Congress Can't Make Asteroid Mining Legal (But It's Trying, Anyway) 213
Jason Koebler writes: Earlier this week, the House Science Committee examined the American Space Technology for Exploring Resource Opportunities in Deep Space (ASTEROIDS) Act, a bill that would ensure that "any resources obtained in outer space from an asteroid are the property of the entity that obtained such resources."
The problem is, that idea doesn't really mesh at all with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, a document that suggests space is a shared resource: "Unlike some other global commons, no agreement has been reached at to whether title to extracted space resources passes to the extracting entity," Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space law expert at the University of Mississippi said (PDF). "There is no legal clarity regarding the ownership status of the extracted resources. It is foreseeable that the entity's actions will be challenged at law and in politics."
The problem is, that idea doesn't really mesh at all with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, a document that suggests space is a shared resource: "Unlike some other global commons, no agreement has been reached at to whether title to extracted space resources passes to the extracting entity," Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space law expert at the University of Mississippi said (PDF). "There is no legal clarity regarding the ownership status of the extracted resources. It is foreseeable that the entity's actions will be challenged at law and in politics."
Is it just me... (Score:4, Funny)
Is it just me, or does the phrase "a space law expert at the University of Mississippi" cause you to giggle just a little bit?
Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, that guy doesn't know ANYTHING.
Mining asteroids!
You see, when you hit an asteroid it fragments in many little ones that begin spreading around, so you have to hit all of them too and escape from them at the same time, and every now and then an alien ship comes around and start shooting creating even more chaos.
LEAVE ASTEROIDS ALONE.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There is current application of space law in terms of being an extension of international law though. Commercial enterprises working in a space environment or having a significant part or feature of their business (speaking about just space-related assets) is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Much of that is of course in the telecommunications industry (where it gets tricky to distinguish what is an Earth-based asset and what is space-based), but it also includes some emerging industries including mi
Re: (Score:2)
Either you replied to the wrong comment or the whoosh over your head sounded something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
LEAVE ROIDS ALONE.
Sage advice
MUNOBWCCBISFA (Score:3)
Making Up Names Of Bills With Cleverly Crafted Backronyms Is So Fucking Annoying.
Re: (Score:3)
This one is pretty good, though. Way better than the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act.
Re: (Score:2)
As a private citizen (Score:3, Funny)
I am not bound by treaty. I am bound only by the laws of my country.
If Congress says I can keep the gold I just mined off Ceres, it's mine. Would the Russian government come after me for their share? Good luck to them.
Re: (Score:3)
To look at it from the opposite end, if your country is abiding by their treaty obligations then they may feel compelled to make laws reflecting it, which you are then subject to. That is of course a pretty big "if" - if they've decided not to abide by it then it becomes a question of what consequences they're either willing to concede to or able to have forced upon them by whoever's on the other end of the treaty.
If your hypothetical asteroid miner were from a smaller country, one less able to dictate te
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that the treaty obligations of the USA are silent on the matter of private ownership of extra-terrestrial real estate and minerals. In other words, there are no obligations to get in the way. On the other hand, the major spacefaring nations of Mexico and Australia do have treaty obligations that prohibit their citizens from engaging in this kind of mining operation.
I wonder how long it will take for Mexico and Australia to back out of those treaties and get into the gold rush in the Solar S
Re:As a private citizen (Score:5, Interesting)
Technically, no.
You are bound by the treaties your country signed. In fact, they have more legal weight in the US than laws passed by your own Congress.
As an example, the US has signed Data Treaties with the EU and with Canada that give citizens of those countries more rights to privacy than you as an American would have (exception: if you are also a citizen of an EU country or Canada, you gain those rights in the US as well).
Same goes for any treaties signed for non-countries such as Antarctica (which you are bound to) and space (where those exist).
That's the law. That you choose to be a space pirate, is your own problem. I recommend wearing a gold colored space pirate outfit, with a cape and a cool helmet.
Re:As a private citizen (Score:5, Insightful)
The Space treaty may make it illegal but no sanctions are specified. If the USG depenalizes space homesteading and allows people to sell ressources brought back from space, the treaty will be dead. Prior examples: The treaties the USG signed & then ignored with Indian tribes during the 19th century.
