Legalities of space mining - SPACE act of 2015

[Jouni]

What would happen if an other country tries to mine the asteroid?

Pretty much anything could happen.

It's important to distinguish between property rights and factual ownership. The former are government-created and government-enforced rights other governments may or may not recognize, while the latter just means that you're currently able to keep something as your property.

If government A grants company X property rights to a space rock, government B can grant company Y the same rights. As long as the companies operate only within the jurisdiction of their corresponding governments, things would probably be quite simple. If the companies also operate abroad or if foreign citizens are involved, things could get more complicated.

[Frozen_Heart]

What would happen if an other country tries to mine the asteroid?

As there are so many asteroids, stealing one already being mined is unlikely considering all the trouble it would cause.

[Jouni]

As there are so many asteroids, stealing one already being mined is unlikely considering all the trouble it would cause.

There are a lot of asteroids, but how many of them are easily reachable from the Earth, with frequent launch windows? And how many of those have proven, easily exploitable mineral resources?

[Friend Bear]

• We didn't do it. Prove it!
  
• It was them, not us.
  
• That was “scientific researchâ€Â
  
• That was an action by rogue rebels that are out of our control
  
• Actually, those were rogue Russian|Chinese|North Korean|Syrian rebels, trying to frame us
  
• We have the proof that Saddam Hussein was behind all this. We can't show you but trust us, we have 100% intel on this.
  
• Veto!
  

The possibilities are endless. Whenever these kind of treaties come out you know that the janitorial staff of the UN Building in New York simply forgot to buy toilet paper, so they're making these treaties instead.

I absolutely understand where you are going with this. This is why I think legislators need legal training.

*DO NOT discuss current events. The issues discussed here are public awareness in the event of space/interspace interaction between nations and merely uses current events to compare the role of international legislation.

Again, this is about public awareness and its role, not current events.

The Iran nuclear deal; the president has sole discretionary authority concerning foreign nations. The law(s) Congress passed were actually unconstitutional. Rather than interrupt the public's awareness of how government works, he kept it good natured and treated it as ruling law because the Supreme Court could not interlocutorily review that legislation and deem is unconstitutional in time for the deal to stay together since negotiations were so time constrained and strenuous.

That is to clear up the concerns internally in the US (and the US, alone).

As for law generally in the US, international treaty and the U.S. constitution are supreme. Next is federal law, followed by executive action (without the advice and consent of the senate), then state legislation.

Space is regulated by the UN. While we have dramatic sway, we are still subject to international treaties and regulations, no matter what our Federal legislation says.

Why this is all important and trumps the public awareness issues is because it would be out of our hands. You will have people saying "you can't do that because Rush Limbaugh said so!" But their congressman can't just waive his pretend wand and do something because our laws will still be subject to the UN.

Comparison:

The Iran issue was entirely internal with constitutional interference ignored by congressman who have absolutely no legal training (they are all dentists and librarians, etc.).

Potential space issues go through international awareness/checks and balances, and we cannot walk into the UN and say "our people disagree." All we get is our permanent seat vote as a member of the UN and the OST (and arguably the ally countries, but this is limited both by those countries beginning to enjoy their unilateral decision making, such as the UK and Japan, in addition to there being so few countries actually under the OST).

Again, I totally get where you are going with this, but it is different since it is mostly external with other nations rather than internal with consitutional conflict, alone.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Friend Bear

[RainDreamer]

So, uh, probably late warning and stuff, but I prefer if this goes less into current events and political things and more about what it means for future space commercialization,

[AngelLestat]

Streetwind was right in his first answer but wrong in his second.

This law does not enter in conflict with the space treaty. It only guarantee that any company who take asteroids resources and they land in US soil, the country will not confiscate those resources, because the company own them.

This may not happen in other countries where govements may choose to confiscate that because when you are in ground, the policies of that country in question matter, not the space treaty.

Anyone can mine asteroids, even the same asteroids that other companies are mining. It say very clear that companies own any material already extracted from the asteroids, they dont own the asteroids. This is also clarify in the space treaty.

Also, anyone can sell these resources from asteroids in space without any law more than the space treaty.

[Friend Bear]

So, uh, probably late warning and stuff, but I prefer if this goes less into current events and political things and more about what it means for future space commercialization,

Absolutely fine with that.

My intentions were not to discuss current events. Rather, I want to compare them to future potential events to show the difference in how public awareness will play a role. This is important because public awareness, interaction, cooperation, and even public attempts to bar progress in this area play a major role. By showing what effect legislation has shows the level of potential impact of public interference. As seen, I imagine it would have little, assuming the rest of the UN nations don't complain (but being that only American's do, I think future cooperation in mining is safe; yes I can say this because I am American and I see first hand people complaining about things they never look into themselves every day).

