[darth]

Even under the current treaties, an individual or corporation own any celestial resources that they are using or that they have put on board a vessel. For example, after we picked up a few hundred pounds of Moon rocks, there was never any question that we owned them. The High Frontier is the New World without the natives!

I guarantee that there are valuable resources up there. Are many people aware that some asteroids have high concentrations of platinum group metals? Nickel/iron asteroids are almost pure stainless steel already. Carbonaceous chondrite asteroids are high in hydrocarbons (petrochemicals). Jupiter's atmosphere is high in hydrogen isotopes for fusion engines. Mercury is high in heavy metals of all types. In free space, you have solar energy for smelting and processing; 10 KW per square meter and the sun never sets.. no clouds either. No EPA, no regulations, no taxes, and you can deliver the goods to your customers on Earth from above without crossing a border. Total freedom and true capitalism. The frontier within the inner solar system is endless for all practical purposes.

[RightWhale]

Your post sounds like my own; thinking alike. We can go after a nickel-iron asteroid, but an ordinary stony-iron asteroid will do well. Process a cubic mile a year and we will have all the steel we need both for earth and for further space development. The deal is that steel production could be increased five-fold if everyone on earth is to live in the style the Terrorist Groups of Global Reach seem to hate. Plus a lot of aluminum.

The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty can be interpreted various ways. The way I read it is that you own anything you launch, your spacecraft, your supplies, but you cannot own any resources dug out of celestial bodies. The treaty is vaguely-worded in this regard, and so is deficient and ought to be withdrawn from immediately, with the requisite 1-year notice.

The word "global" seems much less impressive when looking beyond this miserable ball of mud.