Re: (Score:3)
The Outer Space Treaty doesn't even make it illegal. It only prevents sovereign claims upon the territory. It can be debated as to if a U.S. citizen claiming extra-terrestrial real estate might constitute a sovereignty claim as well, and certainly a group of citizens forming a town out of their privately held land and applying for U.S. territorial status will constitute a sovereignty claim, but that is still up in the air.
Besides, the USA can also simply state openly to all of the signatory parties "I don
Re: (Score:2)
We don't have to break the treaty. We can withdraw from the treaty instead. From the treaty [unvienna.org]
Article XVI
Any State Party to the Treaty may give notice of its withdrawal from the
Treaty one year after its entry into force by written notification to the Depositary
Governments. Such withdrawal shall take effect one year from the date of receipt of
this notification.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically, no.
You are bound by the treaties your country signed.
You mean mean, 'in theory', not 'technically'. If the local jurisdiction does not enforce the laws, then on a technical basis you are not bound by them. On a theoretical basis you may be, but who cares.
That's the law. That you choose to be a space pirate, is your own problem.
You can't take the sky from me!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
exception: if you are also a citizen of an EU country or Canada, you gain those rights in the US as well
Seeing how the US doesn't recognize dual citizenship, I'm not sure I'd bank on that.
That is a misreading of the Supremacy Clause: (Score:5, Informative)
You are bound by the treaties your country signed.
Yes: You, and the states, and their courts, are bound by them (to the extent they are clear or were implemented by federal enabling legislation).
In fact, they have more legal weight in the US than laws passed by your own Congress.
NO! They have EXACTLY the same weight as federal law. Both treaties and federal law are trumped by the Constitution, and both are also creatures of Congress, They can be modulated, and destroyed (at least in how they are effective within the country) by congressional action.
The idea that they're any stronger or more permanent than federal legislation comes from a (very common) misreading of the Supremacy Clause:
This says that the Constitution, Federal Law, and Treaties trump state law in state and federal courts. It says nothing about the relative power among the three.
The misreading is to interpret "all treaties made ... shall be the supreme law of the land ..." to mean that treaties effectively amend the constitution. This is wrong. You can see it by noticing the same kind of misreading also makes federal law equivalent to a constitutional amendment - which it clearly is not.
In fact the Supreme Court has spoken on the relation between the Constitution and treaties: In Reid v. Covert [wikipedia.org], 354 U.S. 1 (1957), the Supreme Court held stated that the U.S. Constitution supersedes international treaties ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Treaties are abrogated, at the federal level, all the time, and there are a number of mechanisms for doing so.
Re: (Score:2)
You got it all wromg!
If I mine some tonnes of gold on Ceres and the Russian government says: it is all mine except for import tarrifs, them I may keep it!
Good luck for the american congress!
Besides I'm German, and if I nad the capacity to mine gold on an asteroid I certainly woukd not 'land' it in a nation but in international waters.
Re: (Score:2)
if I had the capacity to mine gold on an asteroid I certainly woukd not 'land' it in a nation but in international waters.
Given the relative densities of gold and water, you might want to reconsider that plan ;^)
Re:As a private citizen (Score:5, Funny)
I guess that's one way to make pirates leave cargo ships alone...
Re: (Score:2)
And who's to say they're in the wrong to just install a missile battery in orbit to "reclaim their property" or to extract "reasonable compensation" from returning mining vessels?
Or even to send their own mining vessels (possibly armed) to the very same asteroids that Congress so graciously told you that you can keep the mini
acronym (Score:3)
Congress can repeal treaty (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unless the treaty has an "escape clause", which the Outer Space Treaty has. Basically Congress can force a renegotiation of this particular treaty or simply set it aside by legislation. There is a one year notification period where the USA will need to abide by the restrictions of this particular treaty, but once that year is up.... it is as if the treaty never existed in the first place.
Not everybody is happy with that clause, and many people talking about this in the past have argued that this clause w
Barriers will fall once the money comes rolling in (Score:4, Insightful)
As soon as space mining becomes practical on the near horizon Congress will take the necessary action to legalize it. Otherwise they risk losing all of the money and jobs (not to mention the brib... er campaign contributions) from the support services that would go to non-US companies in countries who aren't signatories to the treaty.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder what the lobbying budget of Planetary Resources is at the moment? There are other space mining enterprises, but they are the ones that are furthest along with actual hardware capable of doing something with the idea. Their short-term goal is to simply map the Solar System, and not even trying to pretend that it is for purely scientific purposes.
