be made on all that fancy stuff from the "old world". And before you know it you have a whole new chunk of empire paying taxes. Sure, if you get too heavy-handed they're likely to rebel, but there's lots of money to be made in the interim. Do you really think things will be any different simply because the empires are run by corporations rather than monarchies? The only real challenge is jump-starting that initial wave of exploitation.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is that why would the US have the jurisdiction to say that it can be used commercially, if it has no ownership over space?

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are in space, and we have no meaningful ability to affect your actions, then the actions that you take are your own.

Re:National level?

[kheldan]

How can this be at the national level?

Could this be creating a paper trail for the future of the military out in our solar system? The Earth's Moon may be, by mutual agreement (for the time being, anyway) declared to not be the property of any one nation, which makes sense because it's in orbit around the Earth, but asteroids are most certainly not; nations (not just the U.S.) could potentially use them as military bases out in the solar system. Starting a paper trail now, asserting that there are private-sector property rights to asteroids, would make it plausible that a nation's military could also claim property rights to asteroids. Really, though, I hate to have to go there with this, but humans be humans after all, and we're still rather warlike, so it's a factor to consider.

Re:National level?

[Attila Dimedici]

Because the UN does not actually have the authority, as part of its charter, to actually pass anything binding concerning this.

Re:National level?

[Attila Dimedici]

What government entity can possibly claim jurisdiction over asteroids or any other object in space?

The government entity with the ability to enforce that jurisdiction claim...the same as for any place here on earth.

Re:National level?

[iamgnat]

A better question is, Who thinks asteroid mining is economically feasible to the extent that they needed a law regarding property rights for it?

Ones that are far thinking enough to realize that they can get such laws passed now while both the law makers and general public A) are ignorant of the impact and B) aren't interested enough to care.

This isn't about anyone doing anything now, it's prospecting for the future.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has having no jurisdiction ever been problem for US?

Re:National level?

[azcoyote]

It's true; in fact, the real beneficiaries of the U.S. frontier gold rushes were the merchants who sold supplies for mining rather than the miners themselves. With this in mind, however, it seems that any intrusions from other powers will be in accord with a principle of commercial viability. Whether or not someone steals another's asteroid claim will depend upon the potential costs and profits of benefiting in another way. Thus what might contribute to some likelihood of respecting other's rights is not some innate goodness of human activity, but rather the potential to profit off of such a respect. Other countries might indeed benefit from asteroid mining much like the merchants of the past did. They might even be able to develop technologies for their own mining more easily because they will benefit from the mistakes of the first pioneers. But this principle of commercial viability could just as well lead to a non-recognition of supposed rights and outright violation of claims.

Re:National level?

[argStyopa]

A few answers to your question:

First, yes, on the face of it this should be a UN sort of question. But in the same sense that the UN is unlikely to adopt a US law, the US is cantankerous about adopting UN agreements since many of them are so patently political and over-reaching. Let's also remember that the UN is fundamentally NOT 'democratic' so really, their "resolutions" have no inherent moral value more than US fiat anyway.

Second, as a matter of practicality, the US is technologically the most likely power to GET there, so it would make sense that insofar as US law is concerned, it's hashed out. In fact, the resolution of these property rights at least in regards to US courts and jurisdictions, probably makes it even MORE likely that a private venture would be willing to commit the $ to be earlier even than national space programs (again, pretty much only US firms are anywhere close to that capability).

Thirdly, also as a matter of practicality: *nobody* can enforce jack in space. It's going to be the Wild West to some degree (if you can wreck someone else's stuff and NOT BE RECORDED DOING SO, you'll get away with it almost automatically) until an actual police force could be put in place. And guess which power that's likely to be? Hint: it won't be the UN.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

...what gives US congress the authority to decide about ownership of stuff in space?

The Golden Rule, AKA: The one with all the gold, makes the rules.

Re:National level?

[thegameiam]

Part of the viability of claim-jumping is the notion of getting away with it. At least for the foreseeable future, there will be a lot of eyes on any given asteroid mining operation.

Re:National level?

[erikkemperman]

A couple of billionaires are exploring that issue right now. The quantities of precious and heavy metals contained in some asteroids is valued in the trillions.

The preciousness of those materials is in its rarity. If the amount of gold on earth suddenly triples, it'll presumably affect its value. Well, unless we make some arbitrary distinction like the one that attaches different value to artificial vs natural diamond, which everybody accepts for romantic reasons (and to keep De Beers filthy rich).

Re:National level?

[buchner.johannes]

Who owns the Moon rocks then?

Re: National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I wonder where these questions come from... as if we should wait for some dueling claimants to show up in federal court and have the judge go "I dunno, there appears to be no law on this subject, so I'll guess how Congress would have wanted this handled. Now, should I treat it like offshore drilling or like piracy or like whale hunting or like home run balls?"

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gold is useful for more than being shiny and rare. I hope the price goes down.

Re:National level?

[careysub]

The history of claim-jumping argues against you. More efficient than prospecting on your own someplace away from other claims, is to let someone else do your prospecting for you and then take the claim for your own. If they're working an asteroid, presumably it's rich enough to make it worth taking from them.

The Earth is big but humanity has always been willing to kill each other for chosen and desirable bits of it. Space probably won't be different, because even if Space is different, humanity is still humanity.

I'm sorry this not the Wild West in space*. Not even the bill just passed lets you claim an asteroid - which is still explicitly prohibited by international treaty. It lets you claim the the stuff you got from the asteroid only, which is quite reasonable.

Translating notions of "claim jumping" to a space mining operation does not take into account the vast differences. For one, asteroids never had ore concentration processes, beyond what differentiation on formation might have accomplished, and space mining relies on the high average abundance of siderophile** elements in various classes of asteroids. The entire asteroid will be the ore body, and even a small one will vastly exceed the scale of plausible human mining operation. The whole point of space mining is the lack of scarcity up there. Earth mining practices are based on the fact that scarcity is normal.

*In science fiction this is called a "Bat Durston", translating notions of the Wild West into a space opera. For good reason these are looked upon with derision.

**The rare iron-loving elements that sank to the core of the Earth.

Re:National level?

[careysub]

Under the UN Space Treaty, all government on space settlements must arise from the culture of the settlement itself, rather than being imposed from Earth. A law like SPACE can only affect how our own legal system treats space settlers within our own jurisdiction.

Nothing like this in is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Is there some other UN Space Treaty I do not know about?

This claim is, frankly, impossible to credit. The whole focus of the the 1967 treaty is to make sure that States are responsible for the regulation in space of all entities under the authority. The UN does everything through the world state system.