Sorry if it seemed otherwise. I will state a disclaimer in my post.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Friend Bear

[magnemoe]

There are a lot of asteroids, but how many of them are easily reachable from the Earth, with frequent launch windows? And how many of those have proven, easily exploitable mineral resources?

Major countries and large companies dont do piracy and the victim will see it as so, with the new law the US will agree.

Add that dooing stuff like this in space would be insainly risky, you have a high chance of losing you billion dollars miner

[xtoro]

I've thought for a long time that the next war for resources will happen in space. When a new way to get energy off-planet is found, and earth's resources get closer to being depleted and everyone is desperate for energy, it will trigger a race which will lead to conflict. That is, if history repeats itself, which it does...

Picture a Russian ISRU probe mining a plentiful asteroid, then another country's probe shows up and starts mining it also. Russia gets angry and there's nothing they can do because of space treaties stating they can't claim the asteroid. So they send up another probe, heavily armored and very heavy to go to the asteroid and do a high speed suicide collision with the competing probe and destroys it. And they say "Oops, accidents happen!". Eventually this all leads to probes being sent up with non-explosive non-nuclear kinetic projectiles designed to damage other probes. Then it gets out of hand and they have railguns, rockets etc. Then countries start air raiding other countries' launch sites, and so on.

I had a dream about this years ago. Yes I have a very vivid imagination lol

EDIT: I didn't intend to make Russia out as a bad guy here, just naming a random country with a space program which was better than putting <insert country name here>. Just wanted to state this.

Edited September 25, 2015 by xtoro

[Friend Bear]

Major countries and large companies dont do piracy and the victim will see it as so, with the new law the US will agree.

Add that dooing stuff like this in space would be insainly risky, you have a high chance of losing you billion dollars miner

True. That is why it might be better for companies to work together rather than completely compete. That way, they can coordinate efforts.

Kind of like how oil fields work now. They are owned by the landowner (sometimes a company, sometimes not), a contractor is hired to organize efforts, an excavation company is used, an extraction company or two is used, the end. It actually might be hard for a single company to spend the money to get up there, lock an asteroid in orbit, then mine it, alone.

- - - Updated - - -

I've thought for a long time that the next war for resources will happen in space. When a new way to get energy off-planet I found, and earth's resources get closer to being depleted, it will trigger a race which will lead to conflict. That is, if history repeats itself, which it does...

Picture a Russian ISRU probe mining a plentiful asteroid, then another country's probe shows up and starts mining it also. Russia gets angry and there's nothing they can do because of space treaties stating they can't claim the asteroid. So they send up another probe, heavily armored and very heavy to go to the asteroid and do a high speed suicide collision with the competing probe and destroys it. Eventually this all leads to probes being sent up with non-explosive non-nuclear kinetic projectiles designed to damage other probes. Then it gets out of hand and they have railguns, rockets etc. Then countries start air raiding other countries' launch sites, and so on.

I had a dream about this years ago. Yes I have a very vivid imagination lol

Not far off, I totally believe it.

The reason we have wars on earth =P

[Jouni]

Major countries and large companies dont do piracy and the victim will see it as so, with the new law the US will agree.

If country A authorizes company X to mine an asteroid, while country B authorizes company Y to do the same, which one of the companies is the pirate and which one is the victim?

On Earth, things are easy, because almost everything falls within the jurisdiction of exactly one sovereign state. If a mine is located in country A, country A has the final say over it. If it's located in country B, it's the opinion of country B that matters.

In space, things are more complicated. Countries A and B have both agreed that neither of them has sovereignty over the asteroid. Because they don't any claim the asteroid, the property rights they grant on that asteroid mean exactly nothing to anyone outside the country.

Maybe there could be an informal agreement that the first one to claim an asteroid has owns it. Then we should draw a line on what qualifies as claiming the asteroid. Is it enough to be the first one to detect it, or do you also have to land on it? Do you need to determine the mineral content, or even prove that it's exploitable? Can multiple entities claim different parts of the same asteroid, or even the same part at different times?

Before formal property rights were introduced, land ownership was often based on using the land. If you stopped using it, the land was considered abandoned, and anyone could claim it. Perhaps something similar could work in space.

[Friend Bear]

If country A authorizes company X to mine an asteroid, while country B authorizes company Y to do the same, which one of the companies is the pirate and which one is the victim?

On Earth, things are easy, because almost everything falls within the jurisdiction of exactly one sovereign state. If a mine is located in country A, country A has the final say over it. If it's located in country B, it's the opinion of country B that matters.

In space, things are more complicated. Countries A and B have both agreed that neither of them has sovereignty over the asteroid. Because they don't any claim the asteroid, the property rights they grant on that asteroid mean exactly nothing to anyone outside the country.