Ownership of spacecraft (Score:3, Interesting)
Article VIII of the treaty states:
"Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or constructed on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth."
So if someone attached rocket engines to a small asteroid and moved it, for example, that could be considered "constructing an object" and they would own the whole thing, including the asteroid which is one of its "component parts".
Re: (Score:2)
You're a patent lawyer, aren't you? ;)
Really? (Score:2)
This is what the idiots on the House science committee think is their most useful work to do at this time? Making space "safe" for mineral interests? Fuck, I can't believe that this is the most immediate concern in science (or even space, for that matter).
I can hear it now in Chair Lamar Smith's office: So what do we do today to look busy? I know, we'll have hearings on a symbolic bill that is unenforceable and will never get to the floor, let alone pass, but, since most people don't know that, it should b
it's just a treaty (Score:2)
Congress can very much make asteroid mining legal for Americans; for an American to break a treaty entered into by the US government isn't, by itself, illegal. Calling it "a violation of international law" is really a misnomer, since "international law" isn't "law" in the usual sense of the word. There is no judicial branch of government enforcing international law, no constitutional principles governing it, no consent of the governed.
If Congress decides to make asteroid mining legal, it may or may not be
Those moon rocks sure look owned (Score:2)
Try not stealing one since the US government doesn't own them and I think you'll find yourself in jail. Any takers who'd like to bet otherwise? I think in practice this is resolved already, what you bring back to Earth is yours. The fun parts would be that nobody has mining rights, if you find a big gold vein there's nothing stopping another country/company dropping a mining rig right next to yours.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what that "non-interference" bit is about.
There is a loophole however (Score:2)
While the outer space treaty prohibits countries from claiming celestial bodies as their own, Article VIII states that a country "shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer space or on a celestial body. Ownership of objects launched into outer space, including objects landed or CONSTRUCTED on a celestial body, and of their component parts, is not affected by their presence in outer space or on a celestial body or by their return to the Earth."
Which
Written in stone no doubt (Score:2)
And treaties are written in stone? History is repeat with treaties that are no longer enforced or even acknowledged by any current country. The day someone starts shipping down millions of dollars in precious metals from an asteroid is the day that either countries simply start ignoring the Outer Space Treaty en mass or the day it is "reinterpreted" to allow such pursuits.
Re: (Score:2)
Article XVI
Any State Party to the Treaty may give notice of its withdrawal from the Treaty one year after its entry into force by written notification to the Depositary Governments. Such withdrawal shall take effect one year from the date of receipt of this notification.
Just written notice and one year later you are free of the entanglements of the treaty and it's just as written into stone as the rest of the treaty. That's why having Congress pass laws like this is interesting. It provides an easily attainable alternate framework to the original treaty.
Workaround to the treaty is trivial - reflag it (Score:2)
Rocks in spaaaace (Score:2)
Simple... squatter's rights. (Score:2)
Wrong, wrong wrong (Score:5, Informative)
I was there at the hearing, and I think the summary is pretty far from the true situation.
First, Prof. Gabrynowicz is in the minority in the legal community on this (her response is also to work for international consensus on these issues, which is not going to happen.
Second, the Asteroid Act has been vetted by the State Department (and by a whole bunch of interested parties) and it certainly is in agreement with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (even Prof. Gabrynowicz didn't claim otherwise).
Third, all of the space powers appear to be in agreement with the basic principle expressed by the Asteroid Act - that space mining is a lot like deep sea fishing - you can't claim your fishing hole, but you get to keep what you take.
For a more balanced explanation as to why the Act is needed as a US instantiation of the '67 Outer Space Treaty to clarify the rules for US Corporations, see Dean Larson's WSJ Op Ed [wsj.com] (or my own take on it [wordpress.com]).
That won't end well. (Score:2)
Personally I would avoid robbing people who have kinetic weapons of mass destruction hanging in orbit. That's just me though.
If it's not listed as illegal then... (Score:2)
What would Malcom Reynolds do? (Score:2)
America doesn't own space. (Score:2)
who wrote this? (Score:2)
The Outer Space Treaty refers to STATE PARTIES, it does NOT refer to private entities nor to commercial exploitation of resources found and extracted in outer space by commercial entities.