Re:National level?

[lhowaf]

It does seem presumptuous but I think they are only talking about stuff brought back from space to the US .

Quoting the act:

Any asteroid resources obtained in outer space are the property of the entity that obtained them, which shall be entitled to all property rights to them, consistent with applicable federal law and existing international obligations.

That also indicates that, if somebody finds an asteroid made of crack, they can't keep it.

Re:National level?

[radarskiy]

" outside your jurisdiction."

It doesn't actually cover anyone outside of the US borders. You have to get back to the US for any property rights to be recognized.

Re:National level?

[sycodon]

If you fetched them, you own them.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only an idiot would have that narrative in their mind. It will never happen. Ever.

"Only an idiot would launch their mining equipment into space "

What mining equipment? There is absolutely NO SUCH EQUIPMENT. At all. Anywhere. Start there, nutcase.

OK, I lied. There's Luna 16.

"The only real challenge is jump-starting that initial wave of exploitation."

Yeah, that's the only real challenge. Finding some sort of reason to get super cheap ore in space. Where there's nothing and no one.

Just that.

I wonder what you're like in real life. I picture a severly overweight neckbeard programmer who gets all his education from sci-fi.

Join us in reality. You have no other choice that doesn't involve powerful psychoactive substances.

Re:National level?

[sycodon]

One of the methods of mining them are to bring them back to earth orbit for processing. If a bunch of PhDs can crash a satellite into Mars, company engineers can crash an asteroid into the earth.

Re:National level?

[Bing Tsher E]

The US Frontier gold rushes really didn't have much to do with gold in the first place.

Take the California Gold Rush as an example.

The US had just won the Mexican-American war in 1848 and we had this big strip of land (California) that we'd siezed from Mexico. There weren't enough white American settlers on the land for us to maintain our claim on the land effectively.

Solution? Holler "Gold" and get every fool and idiot not otherwise occupied to rush across the continent to the new territory.

There was some gold, of course, but everybody eventually figured out, not that much gold.

Re:National level?

[erikkemperman]

I think you may have missed my point; by what right should the US get to allocate ownership of stuff it doesn't own?

Re:National level?

[Immerman]

Obviously. Nobody is going to waste resources building mining equipment until they have chosen a likely profitable target and have a launch window within a few years - until then designing, prototyping, and telescopic prospecting have much higher returns on investment - and all of those are currently occurring. Otherwise you've spent a bunch of resources building equipment that's just sitting around in a warehouse getting more obsolete by the day.

Just as crossing the oceans to the New World, the reasons for going to space will be profit - first in terms of rare earths returned to Earth, and later from selling supplies to both existing labor and those who follow. It probably doesn't make financial sense just yet unless someone finds an extremely lucrative rare-earth asteroid, but as launch costs fall that will change rapidly, and government backing or long-term speculation could change that overnight.

And of course there's always the military angle - once any nation develops an industrial presence in space, the others will have to follow suite or risk eventual conquest - there's just too much strategic advantage to holding the ultimate high ground.

As for the ad-hominem attack - you're far wrong. And actually I'd have no interest in going to space except perhaps as a brief visit if it were sufficiently cheap - I enjoy nature far too much, and it will likely be at least several tens of millenia before even the most ambitious terraforming projects would yield anything comparable on our sister-planets.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

But surely all this launching, mining, and returning wouldn't compel them to pay taxes in the US, too? Surely there must be some loophole...

Re:National level?

[lhowaf]

That's what I thought you meant but it seems like a rare bit of humility for the US government to essentially say, if you bring it here, they won't interfere with your claim to ownership. It says nothing at all about the ownership of anything in space.

Re:National level?

[erikkemperman]

But they are saying something about ownership by allowing (US) companies to "bring it here" with no regard for other interested parties. Substitute something like Antarctica in the bit you quoted earlier, maybe you'll see what I mean.

Re:National level?

[lhowaf]

I was going to argue that Antarctica was different because it is covered by treaty but I think you may be right. There is a UN Outer Space Treaty that has this provision: "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind."

Re:National level?

[Applehu Akbar]

More precisely, it prevents Earthly governments from militarizing space or extending their territory into space, while saying nothing about "local" government. This has been interpreted to mean that no barrier exists to space settlements governing themselves.

Re:National level?

[SoftwareArtist]

by what right should the US get to allocate ownership of stuff it doesn't own?

Clearly, it can't. But what it can do is say, "We won't interfere with your claims to own it." If other countries do object to your claims, then there will be a conflict that needs to get resolved. But I suspect all the other countries with active space programs will be setting up their own asteroid mining programs, so they won't be minded to object. Ultimately it will take international treaties to set out the rules. But those rules will get set out, and they'll almost certainly end up permitting asteroid mining in some way. So this is a first stake in the ground about what the US Senate thinks those rules should be.

Re:National level?

[rtb61]

Claims will not be any where near sufficient. No million remote probes with flags staking claims to everything. The only claims that should be accepted should be factual real ones. Want to stake a mining claim, then show the actual mine being built with the intention of being used. No flag claims or pile of rocks claim. Want to claim the asteroid mine, then build an actual mine on that asteroid. So first to mine can make the claim and nothing short of that will be accepted.

Things tends to balance out as the race to claim an asteroid by sending out a mine construction fleet, means that any one who believes they will not get there first and start setting up first, will simply pick a different asteroid. Bullshit with US corporations trying to lay claim to the entire galaxy under threat of war will not be accepted or tolerated.

So many entities can declare their intent to mine a particular asteroid and the first to start substantively mining wins and the losers can either join with them or relocate, depending upon the size of the target (more than one mine possible, even likely, mutual support should anything go wrong).

Re:National level?

[bughunter]

And before that, it was the English, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, and French colonial powers.

And before them it was the Muslim Arabs and the Mongols.

And before them it was the Romans and the Macedonians.

It's a human thing, really.

Re:National level?

[default luser]

Part of the viability of claim-jumping is the notion of getting away with it. At least for the foreseeable future, there will be a lot of eyes on any given asteroid mining operation.

Exactly right. Compared to a claim in the middle of the desert/tundra/mountains in the days before TCP/IP, the amount if eyes on each claim will be simply staggering.

And thanks to the incredibly slow speeds in space, we'd probably have the hot land war that erupts over your asteroid theft over and done with before it ever reaches orbit. Because anything worth spending billions to send a miner out is certainly worth destroying millions of lives defending it!

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

In space no one can ear you scream

Vladimir Putin

Re:National level?

