Americans Can Now Legally Mine Asteroids
President Obama Signs Bill Recognizing Asteroid Resource Property Rights into Law, Planetary Resources
“Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company, applauds President Obama who signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262) into law. This law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens to own asteroid resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids.”
U.S. space-mining law seen leading to possible treaty violations, CBC
“My view is that natural resources [in space] should not be allowed to be appropriated by anyone states, private companies, or international organizations,” said Ram Jakhu, a professor at McGill University’s institute of air and space law. He said the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, signed by the U.S. and other countries, including Canada, makes it clear that the surfaces and contents of asteroids and other celestial bodies are protected from commercial harvesting.”
The commercial space race, Ottawa Citizen
“If asteroids cannot be appropriated by any state, they can also never be owned by a company, and that includes parts of an asteroid that might be extracted. Any notion of property law which would allow a person to possess, use or sell an object, depend upon the existence of a sovereign jurisdiction. The U.S. cannot give away what it does not own.”
Obama boosts asteroid mining, signs law granting rights to own space riches, Mining.com
“It remains unknown whether the unilateral move by the U.S. to claim space ownership is valid. According to the Outer Space Treaty, signed by the U.S., Russia, and a number of other countries, nations can’t own territory in space. “Outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States,” the treaty says, adding that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” The new law, however, does include a very important clause, as it clarifies that it does not grant “sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any celestial body.”
Well, I am glad they finally got that cleared up. My plans for total intra-solar domination can proceed apace.
I, for one, welcome our new asteroid miner overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted Internet personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their space mines.
Am I the only one that would jump at an opportunity to toil in a space mine? Sign me up!
Pinky and Brain might have a thing or two to say about that.
They just want to rule the world, not space. But the Martian Queen might send the Martian Commander to contest Tritium3H’s attempt at domination 🙂
https://youtu.be/mYvAYwpUDv8
Of course, some interpretations may call for active operations at a given location. If you need a caretaker, I’m sure I can find or invent a scientific investigation to provide a legally valid, continually-active presence at your sites. When you get up and running, we can talk about the details and budget. It’s always a pleasure to help terrestrial domination of the solar system.
Americans (and everyone else) could mine asteroids long before this legislation. Property rights aren’t granted and don’t end above the Karman line.
At best, this is the government saying they won’t take these rights away from US citizens. As if citizens capable of mining asteroids would care…
Of course, there are no citizens, organizations or governments anywhere that are even remotely capable of ‘mining’ an asteroid or any other rock in the sky.
But that will change!
Blue has landed their little booster!
SpaceX may land on a barge this Year!
ARSA is here!!!!!
Affordable Reusable Space Age 🙂
We have a Space Race Again!!!!
Prices to LEO will drop!!
Falcon Heavy will fly next year!!!
The force as awakened!
You can feel it!!!
We need to make believers of those consumed by the DARK side 🙂
NEW HOPE
Why does all that make me want to yell [Hallelujah! Hooah! Oorah! YeeHaw!]?
… with assorted back flips and arm flailing (until they come to take me away)
If I take your meaning as “Who in the hell are we to think we U.S. folk solely own the asteroids?”- I agree with your comment. Of course this property rights thing only applies to US citizens, etc- I understand- but still- in principle- shouldn’t this be a UN thing? If not, I plan on contacting the administration about owning part of the Antarctic and running penguin tours.
I mean, even just a gesture of some sort- as in – The US private sector and the China public (ish) sector aren’t each planning to just own space in 25 years.
The U.N have had decades to work this out. They gave us the moon treaty instead.
Just take one look at the mess the UN has made of seabed mining when the U.S. took the idea for sea floor mining to them in the 1960’s. It took until the 2000’s before there were even rules in place to ask permission to explore for the seabed resources. The Seabed Authority is still writing rules on recovery.
Then look at all the possible conflicts the Law of the Sea Treaty, which emerged from that simple request, is creating in the South China Sea and Arctic Oceans as a result of nations gaming their borders to bring more seabed within the 200 mile economic zones allowed and out from under the Seabed Authority,
Given that history a person would really have to oppose space settlement or development to want to bring the UN into this. It would kill any private space activities beyond LEO for the rest of the century if not longer…
Ok- Just because the UN’s seabed authority may be a poor administrator of the world’s ocean floor resources doesn’t change the fact that the seabed is still the world’s- not the sole province of any nation capable of claiming it. There are tons of examples of NGO’s that are international and relatively effective.