This entire article is a waste of time except to invalidate itself by the simple act of linking to the treaty it's bemoaning.
Moon is a harsh mistress... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would say that an entity that managed to get there and posess some mined material up the Earth gravity well can probably deal with attempts to de-legalize it rather efficiently. ;-)
Paul B.
Re: (Score:2)
that seems fair
Re:LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, no kidding. They are worried the Chinese are gonna colonize space, and we will be left behind, so they come up with this property bullshit. Dude, property is about respecting others rights. If you go to outer space, and you take a piece of rock from an asteroid, and build a space station from it. people down here in the USA are gonna cry foul, it's common property, you can't take it, it's ours too, but the fact is unless they can send the police over to claim it was theft, or the military, it's all just bullshit. That's where the rubber meets the road. Space war. Over a piece of rock. Who owns is. History of human civilization, who gets what, who owns what, who controls what, west side, west side, nigga die over a block you don't even own, you paying rent, mofo. Maybe we should convince the Chinese to pay us rent for using the asteroid or Moon materials for their space stations, in case they succeed making it there before us.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They just planned to kill their local fishery and destroy a whole ecosystem just so they can build an artificial island in contested waters for an airport.
They are idiots IMO they will probably find the biggest asteroid and somehow change it's direction towards earth while trying to grab the resources.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh look! A radionuclide! Run Away! Run Away!
Re: (Score:2)
And since nothing bad happened, what exactly is your point?
I think that was exactly the point.
It's sort of like how, when North Korea attempted a satellite launch not too long ago, the news was full of stories about how incredibly irresponsible it was since a satellite breaking up in orbit could turn into a chain reaction that would scour all orbits of all satellites. These stories were coming, of course, from the propaganda machines of countries which have, on more than one occasion, intentionally blown up satellites in orbit to demonstrate military power.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see a lot of threat in the Chinese or any other power colonizing space and managing to keep hold of their colonies. Space exploration is in the same place as "New World" exploration was at the first voyage of Columbus, in the sense that as as species we don't really have the developed means to take territory and hold it, and I expect that it'll go through a revolutionary-era as well, when those that have actually done the colonizing or the progeny thereof decides that they don't really need the mother-country anymore. That period might be harder if the colonies don't find ways to be self-sufficient, but given the sheer cost in sending supplies, any colony would have to be self-sufficient to be financially practical. Like the United States was in the 1770s, space colonies will be too far away from the motherland to be easily held if those colonies want to break away, as it'll be too expensive garrison them and simply won't be worth the effort.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds to me like it says that whoever gets the iron, gold, iridium, space fairy dust, whatever from an asteroid owns it. I don't see how that is different from what happens on earth (aside from the space fairy dust). Whoever digs the hole generally owns the minerals extracted. What I didn't see is how they determine who owns the mine or has rights to mine a particular rock. Being a pretty extreme environment, at first it may just boil down to possession is nine tenths of the law. But I personally don't see any issues with this. Whoever gets the stuff out should own it. Just as long as they don't fuck up returning material to earth and accidentally drop a football field size chunk of iron or nickel (or whatever) on a city at orbital velocities. Maybe better to make the finished goods on the moon if they need gravity, or in lunar orbit first. Keep the big dangerous shit away from the planet.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see how that is different from what happens on earth (aside from the space fairy dust). Whoever digs the hole generally owns the minerals extracted.
Where are you from? Because I have lived in a dozen countries, on three continents, and the minerals have either belonged to the one being able to use violence to overwhelm anyone else who wants them, or to the one holding a contract an the entity able to use violence to overwhelm anyone else. (Also know as the State. The contract often has a name lik
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason you can make a claim in North America and have it stick is due to the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army. They are the guys that make it possible to make a mining claim and not have to worry about having some 2-bit thug come along and take your mine from you. That is what makes civilization possible. As much as Canada wants to assert their independence, they are dependent upon the U.S. military to make sure Russia doesn't go and sack the northern part of their country (or the whole country fo
Re: (Score:2)
"Yes, space is big, far bigger than you can imagine. "
You might even say "vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big."
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Douglas Adams had a really good way to describe such things. I miss the guy.
Re: (Score:2)
Everybody thought the era of pirates was over.... until they started to show up again in the 21st Century here on the Earth. If the opportunity presents itself, there will always be people who will take advantage of a power vacuum and try to take that which is undefended.