[thisisauniqueid]

I'm pretty sure the UN is the wrong level too. It's space.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just as crossing the oceans to the New World"

But it's not, is it? But you know that, this space fantasizing is just idle speculation.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A couple of billionaires are exploring that issue right now."

No, they're exploring how to become millionaires in the future.

Re:National level?

[samwichse]

Leviathan Wakes has probably some of the best depiction of asteroid claim-jumping I've seen. Along with the wild west of poverty-stricken miners trying to eke out a living. Highly recommended (the rest of the book/series is "pretty good," but not amazing).

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you understand that the US only uses the UN when it needs to have a resolution bottled up in committees until the news cycle moves on. When we're talking about money, life or property the UN has and will be ignored.

This is pretty much how the US deals with any international body.

When the US wants something from them, they act like it's awesome. When the body goes against them, the US whines and complains.

The US only uses those international bodies as it suits them, and then is otherwise hostile to their existence.

Because collectively the US are a bunch of spoiled, self entitled assholes who think the world revolves around them.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

The UN is just the US's secretary - they exist so we don't have to deal with a bunch of petulant third nations directly.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The USA has no durisdiction in Space. It can make laws only for US companies and people. Any such regulations would be ultra vires.

Re:National level?

[Stuarticus]

Exactly, and the same bunch of idiots who put this thing forward don't believe in Global Warming! It baffles the mind to think they believe they need to put this in place right now. They're must be so bored ignoring real issues they can devote an inordinate amount of time to blue sky thinking.

Re:National level?

[Stuarticus]

From what I've heard whoever nicked them from NASA.

Re:National level?

[RockDoctor]

Since the asteroid belt contains more than 100 million cubic miles of ore, weighing several quadrillion tonnes,

In geological terms, it's whatever number in whatever measure you want of ORE plus GANGUE. The ore is the stuff you want, which you can separate from gangue by crude physical processes (digging here, but not there ; blasting out and taking for processing the ore from that vein before cutting an access tunnel through the gangue). The terms become a bit vaguer when the ore is highly dispersed as it is in most ideas about asteroids (modern copper mines, for example, run to 1 to 2 % ore in literally mountains of gangue, but since the ore veins are typically under a millimetre across, separating the ore from the gangue is unfeasible ; naturally, this generates mountains of waste). Of course, these are just ideas - we've very few ground-truthed measurements of asteroid composition, and our remote sensing technologies are not up to the task of detecting the ppt or ppm levels of minerals anticipated in these ores. At the very least, we need to get an XRF (or similar) machine to within metres of the rock in question, and measure a few thousands of data points (to understand the distribution of high- and low- grade ores in the gangue.

There is a lot of wild, wild optimism expressed on the topic of asteroid mining. But chondritic elemental abundances are pretty well known, and we know that there will be a lot of gangue to get through. some of that you can possibly re-form (stick it into bags ; part-melt it into slabs) to use as radiation shielding ; some of it you might use for soil in your agricultural modules. but most of it is going to be waste. And sending waste to somewhere else (particularly given the unfortunate habit of things in orbit to come back) costs energy.

Re:National level?

[Bing Tsher E]

The US Frontier gold rushes really didn't have much to do with gold in the first place.

Take the California Gold Rush as an example.

The US had just won the Mexican-American war in 1848 and we had this big strip of land (California) that we'd siezed from Mexico. There weren't enough white American settlers on the land for us to maintain our claim on the land effectively.

Solution? Holler "Gold" and get every fool and idiot not otherwise occupied to rush across the continent to the new territory.

There was some gold, of course, but everybody eventually figured out, not that much gold.

Re:National level?

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

If I mine something from an asteroid, why shouldn't it be mine? All this does is say that the US recognizes your ownership; other countries aren't under an obligation to, at this point. It's not really much different from laws regarding fishing in international waters. If you catch it, it's yours (except for limits in place on certain kinds of marine life, for instance).

Is it just me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me, or did I just interpreted this summary as "USA considers whole outer space their property, and as such drafts laws how to handle that property without any consensus with anybody else."

Re:Is it just me ...

[Rei]

If a US company launches into space, reaches an asteroid, mines it, takes the stuff, and lands back in the US.... they want to know whether the US government is going to let them call what they mined their property. They could care less what Tajikistan thinks. The launch, operations, and returned goods would be within the US. If someone from some other country wants to try to intercept and destroy them en route, that's a "hurdle" this doesn't address. It's also not a realistic scenario in the near-term, or even mid-term, future.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Errol backfiring]

It is just you. All American property bills, like intellectual property bills, make as much sense.

Re:Is it just me ...

[fustakrakich]

they want to know whether the US government is going to let them call what they mined their property.

It would suck if the government were to claim otherwise. But we should disallow any claim to the asteroid itself.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Pseudonymous Powers]

If a US company launches into space, reaches an asteroid, mines it, takes the stuff, and lands back in the US.... they want to know whether the US government is going to let them call what they mined their property. They could care less what Tajikistan thinks. The launch, operations, and returned goods would be within the US. If someone from some other country wants to try to intercept and destroy them en route, that's a "hurdle" this doesn't address. It's also not a realistic scenario in the near-term, or even mid-term, future.

Yeah. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 is pretty vague, and maybe even self-contradictory, about how property works in space. This ambiguity was probably intentional, as it would otherwise have been impossible to get so many countries to sign on to it, especially in the midst of the Cold War.

Personally, I think we should just agree to treat outer space the same way we currently treat international waters. Seems like the underlying problems and legal issues are mostly the same. But I guess some people wouldn't agree with that, either. That's diplomacy for you.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The US recognizes people may eventually mine asteroids. I don't see a problem. The idea the proper state of a free human is to presumptively kneel for permission for everything from the King is a historical anachronism unfortunately adopted by modern democracies happy to let The People feel a taste of royal power.

Your attitude is akin to the concrete canyon dwellers in New York and California dictating how places like Arizona and Idaho should use their land.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

And long term, unless the US is derelict in extending naval dominance into space to protect the trade routes there, as they do on the high seas today.

Hint: Any conflicts will be between powerful countries seeking resources. Whiney also-rans who feel things like they own asteroids they have no means to get to, will not enter into the equation in practice.

Re:Is it just me ...

[ShanghaiBill]

Is it just me, or did I just interpreted this summary as "USA considers whole outer space their property

No. This law says pretty much the opposite: "Space belongs to no one, so if you go get some it, it is yours." There is nothing in this law that applies only to American citizens or American companies. So if a Chinese, Russian, or Indian company brings back ore from space, America would recognize their ownership (although their own government may not).

