The Great Meteor Grab 152
RocketAcademy writes "New regulations by the Federal government define asteroidal material to be an antiquity, like arrowheads and pottery, rather than a mineral — and, therefore, not subject to U.S. mining law or eligible for mining claims. At the moment, these regulations only apply to asteroidal materials that have fallen to Earth as meteorites. However, they create a precedent that could adversely affect the plans of companies such as Planetary Resources, who intend to mine asteroids in space."
Re:Putting the cart before the horse. (Score:5, Funny)
I guess the other side of that is, "Why come up with a way to mine an asteroid if the legal semantics won't allow you to mine it anyway?"
I agree that it's probably not a huge issue that can't be ironed* out, though.
* Yeah, I did that. Deal with it.
Re:Putting the cart before the horse. (Score:4, Funny)
Likewise, if we were up to our fucking necks in "antiquities", there'd probably be a lot less concern about preserving them.
Watch what you say there, Mr. 4 digit UID. You're not getting any younger. You may want to be preserved a bit longer even if there are a lot of us baby boomers flopping around.