No, it won't be like Star Trek or Firefly..... those are too slick and clean cut. It will be far more ugly and different still. This isn't chest thumping, it is facing reality instead of burying your head in the sand and thinking none o
Re: (Score:2)
I cannot decide whether you lack comprehension of your own native language, or whether you are deliberately obtuse. Or maybe you believe that North America's civilization, which I do not dispute, means that your property is magically safe because the people around you are a different breed from the ones populating the rest of the world.
Let me recap.
You said: I don't see how that is different from what happens on earth (aside from the space fairy dust). Whoever digs the hole generally owns the minerals extr
Re: (Score:2)
But I personally don't see any issues with this. Whoever gets the stuff out should own it.
As long as that stuff doesn't come from my tracts of land on the Moon, Mars, etc, claimed through the Lunar embassy.
And if they do extract resource from unauthorized mines on my land, then I would be entitled to the value of 100% of the raw resources extracted.
Re: (Score:2)
bingo. This is what the Outer Space Treaty is intended to prevent, there is no legtimacy in staking claims in space (that bit of the Moon you think you "own"? Well, you simply don't). There is, however, NOTHING in it preventing private entities or even State parties from exploiting resources from space, with the caveat in the case of State parties that anything they extract is for the good of ALL. It makes NO provision or restriction on private exploitation of space. If you mine it, it's yours, however you
Re: (Score:2)
*Let me try and clarify: I can plant a quartz mine on the Moon, but I can't stick a forty foot perimeter fence around it and I can't prevent my competitor building a quartz mine five feet away.
Actually, spacefaring nations have already laid out operational safety rules. For example, the ISS has a 1 km "keep out zone" around it. For the Moon, you can't place your landing pad so close to my mine that it kicks up rocks and damages my equipment, and conversely outgassing from my mine processing can't contaminate your solar arrays. Once people actually set up operations on the Moon or some asteroid, there will be reasonable *and agreed to* safety boundaries and access roads, which will, over time,
Re: (Score:3)
Why would space colonies want to break away?
Presumably any earth-entity capable of colonizing the far reaches of the Solar system would have to be a fairly important country. It would also offer any thriving colony the local equivalent of a path to statehood. Why secede when you can get two Senate seats?
A lot of SciFi is based on the assumption that future leaders have not learned the lesson of the past. Even the Brits have learned that at some point you off the colony a choice: go independent without a war
Re:LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
> when those that have actually done the colonizing or the progeny thereof decides that they don't really need the mother-country anymore.
I'd be alright with that, but the problem is that space isn't like the surface of the Earth where you have neatly demarcated areas that you can lay claim to and you have to actually travel to in order to use. You could have companies pushing around asteroids and bumping them into Earth orbit, extracting resources, without sending even a single person over to the actual asteroid (all done with a bunch of robotic probes). You will inevitably get two companies (or countries) fighting over who gets the right to push which asteroid around. Neither of them are even near the asteroid, and no colony will be set up on the asteroid since it's probably far too small to support an independent human population by itself.
I guess a good analogy would be the Pacific islands and not the 13 colonies. The pacific islands changed hands so many times and many still have debatable levels of 'belonging' to another country. Now imagine if the pacific islands were free to roam around...
Re: (Score:2)
Let's crowd-source shooting the Chinese into space! Let's put them there first! Show a little brotherhood.
There's enough space to go around. I can see quibbling about the moon on the light side, but REALLY!
Go forth and mine. Set up diverse industrial asteroids. Be neighborly. Get along with each other or you don't get to come back to Earth.
Let's send the most quarrelsome of everyone into space. Give 'em a job and something to bitch about. Keep them busy and out of our hair.
Set up an asteroid for the U.N. an
FUD (Score:2)
No one has to worry about China claiming asteroids.
It really is about being there...it's so ridiculously expansive in all senses of the word...space I mean...
as far as asteroids go, a more likely yet still far flung scenario is China partners with some ridiculous Brittish 'tech innovator' guy (who is backed by oligarch money) to mine an asteroid
they bring an asteroid to earth, screw up and it hits us and destroys civilization
that's more likely than anything China related threatening the US
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, space is a limited commodity. Like Leprechaun Gold @ a Colorado dispensary.