Re: Is it just me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a believer in "it's not yours unless you can defend it"

US can't stop anyone from doing whatever they want in space.

Re:Is it just me ...

[MachineShedFred]

Is it just me, or did you not even think about this for 5 seconds? The US Government just said that they are treating space mining exactly the same as any other mining operation - those that dig the shit out, keep it. This equally applies to a Euro / Russian / Chinese / Indian company if they decide to go space mining, though it doesn't appear to be an issue in any of those jurisdictions as there are not private enterprises actively performing space activities outside of government contracts.

Re:Is it just me ...

[pr100]

Any company with international interests will care very much what other western nations (if not Tajikistan) think. If a court in (say) England rules that something is owned by someone other than the US company then it could be a huge problem for that company. Multinational companies ignore the rulings of courts in any country where they hope to do business or have assets at their peril.

Re:Is it just me ...

[jeti]

Why would it land on earth? The mined material is almost worthless here.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Immerman]

Countries? Really? Seems to me the dominant actors are likely to be corporations. Far more durable and conductive to the ever-changing alignments of space-rocks - awfully hard to draw borders in space when everything is traveling at different speeds.

Besides, corporations pretty much control most of the major governments on Earth, and will have significant incentive to play on nationalistic fears to ensure that nations have a hard time extending their reach into space, but let "their" (hah!) corporations do the hard work instead.

Re: Is it just me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a believer in "it's not yours unless you can defend it"

You're a _believer_ in it? As in, rather than just recognizing it as a truism, you base your ideas of right and wrong on it? So, if someone stronger and/or better armed than you comes along and takes what you own, you're going to accept it and not call the police, sue, etc.? Do you have any nice stuff? A nice house? Attractive wife or and/or daughters who share your philosophy? If so on any of those, can we have your address please?

Re:Is it just me ...

[Rei]

Most near-term commercial "space mining" proposals are about mining metallic asteroids which contain high concentrations of metals which are rare/valuable on Earth, and which could be taken back to Earth via ion tug or rail gun/coil gun/etc at little cost compared to the value of the resources.

There is a hypothetical future market for resources mined in space to be used in space, that would theoretically pay lots of money for common things like water and base metals. However, there is a very real, present market for valuable metals on Earth today.

We may be sending a probe soon to a potential mining target (although not to mine it, just to study it) - 16 Psyche. It's over 200 kilometers in diameter, contains about 1% of the mass of the entire asteroid belt, and is believed to be 90% metal (the same sort of iron-nickel combination that we find in some meteorites). Nickel is a reasonably valuable metal on its own and Psyche has enough for millions of years at Earth's current consumption rate, but that's not really the target of mining. It's things like gold, iridium, silver, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium, tungsten, etc that mining companies are after. They're far more concentrated on metallic asteroids than in Earth rocks, and they're unoxidized to boot. Also some asteroids have gem-quality peridot in them in abundance. That alone could be worth a fortune even if it weren't from space (ignoring what some people pay for otherwise uninteresting "rocks" from space). Metallic asteroids usually show a beautiful Widmanstätten patterns as well, which would give them value as decorative stone even if they became commonplace on Earth. Picture how much some luxury-obsessed sheikh would pay for say a countertop of Widmanstätten-patterened asteroid studded with peridot from the birth of our solar system.

But again, the prime mining market is the rare metals.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Rei]

And you're assuming it would be a multinational why?

Re:Is it just me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

But why? The most efficient method to mine out an asteroid would be to move it into a high orbit around the Earth or at least the moon. That's a substantial investment and wouldn't be possible without the right to claim an entire body.

Re:Is it just me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Picture how much some luxury-obsessed sheikh would pay for say a countertop of Widmanstätten-patterened asteroid studded with peridot from the birth of our solar system.

A countertop? How many sheikhs do you know?

I'm thinking flooring tile made from the stuff!

Re: Is it just me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is just you.
What is said is that outer space treaty forbids any gov from claiming land/property/etc, but left open the issue of a business or person owning it. So us is saying that any business or person that gets to an area can lay claim to it. EU gov. also backs this. The real question is, if a business lands on asteroid, they can claim it. So if business lands on moon first, whycan they not claim all?

Re:Is it just me ...

[david_thornley]

Intercepting and destroying a spacecraft would involve militarizing space, which is also against the treaty.

Re:Is it just me ...

[david_thornley]

If we start bringing in those rare metals by the megaton, how expensive are they going to be? How much money will the operation make until it's not longer economical to ship metals to Earth?

Re:Is it just me ...

[sabbede]

Look at it this way - there needs to be an international agreement on the rules, but there won't be until nations start making their own. Somebody has to kick it off.

I have a new law too

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about who the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow belongs to. That's about as realistic as asteroid mining.

Leprechauns, space mining, same thing.

You can talk all you want, fantasize all you want, it will never happen. Ever.

Re:I have a new law too

[Pseudonymous Powers]

It's about who the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow belongs to. That's about as realistic as asteroid mining. Leprechauns, space mining, same thing. You can talk all you want, fantasize all you want, it will never happen. Ever.

Bah! You're just as bad as the rest of the space nutters on Slashdot. How many times do I have to tell you space nutters? Space doesn't exist! It's just a sheet of canvas that God put up above the Earth to keep us from seeing what else is on his desk.

Space nutters!

Re:I have a new law too

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, OK. I hear they make Haloperidol in grape flavor now.

Re:I have a new law too

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously this is a ploy for the elites to get a view of God's desk

Re:I have a new law too

[idji]

You fool. it is not a sheet of canvas, it is a bronze firmament.

Own what you mine

[fustakrakich]

That is the proper way. There should never have been any dispute. We should have the same rules on Earth. You shouldn't be allowed own the land, but you own what you extract, build, harvest, etc.

Re:Own what you mine

[ShanghaiBill]

We should have the same rules on Earth. You shouldn't be allowed own the land, but you own what you extract, build, harvest, etc.

That is a really, really bad idea. In terms of wasted lives and excess deaths, it is probably the worst idea in history. People have little incentive to build and grow on land they do not own. Collectivization of land ownership resulted in the mass starvation of 7 million Ukrainians and 30 million Chinese. Even today, millions of farmers in Africa and China are summarily evicted from land they have tilled for generations, because they have no legal title. Others are forced into subsistence agriculture because they have no ability to use their land as collateral, or sell it, or consolidate land into an economically viable size. The World Bank considers a lack of clear property rights to be one of the primary reasons for persistent 3rd world poverty.