I certainly don’t need a lecture on the holes in UNCLOS. Many of us here on this board either went went to school for public policy or worked in D.C. (or both). You are missing my point.
We in the US don’t own all of space simply because we got there and established an ersatz base camp in LEO.Will Musk own all of Mars if he gets there first? Of course not. We certainly should begin the discussion, though, of what will he own- what radius will be his (and those of his affiliate firms) beyond his landing site(s) and base camp(s). Will he own the poles where the water is? Again- no. At a minimum some memorandum of understanding will be in place by the time he’s ready to land a permanent thingie. Enforcement? I dunno- but again- My point was more about the future than any current International organization’s administrative failings.
In sum, I am in no way advocating for another bureaucracy to get in the way of progress- I simply would like us to recognize- if only internally- that all of space isn’t something to be owned on a first come, first serve basis.
“all of space isn’t something to be owned on a first come, first serve basis.”
But of course it is. As ‘savuporo’ astutely implied above, if somebody has the capability to go grab a chunk of an asteroid and sell it (or whatever), who has the capability to stop them? Musk, or whoever else, will own what they can defend, the same way every bit of the Earth was colonized by humans. Getting there first typically confers a strategic advantage in defending ownership.
By the same token, the sea bed is not “the world’s”. Nothing is “the world’s”. By definition, the UN does not have jurisdictional authority over anything. It is nothing more than a standing forum for negotiations between nations. Sovereignty remains with individual nations and is limited to their individual enforceable territorial claims.
Sorry for a long answer, but this doesn’t lend itself well to sound bites 🙂 Your view is a common misconception many have about the topic, a view that has also been encouraged by some new generation space lawyers who seem, in my opinion, determined to reinterpret the Outer Space Treaty (OST) to fit their political agendas in a way the nations signing it never intended.
For starters this has nothing to do with owning space. The reality is that the OST makes it clear space is open to be explored and used by ALL nations. No nation may be barred from access to space under the OST. The only restriction is that no nation make claim Celestial Bodies as part of their territory. But this restriction only applies to the actual Celestial Bodies, not the material on them which nations are allowed to remove and keep as their property. The lunar samples collected by Russia and United States have been their respective property since they were collected. Russia even transferred title to a gram of Moon dust by selling it to a private collector. The United State gave 135 nations Moon Rocks in 1970, each of which became the property (ownership transferred) of those respective nations. No nation in the years since Apollo 11 has protested the handling of lunar material by the U.S. or Russia. None have challenged those national claims to own the material recovered.
The same principle also applies to the material Japan recovered from an asteroid although it has a shorter legal history. Also this treatment of extraterrestrial material is legally consistent
with the handling of extraterrestrial material recovered on Earth (meteorites, cosmic dust, etc.), something revisionists choose to overlook.
Which means that ALL this law does is confirm what was already implied under U.S. law, that private entities that recover rocks from the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc., have the exact same right to ownership the U.S. government has enjoyed. Period. And it is in accordance with the rights the U.S. has under Article VI of the OST that makes it responsible for regulating its nationals (citizens and corporations) in space. Really this is not so much making law as clarifying it so firms may move forward without fear of having to go to court to prove their rights against some nuance lawsuit.
So no, the U.S. is not in violation of international law or exceeding its authority but it well within how the OST have been interpreted by national governments. And so no, there is no need for the UN to get involved.
The idea that somehow because these firms are private for profit businesses, or that are seeking to recover extraterrestrial material to sell, or to process and sell as finished products, should effect their rights is nonsense and unsupported by the existing space law regime that the United States is part of. But sadly, in my opinion, the dislike some folks have for free enterprise and the profit motive seems to motive them to try to reinterpret the OST and come up with novel interpretations of it that wrong counter to the way national governments have interpreted the OST since its entry into law. Some simply what to treat space as a cathedral to science that should never be spoiled by “greedy capitalists”. And sadly the press, being uniformed on the history of how governments have handled extraterrestrial materials under the OST buy into their arguments. The fact that when challenged none are able to provide any evidence to support their views and instead use vague statements about social justice or referring to treaties the U.S. is not part of and not bound by, is further proof that their views have no real standing in international law. The danger of course is that some third world government or even first world politician looking for an issue, will grasp these views as their claim to fame.
Thanks Mr. Matula, this post clarifies the discussion very nicely.Your expert posting on this thread has been quite helpful to understanding the topic.