Who in their right mind was part of this Treaty to begin with? No one in their right mind.
If they weren't in their right mind, their contract is as good as toilet paper.
We need more employment, resources and fewer people on the planet.
If you tie up the mining companies resources in space, it means they're not as active here.
I'm not even a lawyer, closer to a super-villain, and even I can see the right thing to do here is quit d
Re: (Score:2)
Who in their right mind was part of this Treaty to begin with? No one in their right mind.
Bear in mind that if the treaty dates to 1967, it was being worked on in 1966, possibly earlier. At that time, the US was seriously worried that it might lose the space race to the Soviet Union (who were still racking up "firsts" faster than the US), so there was probably an aspect of bet-hedging to it. (1967 was also the "summer of love", so, hippies, and height of the Viet Nam war, so, distraction. So yeah, not i
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That only works if you dig up immortality... (Score:2)
...or happiness.
Everything else you have to be able to TRADE or it is worthless or illegal to trade or posses.
And while there is a long and fruitful career to be had in trading illegal shit, they tend to end abruptly and violently.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And there's gotta be a ton of gold at the center of the earth, and platinum, same at the center of the Moon. The Big Dig. How low can you go. Inside the Moon, it does not get very hot, no molten lava to contend with. Who can get there first, and start the digging for them heavy noble elements of platinum, iridium, osmium, gold, all mixed in with nickel and iron. If the theory that the Moon was ejected from the Earth from a massive asteroid impact is correct. Inner planets don't have much moons, for whateve
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Possession is nine-tenths of the law... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Moon has more surface area that North America. Even if all of the nations of the Earth conspired and made a deliberate effort to explode the Moon, it can't be done. Mining operations that would produce minerals in quantities equal to the entire mining production of humanity from before the Sumerian empires until now and doing that on an annual basis would take billions of years to mine out enough of the Moon for you to even notice something was happening.
Relax, the Moon is going to be just fine even with extensive strip mining, and arguably it is better to have it happen up there than down here on the Earth while killing habitat for many animals and destroying whole ecosystems.
Only the smallest of asteroids will ever be completely mined out before mankind will have settled and occupied the rest of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't forgotten the multiplicitive nature of human reproduction or how life will spread. Millions of years from now mankind is likely going to be spreading to other Galaxies and doing things you would not even comprehend at the moment. Human populations also seem to somehow stabilize when constrained with resources (sometimes in ugly ways, but it does happen). Space is huge and there will be many other places to worry about than a mined out Moon.
Who knows, there may even be a lunar restoration group
Re: (Score:2)
5 billion, more like. It's receding at an inch or two a year.
Re: (Score:2)
> If the theory that the Moon was ejected from the Earth from a massive asteroid impact is correct.
It is not. The moon is a billion years older then the earth.
Re: (Score:2)
> If the theory that the Moon was ejected from the Earth from a massive asteroid impact is correct.
It is not. The moon is a billion years older then the earth.
uh, other way. The Moon, according to the latest theory, formed when a Mars-sized planet collided with Earth, the two iron cores merged and the Moon formed from mainly quartz and SiO2 ejecta - which is the reason why the Moon has no appreciable magnetic field and Earth has a much larger nickel-iron core than it should have.
Re:Possession is nine-tenths of the law... (Score:5, Funny)
Problem solved...
Re: (Score:2)
That was my first thought. Who's going to argue with someone who maintains navigational control over very large rocks in orbit? Drop the investigation/case or I vaporize your city with a 50m rock.
Re: (Score:2)
Money and power are 10/10ths of the law.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's true that mining asteroids is of little use for us here on Earth. But when you consider raw materials for space industry, then it suddenly becomes an extremely attractive idea. But the problem is that without cheap materials and a cheap way of accessing space, no space industry is ever likely to develop. So it's kind of a chicken-egg problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Elon Musk is working on the cheap access to space part of the problem, and I'm working on the other part.
That other part is a "Seed Factory", an industrial starter kit that makes parts for more machines in an expanding collection, using local raw materials and energy. So instead of having to send a whole asteroid processing plant, which would be pretty massive, you send a much smaller starter kit. We're about to buy a property near Atlanta to build and test prototypes for this concept. The first generati
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're off by at least one order of magnitude (if the way you go about it is smart), maybe two.