Re:Own what you mine

[MachineShedFred]

There never was any dispute. However, sometimes it's necessary to codify common sense, in order to preemptively ward off greedy assholes who suffer from an astonishing lack of common sense.

Re:Own what you mine

[fustakrakich]

You are talking about something else entirely. Your work, crops, buildings etc shall not be uprooted. What should not be allowed is the speculation that keeps others off of unused land.

Re:Own what you mine

[Immerman]

By what right would a person be evicted from "their" land if no one can own it?

The problem is that every attempt at large-scale "collectivism" to date has actually been a power-grab under a rabble-rousing banner. They say "We claim these resources/powers for The People" to gain popular support, when what they mean is "This all belongs to the ruling class now. Suckers." It's why claims that Communism has failed are baseless - communism works fine on small scales, and has never been attempted on a large one. Communism requires ownership by the people - the only way that's compatible with ownership by the government is if the people own the government. And a precondition for that is having a truly functional democracy - something that has never existed on a large scale in all of human history.

And I have absolutely no doubt that the World Bank considers the lack of clear property rights a major problem - property rights are inherently a way for the wealthy to consolidate wealth, and the World Bank is a ruthlessly exploitative example of wealthy bankers at their worst.

Re:Own what you mine

[ShanghaiBill]

By what right would a person be evicted from "their" land if no one can own it?

Because that person doesn't own it. It is owned by the "collective" or "the people", which in practice means the government. So rather than paying market value to the farmer whose family has farmed the land for generations, a property developer can just pay a small bribe to a bureaucrat, and have the farmer evicted with no compensation.

claims that Communism has failed are baseless - communism works fine on small scales, and has never been attempted on a large one.

You need to get your cuckoo clock repaired. It has lost its connection with reality.

Re:Own what you mine

[Anonymous Coward]

Collectivization of land ownership resulted in the mass starvation of 7 million Ukrainians [wikipedia.org] and 30 million Chinese [wikipedia.org].

Wrong! Mass disruption of existing structures resulted in a poorly implemented practice that caused widespread hardship.

You could do the same thing anywhere for any number of reasons.

The World Bank considers a lack of clear property rights to be one of the primary reasons for persistent 3rd world poverty.

Because of unstable governments.

Re:Own what you mine

[Immerman]

Try reading the next sentence smartass, and go ahead an give me even one example of a nation in which land or anything else was owned by the people rather than an elite governing class cynically labeling itself "The People". Communism is impossible to implement beyond the scale of a stable democracy. The USSR called itself communist to garner popular support, the US called it communist to breed fear of wealth-distributing socialism. Both were cynically lying for the sake of concentrating more wealth and power into the hands of the elite.

Re:Own what you mine

[smugfunt]

People have little incentive to build and grow on land they do not own.

In the UK all land is 'owned' by the 'Crown'. There are several buildings and farms though, as the people using the land have freehold or leasehold contracts (in effect) with the Crown. In fact most people are unaware of this legal nicety and go about their business as if they owned land themselves.

I don't suppose the World Bank has mentioned it, but the private monopolisation of land also has some negative effects, as famously noted by Henry George.

Re:Own what you mine

[david_thornley]

The Holodomor (the famine in the Ukraine under Communist rule) was not just a matter of inadequate food production. The Communists continued to take what food there was away. It was deliberate starvation on a very large scale. From what I've read, whether it counts as genocide depends on whether it was specifically aimed at Ukrainians with other nationalities suffering as collateral damage, or whether it was directed at a large area regardless of ethnicity.

Re:Own what you mine

[Anonymous Coward]

Collectivization of land ownership resulted in the mass starvation of 7 million Ukrainians [wikipedia.org] and 30 million Chinese [wikipedia.org].

Wrong! Mass disruption of existing structures resulted in a poorly implemented practice that caused widespread hardship.

You could do the same thing anywhere for any number of reasons.

That would be true if starvation was due not producing enough food, but in fact it was deliberate, because everything produced had been taken away, in Ukraine anyway.

The first word spoken on Mars ...

[scunc]

"Dibs."

Re:The first word spoken on Mars ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If that person gets a mining operation set up, digs up whatever they're claiming, and calls dibs on what they extracted; they've earned it. I don't think the US government should argue with that.

Re:The first word spoken on Mars ...

[ClickOnThis]

An old joke from comedian Robert Klein...

Neil Armstrong missed a great commercial opportunity when he placed his foot on the moon. With all of Planet Earth listening, he should have said 'Coca-Cola.'

Re:The first word spoken on Mars ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Heard that Apple? With as little as 100 billions of cash you have on hand you can organise mission to Mars and have yours astronaut advertise your products on arrival. This type of advertisement will be in history books!!!

Do Not Miss The Opportunity!

Re:The first word spoken on Mars ...

[Areyoukiddingme]

Heard that Apple? With as little as 100 billions of cash you have on hand you can organise mission to Mars and have yours astronaut advertise your products on arrival. This type of advertisement will be in history books!!!

Microsoft will buy the contract to send Surfaces with the astronauts. And the commentators will call them iPads.

Asteroid Orbit

[raftpeople]

Seems like there could be a danger of altering an asteroids orbit and having it eventually hit Earth.

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like there could be a danger of altering an asteroids orbit and having it eventually hit Earth.

But it would make it easier to mine that way.

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> danger of altering an asteroids orbit and having it eventually hit Earth

How did this get mod'ed to 3? Asteroids are #1 big (making them hard to alter), #2 far away (making it unlikely that they will accidentally get close to us), #3 already in an orbit (making it easy to predict what our efforts will change them) and #4 easy to track once we know they are there (e.g., slap a solar-powered transmitter on 'em). Of all the problems with asteroid mining (see the "pot of gold" and "but the UN" comments nearby) this is one for the bottom of the list.

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[ShanghaiBill]

Seems like there could be a danger of altering an asteroids orbit and having it eventually hit Earth.

Simple solution: Improve math and physical science education, so people have a better sense of scale, and can think more rationally. Then this will no longer be a problem.

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, except any asteroid big enough to not just break up in the atmosphere and make a fairly impressive light show would require an amazing amount of fuel to be burned to get enough delta-V to alter it's solar orbit in any meaningful way. As it turns out, the more mass something has, the harder it is to move out of it's current trajectory.

Why would anyone waste the resources engineering and executing such an effort unless they were a Bond villain in one of those bad late 70s movies? Also, if they are there to mine that fucker, why wouldn't they just drill out whatever they're there for and leave? Also, even if they were to dig out enough mass to make it easier to move, it's in orbit around the sun; it would be much easier to deorbit into the sun than execute what is essentially an interplanetary transfer to orbit Earth, much less intersect with it...