Shorter Miles:
Space does not belong to any nation, it belongs to high-minded transnational progressives like me. What we say goes!
The way I understand this is that it is essentially saying that the US government won’t stand in the way of any utilization of outer space resources by US citizens. I suppose by extension that would also mean the US government would not recognize or support efforts by other entities (such as the UN) to limit utilization of such resources by its citizens. I’m sure other posters here can explain it much better and correct my understanding if I am wrong.
That is correct, which is one reason the U.S. has opposed the Moon Treaty and has, along with Russia and China, not ratified it.
Also, to follow up with the issue of Elon Musk and Mars. SpaceX would only own the hardware placed on Mars and the martian materials extracted. But it would have, under Article IX of the OST, the expectation their would be no interference with its operations on Mars. By the same token it would not be able to prohibit or provide any interference with the use of Mars by other entities.
The non-interference clause may make for interesting case law. Without stretching my imagination too far, I could turn it into a de facto claim. I could say my dust transport instrument is compromised by anything artificially raising surface dust within 5 km. That’s not a real territorial claim, but it would significantly restrict other people’s use of the land.
But the technology is emerging. A quiet but important press release that has been overlooked in the news on the Space Act of 2015 and Blue Origins’ successful flight.
http://www.wsmr.army.mil/fn…
Drew Hamilton Staff Writer
“A new method of mining asteroids for rocket fuel and water was successfully tested at White Sands Missile Range Nov. 13.
A team from the TransAstra Company led by founder and chief technical officer Dr. Joel Sercel used the solar furnace at WSMR’s Survivability Vulnerability Assessment Directorate to test a method that may be used to mine asteroids for valuable water using the power of the sun.”
Good libertarian angle.
Great news! Access to space resources are the key to opening the Solar System to economic development and settlement. This is a big step on humanity’s way to the stars.
But can you land on an asteroid and declare yourself an independent world?
Legally no. The Outer Space Treaty prohibits claims of sovereignty and this applies to private citizens since their countries are responsible for them, so if your nation signed the treaty you could not do so legally.
Of course you could do what the American colonies did and then fight for recognition, but it would be messy 🙂
Sounds like Star Wars to me.
Isn’t there a couple countries that have not signed the outer space treaty? Could a person give up his citizenship?
In theory, but then you have the challenge of ITAR, raising the capital and finding markets to legally sell in. This is another key element with the United States passing this law, its domestic market for raw materials is large enough in terms of demand to make space resources valuable even if other nations, say the Moon Treaty nations, ban them. It also has both the technological base and financial markets to enable space mining.
FYI here is a link with the status of all the space treaties. Section C has a table updated as of Jan. 1, 2015 of which nations have signed which treaties.
http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/l…
I’m pretty sure you’re not understanding the meaning of the words “declare yourself an independent world.”
Well, actually, yes. If memory serves, the UN charter has some words to say about freedom of speech, and that hasn’t changed. Anyone can make any claim or declaration they please. Would it have any legal validity? No. Would anyone take it seriously? Probably not. But making a declaration would be quite legal.
I note that one Joshua Norton declared himself the Emperor of the United States, in 1859, and was not arrested for it. In fact, he became a well-known example of a San Francisco eccentric. But none of his declarations were obeyed (with the possible exception of the Bay Bridge.)
I’m pretty sure if you could land on an asteroid and defend your claim, you’d get taken pretty seriously.
Throwing rocks worked well for the Loonies.
Just saying…
You can certainly do that. But it’s not likely that any country would recognize your sovereignty, absent bribery. Google “Sealand” for a similar attempt.
And that would matter in this context … why?
It’s highly unlikely as the industrial system that supports any kind of off-world activity is tied into Earth’s economy. It’s less a question of could a small colony declare independence and more of why would they bother?
Actually it is even better. It appears that during the process of combining the Senate and House bills the right to recovery of Space Resources was added in to the final version. So really, this codifies Americans rights to recovery resources anywhere in space, including the Moon and Mars.
Here is the Library of Congress page for it.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-b…
‘‘§ 51303. Asteroid resource and space resource rights ‘
‘A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States.’’.
‘‘§ 51301. Definitions
‘‘In this chapter:
‘‘(1) ASTEROID RESOURCE.—The term ‘asteroid resource’
means a space resource found on or within a single asteroid.
‘‘(2) SPACE RESOURCE.—
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘space resource’ means
an abiotic resource in situ in outer space.