Re:Precident has been set (Score:4, Informative)
Note: the outer Space treaty only applies to governments, not individuals or corporations.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/... [wikisource.org]
Article VI
States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. When activities are carried on in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, by an international organization, responsibility for compliance with this Treaty shall be borne both by the international organization and by the States Parties to the Treaty participating in such organization.
Re:Precident has been set (Score:4, Insightful)
So what? It wouldn't be the first treaty anybody has broken. Are there any penalties? Who is going to enforce them? And, in any case, the US could simply leave the treaty or demand it be renegotiated. The Outer Space Treaty simply isn't going to last in its current form, and it should last in its current form. Get used to it. Treaties aren't binding law, they are simply mutual agreements to help make things work more smoothly.
In any case, private space companies could simply move to countries that haven't ratified the treaty, and they wouldn't be in violation of any treaty or international law.
Re: Precident has been set (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Barringer's claim was granted because it was land, not becuase it was extraterrestrial. Barringer owned the land and got mineral rights to it, and while he may have expected a large iron core, the office granting those rights did it because
Re: (Score:2)
Barringer Crater was a pre-existing landform that wasn't even confirmed to be of extraterrestrial origin until Shoemaker's 1960-ish PhD thesis. Granted, there was suspicion that it was from a meteorite impact, but the theories up until Shoemaker's were all incorrect.
Come again? The theory that it was a meteor impact was actually incorrect until Shoemaker found high-pressure quartz polymorphs? The preponderance of evidence supported it being a meteor impact decades before that, there were no other plausible explanations for the formation that fit the evidence. The discovery of the polymorphs coesite and stishovite provided a unique unambiguous indicator, but in no way was required to demonstrate that the meteor crater explanation was correct. The real significance of th
Re: (Score:2)
The other theories were related to vulcanism, as that part of the Colorado Plateau has lots of volcanic features within an hours' drive. I know because I just went on a geology field trip organized through a buddy of mine from the geology department at our University. It was rather amusing, watching the tour
Re: (Score:3)
I would say the same thing, but there are several countries that can effectively impose their will anywhere within the Moon's orbit and a handful that could manage anything within the solar system. That said, having navigational control of a big rock on the edge of a gravity well may prove to be a hefty bargaining chip.
Re: (Score:2)
I would say the same thing, but there are several countries that can effectively impose their will anywhere within the Moon's orbit and a handful that could manage anything within the solar system. That said, having navigational control of a big rock on the edge of a gravity well may prove to be a hefty bargaining chip.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. :-P
Re: (Score:2)
it's like being a nuclear power, actually using the hefty bargaining chip is a form of suicide, perhaps like a suicide bomber where you take out the enemy while dieing (with the advantage you get to see the results before dieing) but still a suicide. As long as the space power is dependent on the Earth, it is suicide to piss off the Earth powers and it will be a long time, if ever, before anyone can support a space age technological society independent of the Earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice satellite you have there. Would be a shame if a laser beam hit it. Good thing I'm selling "insurance".
Re: (Score:3)
I think the treaty was OK in the sense that it prevented an arms race in space and the threat of bombardment from space. That was a good thing to agree on. Let's hold on to that for as long as we can.
Prohibitions on asteroid mining, on the other hand, serve no purpose. Either they get renegotiated, or they simply get ignored. Countries that haven't ratified the treaty aren't bound by them anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
No, every damn thing in space doesn't have a price tag attached, because they aren't actually owned by anyone. Or should I be able to simply declare the Moon my property and seek to extract rent from anyone who builds a base on it, possibly decades in the future?
The treaty exists to kee
Re: (Score:2)
If you have the technology to go mine an asteroid, i dont think any country on this planet will be able to take it from you. And if they try, just "accidentally" drop some of what you mined on them.
You may not care, but your investors are highly likely to. That is really what's driving this.
Re: (Score:2)
An article. Wow.
Try reading up on the parent bodies of meteorites -- we know of quite a few -- then look at the composition, particularly of e.g. siderites. (Sure, plenty of stony meteorites too, still typically ~20% iron/nickel.)
Not that much carbon, actually. Lots of iron and nickel, and significant amounts of e.g. platinum group metals (same columns in the periodic table as iron and nickel). Fortunately there is some carbon, because it turns out that one of the easiest ways to separate out the diff