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[Crowd Computing]

Your argument assumes that asteroids are all made of hard material. But if the asteroid is made of loose or soft materials, mining could directly or indirectly cause the asteroid to break apart, and this could lead to complications with #4 since our ability to predict the asteroid's path would go from large bowling ball to colliding billiard balls. Detailed scientific study of the target can fix the problem, so there's still a need for government oversight to ban missions to dangerous asteroids.

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[Tablizer]

The Mother of all UPS deliveries

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[blazer1024]

Now I'm imagining the Nostromo painted brown with gold lettering...

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[Immerman]

Agreed in general - especially if we're talking about the asteroid belt, in which case the orbital energies are so different than Earth's that pushing them onto a collision course would require a large and intentional effort. Well, at least if we're talking about asteroids large enough to be worth establishing infrastructure on. They do come in all sizes after all.

The first asteroids to be mined though will likely be those in the Earth's L4 and L5 points, many of which have orbits that take them back and forth between the two, passing near (in orbital terms) the Earth in the process. The complex orbital dynamics involved mean that relatively small orbital perturbations may result in quite large deflections after a few passes. Of course since orbital mechanics are well understood it shouldn't be difficult to monitor the asteroid's orbit and recognize when cumulative perturbations are beginning to push things into a dangerous course. And correcting or avoiding such problems should be a relatively trivial matter of selectively ejecting matter/launching rockets, etc. at different times or directions.

So a non-issue for any responsible mining group. Unfortunately I look around at corporate behavior on Earth, and can easily imagine a group acting to maximize profit by neglecting such monitoring, scheduling launches to minimize fuel cost in a manner that consistently pushes the asteroid toward a collision course. And of course there's always the chance that some other event, say a major fuel-depot explosion, could nudge the asteroid on course for an eventual collision, and the group is uninterested in footing the bill for orbital remediation, which if significant infrastructure was damaged could rival or exceed the cost of establishing the mining operation in the first place.

The only solution I see is to
1) require all exploited near-Earth asteroids to be equipped with transponders to allow easy orbital analysis by independent parties on Earth (shouldn't be too much of an issue - they should be cheap, and secrecy is pretty much impossible in space anyway)
2) Make the group exploiting an asteroid responsible for any necessary orbital remediation - up to and including liquidation of corporate assets to fund government action if necessary.

Both of which would require international agreement

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[raftpeople]

Tunguska was a 50m asteroid...a 350m asteroid would destroy a small state. I could be wrong, but it seems like just landing on an asteroid could have enough force to alter the orbit (depending on how the landing is handled).

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[raftpeople]

"especially if we're talking about the asteroid belt" - one companies plans are for small near earth asteroids (165 feet wide)

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[raftpeople]

"Asteroids are #1 big (making them hard to alter), #2 far away" - the plans are for small near earth asteroids (e.g. 165 feet wide, comes within 1.5au's of earth)

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> 165 feet wide

Oops, that's one 7 megaton blast. I think we can live with that, considering an event like that naturally occurs somewhere on earth once every 1000 years and it would probably land in an unpopulated area.

For your own "oops I nudged an asteroid" math, may I suggest:
http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/cgi...

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[bughunter]

If it's small enough that a mining craft could alter its orbit, then the craft won't "land" on it. It will dock with it.

And the same kinds of smarts that got the craft there are required to predict what forces will have what effects. And the very small technical risk of altering the orbit is further reduced by the tiny probability that the altered orbit will intersect Earth's. It took a lot of delta-V on a very small mass to get the ship there. A few newtons to bury a harpoon isn't going to do more than move aphelion/perihelion by a few cm.

The argument that mining will create a risk of Earth impact is up there with being afraid of hostile spacefaring aliens on the improbability curve.

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[MachineShedFred]

And the bigger it is, the harder it will be to overcome it's inertia.

The Apollo 11 CSM had a launch mass of 28,801 kg, and took the most powerful non-nuclear device mankind has ever created to get it to the moon.

The asteroid "99942 Apophis" is ~325m, which is close to your hypothetical 350m asteroid, and has a mass of 4x10^10 kg. That's 40,000,000,000 kg. It also has an average velocity of 30.728 km/s.

It would take a pretty fucking big accident to get that one to crash into the Earth, even with it passing fairly close by. Like, an "accident" that involved the purposeful mounting of rocket engines and fueling over many tanker launches (or refining of materials collected in space) to the asteroid to turn it into a kinetic weapon on purpose, to say nothing of having to do a massive survey of the thing to make sure you get the rockets thrusting against the exact center of gravity so you don't just enhance it's natural spin, and then calculate the proper transfer maneuver to actually hit Earth, because it turns out that it's pretty easy to miss a planet.

If it's big enough to mine, it's big enough to secure yourself to without altering it's trajectory in any meaningful way. Newton's laws still work.

Re:Asteroid Orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

you also should mention that the asteroid will weight 1,570,800 tones, which is kind of a lot to be able to change orbit. For comparison ISS weight about 420 tones.

Earth level?

[QuietLagoon]

How can this be done on the level of Earth? Why do we think that we have the rights to distribute what is on the asteroids?

.
Is this like the Europeans coming to North America, and giving out land rights for land they did not own?

Re:Earth level?

[Viol8]

"Why do we think that we have the rights to distribute what is on the asteroids?"

Why shouldn't we? Do you think ET has summer houses on them?

Idiot.

Re:Earth level?

[presidenteloco]

I believe the Americans call this principle "Eminent Domain" which means, not to put too fine a point on it: "Although we allowed you to have guns, we have way more of them, so f**k off your land. This is our lawn now. Get off it."

Just remember that a right is something given by the one with might. It may not be how things should be, but see quoted text above. Civilization? Snivelization!

Re:Earth level?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your property is what you can defend with weaponry (either yours or the state's) against other people who come to take it from you using their own weaponry. When both contenders have lots of weapons then such a conflict is called a war.

Re:Earth level?

[QuietLagoon]

Your property is what you can defend with weaponry...

LMFTFY

.
Your property is what you can steal with weaponry...

Re:Earth level?

[careysub]

I believe the Americans call this principle "Eminent Domain" which means, not to put too fine a point on it: "Although we allowed you to have guns, we have way more of them, so f**k off your land. This is our lawn now. Get off it."