‘‘(B) INCLUSIONS.—The term ‘space resource’ includes
water and minerals.
Let the Moon Rush begin!
Does this mean that Greg Nemitz can actually now collect his parking fee ? I hear the interest is brutal ..
This gives Americans Chattel Rights, not Real Property Rights. So no.
abiotic covers it all … anything none living. I wonder what would happen if they did discover a pathogen, virus, bacteria et cetera .. how would congress respond?
Good question. Bring on the Andromeda Strain.
First it is unfortunate this prohibits bioprospecting, but it looks like Congress wishes to retain the search for life as a NASA, or at least a government monopoly.
But under the Outer Space Treaty, Article V, that would be required to reported by the U.S. since it could be considered, under the planetary protection guidelines phenomena “which could constitute a danger to the life or health of astronauts.”
Needless to say at that point the planetary protection rules would likely put any related resource off limits for years, perhaps decades, as scientist sort it out.
And yes, I am aware that the vast differences between any likely forms of ET found and humans make the actual risk of it’s impact on astronaut health nearly zero, but these are legal requirements and Article V would likely be used against any firm that tired to hide the evidence of finding ET.
In practice hopefully the FAA ASTwhen they write the rules for this, as per U.S. obligations under Article V, would include a clause requiring the immediate reporting of any organisms found especially on licenses granted to firms going to planets like Mars where that may be a possibility of occurring.
Excellent news! Thanks for the tip.
It appears the Space Frontier Foundation has finally issued a press release, but it completely ignores the space mining breakthrough while shamelessly promoting the two bills they plan on pushing at March Storm.
https://spacefrontier.org/2…
I forget where I saw it, but somebody posted a link to the official Congressional record on this act:
https://www.congress.gov/bi…
It is possible to follow the links and find the official roll call of the vote:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/…
It looks as though it was passed by an overwhelming margin in the House, passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and signed by the President, so at first appearance would seem to have broad bipartisan support. However, on looking closer at the actual roll call in the House, it looks like there was a pretty deep partisan divide over this, at least in the House. Anybody know why?
What was the dissenting story line here? The only dissenting opinion I have seen so far is the following silly rant from some fringe lunatic that I ran across entirely by accident:
http://www.iflscience.com/s…
I suspect the “Nay” votes are over concerns about conflicts with international laws and possibly also with concerns about how the bill re-regulates commercial space launches and other associated activities, as the bill is pretty broad in scope. I would treat the bill more as a foundation for future legislation than as regulations which will be actively used in the short term (the commercial space launch regulations aside).
Personally, I think if some person, company, or nation can get to a celestial body with the equipment needed to extract resources from it, they should have the right to lay claim to and to use that resource as they see fit, however, that IS something that currently conflicts with and DOES need to be reconciled with existing international law. It’s okay to leave on the back burner for now, but it needs to be reconsidered within the next few years.
Actually the “nays” were more about how the Republicans treated the Democrats in the handling of the original Asteroid Act than real objection – politics in other words.
Also, as I responded to Chris in the thread of above in detail, there are zero conflicts with this law and with international law. All the U.S. did is to codify that private entities have the same ownership rights to extraterrestrial materials that the U.S., and other governments, have exercised under the Outer Space Treaty. This was always implied for U.S. firms, but is now stated clearly for the record. So there is nothing to deal with or be reconciled under existing space treaties the U.S. is a party to. Those making claims about it conflicting simply have no evidence to base it on.
I missed the “re-regulate” aspect of this act. Would you expound, please?
3/4 or more of this bill is regulations for commercial space flights and launches. There were already some regulations in place, but the bill shuffles some responsibilities around and so on.
Yes, they actually combined a number of small bills into one single bill to make passage easier. The regulation elements came mostly from Rep. McCarthy who represents the district that Mojave Air and Spaceport is located in.
My apologies for being lazy and not doing my own homework, but you seem to already be much better informed on this point than myself. Does this shuffling of regulations in the new act add any impediments, or is it more in the nature of just reorganizing existing regulations & authorities? Is your assessment of the regulatory aspects of this act that it is hurtful, helpful, or neither?
I don’t know much about that myself, but overall I would say helpful in the long term, just from skimming through the bill they have basically laid the groundwork for future regulations, for the most part. It’s important that as the industry evolves, the regulations keep up with it; too little regulation can be just as harmful as too much.