Posted on 11/28/2015 3:07:29 PM PST by BenLurkin
Particularly happy with the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act is Planetary Resources, a 2010-founded firm seeking to extract water, important materials, and minerals from asteroids and profit from them.
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Deep Space Industries, another firm with stakes in asteroid mining, also lauded the new law.
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But some lawyers and experts voiced potential conflict between the Act and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which declares points such as "states shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies," and that celestial bodies and outer space in general are “not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.â€
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Dr. Gbenga Oduntan of University of Kent, an international commercial law expert, said that it can be assumed that the list of states with access to outer space will grow from the current dozen or so, and institute their own space mining programs.
"That means that the pristine conditions of the cradle of nature from which our own Earth was born may become irrevocably altered forever - making it harder to trace how we came into being," he wrote, warning that once celestial bodies are contaminated with earthly microbes, humans' chances of discovering alien life could be ruined.
Dr. Oduntan added that space mining could also potentially damage the environment surrounding Earth and eventually result in resource-centered conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at techtimes.com ...
LOL! The Outer Space Treaty of 1967. I guess that also would mean no mining on Planet X.
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“That means that the pristine conditions of the cradle of nature from which our own Earth was born may become irrevocably altered forever - making it harder to trace how we came into being,”
Please tell me this guy isn’t sane or serious. He can’t be a geologist or mineralogist. He can’t understand the very messy origins of the solar system with everything crashing into other parts. By pristine he means untouched by evil human beings. Even capitalists. How would the universe survive such evil?
A) I’m glad the eco-terrorist luddites are enraged by this.
B) I’m enraged by this.
But not for the same reason. I don’t think there should be any US (or UN) laws nor treaties about space. I would never have the slightest care if someone made toxic ponds on Mars or ate entire comets. If McDonalds launched a fleet of spacecraft tomorrow to put a massive carbon arches across the face of the moon, I might choose to actually eat there as that’s kinda cool that they worked out a way to do it.
I really have no idea nor much care what this particular stupid law says, or if people like it. It is simply a beaching mechanism to extend the law to a presently unreachable destination. A placeholder for future eco-terrorist luddite regulation of lands and creation that they’ve absolutely no real control over, nor a consent to be governed.
Above all, no granting of power exists in the constitution. Legislators don’t like that? Read the constitution, there’s a way to fix it.
They will be happy if it can be owned by the United Nations and Taxed to death
ESPECIALLY capitalists.
Space commies get a pass. Just like how earthbound commies get a pass on what they did to their environment.
I wonder if this little snowflake will complain when one of those asteroids, the size of Mt, Everest, is delivered to us at 20,000 miles per hour.
The treaty preclude profits because all matter outside the earth is the province of all mankind
We should have been mining the asteroids decades ago.
Are you on the right forum? So, what, before a rocket takes off, you have to go ask permission from the primitives in the amazon jungle? What type of nonsense is this?
It would be accessible to all mankind who had the technology and willpower to reach that far, and honestly, those are the only ones who should have a say in the matter. I'm all for space faring individuals or companies to create whatever rules they want to for themselves that they agree to. But I do not recognize nor will I ever recognize any rule over territory which will not be defended by the government that seeks to issue rules over it.
Shouldn't you have signed off with "/s"?
Or do you really believe we earthlings have dominion over the entire universe?
This from the very same geniuses that brought us the global "climate change" hoax. Oh goody, I just can't wait to see how they'll screw up something that's not even here yet.
Don’t believe me - read the treaty. The heavens are the province of all mankind. If I went to the moon with no help from any government and brought back something of great value there would be a huge unresolved legal question whether I could sell something I had no right to own.
No sarcasm. I don’t know where you get anything about dominion from. That was nowhere in my quip.
You just don’t know how the Earth and life came about, do you?
I learned from a British documentary that a huge planet crashed into another causing it to split into the planet we now know as Earth and it’s moon. When that happened life was first known to exist on Earth.
See, you learned something, didn’t you?
Sarcasm aside, for the life of me, they come up with utter crap like this and expect people to buy it as fact. They offer not one iota of proof and just continue on with how man evolved thereafter.
I wish I could remember the name of the documentary, it had to do with dinosaurs. You’d probably shut it off like I did when they gave their theory.
I really think science has reached it’s peak and is now regressing into fantasy land, especially when you factor in global warming.
I give up.
what element is valuable-enough to
to attempt mining in space?
Unobtanium.
Very useful stuff, that is.
We need more lawyers to be blasted into outer space.
Without that space capsule thingy.
One asteroid is supposed to be made up of Gold. Bet that would change things.
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