To be fair, you left out the part about "And here's a check for the full fair market value of the lawn. Buy yourself another one, if you like.

Re:Earth level?

[PPH]

We'll just tell the aliens to endeavor to persevere. And once they've thought about it long enough, they'll vaporize the Earth.

Bill includes provision to group asteroid natives

[Kevoco]

onto reservations

So when will they pass a bill....

[Anonymous Coward]

When will they pass a bill confirming property rights for the people IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

Civil forfeiture. Seizing property without due process.

the word

[dwpbike]

"unilateral" comes to mind. does the usa congress know this word?

as an alien can i extract/own anything from earth?

[sittingnut]

since i designate myself an alien, i intend to extract and own the resources in so called north american continent of space object earth ( intend to own especially those human animals who refuse to be aliens ) :-)

Re:Economically feasible

[presidenteloco]

It may become economically feasible if and when most large mining concerns on Earth get stopped from expanding due to environmental concerns, such as protecting shrinking ecosystems, avoiding polluting shrinking fresh-water sources etc.

Just like clean renewable energy could become economically feasible in a hurry if a significant carbon tax was imposed.

Well, one can always dream.

Predictions for a Not So Far Future

[famazza]

Considering that there will be asteroid mining in future, which I believe to be feasible, and that it will basically be prospected by autonomous systems (rovers or robots) I can predict a lawless situation, where group of space pirates, commanding space drones that will disable or destroy regular established company's equipment.

No law from UN nor USA will be able to legislate where there is no law enforcement.

Re:Predictions for a Not So Far Future

[Anonymous Coward]

Bodacious space pirates is something best reserved for teenage boy comic books.
Piracy ended shortly after steamboat was invented. Sea-faring nations with coal built navy gunboats that tracked down and annihilated pirates, regardless of prevailing wind. Piracy, being an anarchic and chaotic life-style, wasn't very conductive to reliably operating boilers (i.e. preventing steam explosions).
Even today, somali "pirates" use rusty fishing boats as motherships, launching small outboard motor craft, while navies deploy frigates flying helicopter gunships. Despite not allowed live-fire, navies still win.

Re:Predictions for a Not So Far Future

[Anonymous Coward]

"Considering that there will be asteroid mining in future[sic]"

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Where does your incredible optimism come from? Have you ever stopped to think of the stupendous distances involved to go get something that is almost worthless?

"No law from UN nor USA will be able to legislate where there is no law enforcement."

That won't be a problem, because it will never, ever happen. Ever.

Re:Predictions for a Not So Far Future

[Anonymous Coward]

"almost worthless" is a very peculiar way to describe more metal (iron, gold, palladiam, etc.) than our entire civilization has ever used.
 
Asteroid mining would have to bring tremendous amounts of metals down to earth in order to decrease the value of such metals to "almost worthless". The entire time before that status is reached, the metals will have plenty of value.

Captcha: "elements"

Re:Predictions for a Not So Far Future

[Anonymous Coward]

""almost worthless" is a very peculiar way to describe more metal (iron, gold, palladiam, etc.) than our entire civilization has ever used."

There's more than that right under your feet, just dig deeper. Somehow you sci-fi-poisoned nutcases never think of that, do you?

What does it matter if there's some atoms of some element super far away in a deadly, hostile environment? Who cares?

" bring tremendous amounts of metals down to earth" is a very peculiar way to describe something utterly unrealistic that will never happen.

Re:Predictions for a Not So Far Future

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I read "will never happen" my first reaction is - troll.

Then I remember friends who make similar statements all the time. It is sad, but wast majority will enjoying all of the futuristic ideas and research done by their parent and grandparent generations, and at the same time will try, with all their might, to stop any futuristic ideas and research done in their own time for benefits of their kids / grandkids.

Re:Predictions for a Not So Far Future

[Anonymous Coward]

Asteroids have much more metal than Earth even if you were to mine it out completely, not just hard crust we are currently barely scratching (the deepest mine is only about 5km deep), but also if you were to remove everything 6400 km downward to the very centre of the planet.

You should also know that the deeper you go the hotter it gets, at 5 km you cannot survive without conditioner system, deeper yet the crust is not as solid, therefore any tunnels you dig will close on you, the pressure is incredible therefore supports will not do you much good either. Continue going down and it will be just lava.

Therefore there will be a point at which mining asteroids will be easier than making even deeper mine on Earth.

Note: most of the resources mined from asteroids will be used in space, not brought down to Earth, therefore you need to compare: difficulty of mining asteroids with difficulty of mining on Earth + sending the mined stuff into space.

The elite club.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not really possible to conduct space mining without some kind of an agreement among at least USA, Russia, China, France, UK, India, Japan, the cionist Entity and maybe even North Korea and Iran. They all have the means to launch exo-atmospheric interceptor missiles or at least the capability to build such things, which are equally efficient at stopping traditional ICBMs or space return capsules.

And there are some other, small but clever countries who could concoct something funny. E.g. Hungary is a landlocked nation, so they would be doubly fsck-ed by the elite club, being denied the spoils of the seas as well as asteroids. Maybe they woud respond with a swarm of Rubik cube sat hunter-killer micro-vehicles?

On the other hand, what if A. L. Goldrush starts to mine and finds a black monolith with a cunei-form warning incised on it, stating only and only Earth is given to earthlings and all other worlds are totally forbidden. Mr. Goldrush won't stop, claiming US bill NCC-1701 a.k.a. Spacek-2015 granted the asteroid to him, but all people will suffer when the Wanderers' anti-proton torpedos hit Earth and all will have to pay extra taxes to raise giant walker robots to combat the invaders. Scientologists and anime fans will rejoice, but for the other 99% of mankind it just sucks.

It is very silly to let one-bit, profit-only minds roam free in space, where such unimaginably vast forces are at action. (A single microsecond of a supernova explosion emits more energy than mankind ever used since time immemorial. Harvesting all its energy is high-school thesis for Kardashevian Type II civilizations.) Mr. Profit behaves like a jerk and something or someone out there teaches him a cosmic lesson, except that not just him but the planet Earth will be no more...

Beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

In space, its weight would be zero.

Re:Beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, it will have weight relative to the next most massive object in it's vicinity.

Re:Beg to differ

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that extra apostrophe? Man, I think I found dark matter!

With all this space hype -

[no-body]

Is there any knowledge about environmental impact this fantasy has?

Heaving the tons of equipment and initial human support environment against native planets gravity - does it help the ionosphere destruction some more and if so, how much and what is put into the atmosphere, is it just burnt hydrogen (water) or ?? and how much energy is used to produce the fuel?

How about bringing the harvest back - using the atmosphere as brake - how many more trillion-joules of energy would be put into the air and below?

My guess, by the time this would fly, some more pressing issues need attention, but one never knows what strings are pulled on the bribed political body in this clown-theater, so the dream continues...

Interesting times, that's a fact.

Re:With all this space hype -

[careysub]

Is there any knowledge about environmental impact this fantasy has? Heaving the tons of equipment and initial human support environment against native planets gravity - does it help the ionosphere destruction some more and if so, how much and what is put into the atmosphere, is it just burnt hydrogen (water) or ?? and how much energy is used to produce the fuel?

The cost of space launches will always be very high, due to the cost of the hardware, even if it is reusable. Airline flight costs on the order of $4 a pound. Spaceflight costs on the order of $4000 a pound. Spaceflight will always have a minor impact on the world environment, compared to air travel (for example).

The energy investment in space travel is vastly smaller than people imagine. It seems huge because a relatively large amount of energy is transferred to a small amount of material quickly, but launches are rare and intermittent, and the amount of material being launched is tiny. The mighty Saturn V burned up energy equivalent to $100,000 worth of wholesale electricity, an afternoons output from an average power plant.

How about bringing the harvest back - using the atmosphere as brake - how many more trillion-joules of energy would be put into the air and below?

There you have a valid cause for concern. The amount of platinum group metals consumed annually is quite small, a few hundred tons a year, and asteroids are about ten times richer than the best ores on Earth, but that is still only 0.01% PGM, so a few million tons of asteroid material will need to be deorbited a year. It will be interesting to see the proposals for doing this. The cost of doing anything in space is so high that the idea of actually processing the ore in space is truly fantasy for a long time to come.

Re:as an alien can i extract/own anything from ear

[Righ]

I have an alien registration card that allows me to legally extract resources from the United States of America.

If there's one thing I've learned about war...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's that war never changes. War never changes. War never changes.

Utterly meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

US laws only apply to America - they do not apply to space. As soon as a country tries something like this, it becomes a rogue state. Nobody has any more right to objects in space than anyone else. The behaviour of the United States is becoming increasingly worrying.

Sweet! Gonna go undock my Retriever and get some!

[samspock]

Anyone know if they have spotted ganking out there yet?

US being Reasonable (for once)

[Roger W Moore]

I think you may have missed my point; by what right should the US get to allocate ownership of stuff it doesn't own?

Actually this bill seems quite reasonable. It is not granting anyone rights to claim asteroids all it says is that if you do go out into space and bring back minerals to earth (and the US) then you own those minerals. As such it only applies to things which you bring back into US jurisdiction which seems perfectly reasonable: as a sovereign nation the US is perfectly within its rights to determine who owns what within its own territory. Of course the moment those minerals leave the US then their ownership may come into question depending on local laws.

Re:US being Reasonable (for once)

[erikkemperman]

Sorry for being thick I suppose... But bringing it to earth presupposes ownership, to me anyway. And by saying it is all right to go get it, congress is making rules about stuff it does not own. No more than anybody else at least.

Re:US being Reasonable (for once)

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but US also doesn't own clothes you brought in another country, but if you were to bring them with you to US then they are considered yours. Just saying.

Re:US being Reasonable (for once)

[Roger W Moore]

And by saying it is all right to go get it, congress is making rules about stuff it does not own.

...and what's wrong with that? Governments regularly do that since most of the property in a country is owned by the citizens and not the government. If you mean rules about things which are not yet under its jurisdiction then again this is common: all trade and customs laws do this by saying what you are, or are not, allowed to bring in to a country and what happens when you do. As I said this is a perfectly reasonable law and in keeping with what many other countries already do albeit in different contexts.

Re:Economically feasible

[Anonymous Coward]

cute.. very cute..

You do realise that most of the resources mined in space will be used in space... Like water on ISS cost $20k+ per litter, same for fuel, which is basically water.

2 (litters per day per person) x 3 (astronauts on ISS) x 365 (year) x 20,000 (price per litter) = $43.8 millions a year.

Obviously water get recycled on ISS, but I didn't account for fuel usage. Also ISS is going to host 6 and later 7 people in near future. Account for possible booming touristic industry with Bigelow hotels, bigger space stations, tonnes of fuel required for Mars missions or deep space missions, EU moon village, Chinese space station, refuelling in space, etc I think the market will be big enough to jumpstart mining in space.

Be patient.

[sabbede]

Eventually there will be a treaty between space capable nations establishing rules for off world resource exploitation. First, those nations need to start setting their own rules so that there is a compelling reason for them to get together and hash out the differences.

Odds are that it will not be done through the UN. The few space capable nations won't want 160+ other nations making the rules for them. And as all of the permanent members of the Security Council are space-capable, any attempt that isn't their idea will be vetoed.

Re:Economically feasible

[Anonymous Coward]

"Account for possible booming touristic industry with Bigelow hotels"

The same Bigelow that laid off half its workforce? The same booming "space tourism" industry that we've been waiting for since 1997?

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9705/25/japan.space/

You've been reading too many comic books. There is no market to "jumpstart" anything in space. If there were, why didn't it already happen in the Space Age 50 years ago?

Re:Economically feasible

[Anonymous Coward]

Bigelow was just one of examples of possible future markets. Some of the things I mentioned will take off, some will not, but each of them are potentially big.

Lets look at current stuff in space 1,305 active satellites they combined use 525,781 kilograms of fuel in their lifetime (for the ones that we have data for (467 satellites or 35.8%)) averaging to the rest of satellites we get 1,468,662 kilograms of fuel used by all currently operational satellites.

So lets assume average lifetime of 12 years (about 15 for geosynchronous and 1-10 for the rest) we get about 122,389 kilograms of fuel per year of required fuel to keep all current satellites flying.

Assuming average price to orbit of $10,000 per kilogram we get a market of 122,389 * 10,000 = $1,223,890,000 per year for fuel alone. One hell of a market if you ask me especially if you consider that number of satellites is only going to grow with time.

Obviously none of the current satellites (except ISS) can be refuelled, but there are already companies working on refuelling in space and you can bet your socks off that all commercial satellites in the future will have refuelling capacity since currently all satellites have to be more than 50% fuel just to keep flying for 10-15 years.

Yee Haw!

[ebvwfbw]

I'm already a billionaire or so. All I have to do is figure a way to get to an asteroid and bring it back from space. Then make mega bucks! Ok... now to work on that space part.... Anyone have 3-4 billion they can spare for seed money?