Maybe there could be an informal agreement that the first one to claim an asteroid has owns it. Then we should draw a line on what qualifies as claiming the asteroid. Is it enough to be the first one to detect it, or do you also have to land on it? Do you need to determine the mineral content, or even prove that it's exploitable? Can multiple entities claim different parts of the same asteroid, or even the same part at different times?

Before formal property rights were introduced, land ownership was often based on using the land. If you stopped using it, the land was considered abandoned, and anyone could claim it. Perhaps something similar could work in space.

Yeah.

The real problem is on Earth where land is usually owned by someone profiting from the mining operation (even Federal land profits the Federal government).

But in space, no one can hear you scream...wait wrong idiom. I mean, in space, everything is everyone's. The universe is a large drum circle. However, I do think mining creates ownership of the extracted thing in space (read earlier, I believe this is subject to proportionate distribution among space-faring and/or non-space-faring nations but can't remember how the UN finally concluded in this regard) and not the rock landed on. Been a minute but they kinda tried to address it in the OST.

Someone else have input on that section?

Edited September 25, 2015 by Friend Bear

[jwenting]

However, this bill is most likely going to violate the Outer Space Treaty, which forbid states from extending their territorial sovereignty over outer space or any parts of it. Which means if this bill is passed, the US is giving to private companies rights it has no authority to give in the first place. There are also fears that other space power might consider this an US act of economic aggression going ahead of international law.

no it won't. The US government by not allowing private space exploration and asteroid mining is in violation of the treaty right now. Under the OST they don't have that right, no country has.

While the US have every right to disallow rocket launches from their territory (and indeed most countries do) they don't have the right to tell private individuals what they're allowed to do if they do manage to get up there from somewhere else, and that includes grabbing things and bringing them back down (which is of course exactly what the Apollo missions did too, only difference is that they didn't use what they brought back for commercial operations).

[Sidereus]

So no WMD's in orbit, and no weapons on the moon, but conventional weapons in earth orbit are a-ok.

OOh yeah I think you are right. It is no weapons of any sort on celestial bodies, no WMD's in orbit (which made the Star Wars program unseekable ... unless it is actually up there).

Unless there's another article of the OST or other treaty you're not quoting, that's not how it reads. It says there's no weapons testing of any kind on the moon, and no military activities. This still allows conventional weapons, so long as they're there for "peaceful activities". So a firearm in a survival kit (like the TP-82, which was used as part of the Soyuz kit up until 2006) would still be legally allowed, assuming its there in case you need to defend yourself from wild animals while awaiting pickup back on Earth.

I absolutely understand where you are going with this. This is why I think legislators need legal training.

*DO NOT discuss current events. The issues discussed here are public awareness in the event of space/interspace interaction between nations and merely uses current events to compare the role of international legislation.

Again, this is about public awareness and its role, not current events.

The Iran nuclear deal; the president has sole discretionary authority concerning foreign nations. The law(s) Congress passed were actually unconstitutional. Rather than interrupt the public's awareness of how government works, he kept it good natured and treated it as ruling law because the Supreme Court could not interlocutorily review that legislation and deem is unconstitutional in time for the deal to stay together since negotiations were so time constrained and strenuous.

That is to clear up the concerns internally in the US (and the US, alone).

As for law generally in the US, international treaty and the U.S. constitution are supreme. Next is federal law, followed by executive action (without the advice and consent of the senate), then state legislation.

This is a bit...off. First, while the president does have sole discretionary authority concerning foreign nations, any treaty has to be approved by the majority of the Senate. Any deal reached that isn't approved by the Senate is basically an Executive Order, and can be either overturned by the Congress (provided they can get enough votes to override a veto), or it can simply be revoked by the next president.

Second, (and I'll admit this is a bit nitpicky) all treaties are subservient to the US Constitution, so they're not quite on the same plane. Otherwise, any treaty could effectively amend the constitution, skipping over the whole 3/4 of Congress and ratification by 3/4 of all states requirement.

Anyway, as far as the OST treaty goes, my guess is it will last right up until the point that technology reaches the point where it is no longer convenient to not break it. Right now, aside from WMD testing and/or having WMD's stationed in LEO, most of what the treaty is concerned with is technologically unfeasible enough that no one can really break it in a big way anyway. Just as soon as that changes, someone will break it, and other nations will then withdraw from the treaty in order to maintain a competitive edge.

[Nothalogh]

The beauty of the OST is that while it prohibits nations from claiming territory in outer space, nothing prohibits an individual, or a group of individuals from doing so.

Which means that we are going to run into a Valentine Michael Smith type of situation eventually, and that makes me laugh like a maniac

Edited September 27, 2015 by Nothalogh

[Jouni]

The beauty of the OST is that while it prohibits nations from claiming territory in outer space, nothing prohibits an individual, or a group of individuals from doing so.

Nothing prevents an indidual claiming territory in outer space. Nothing prevents another individual claiming the same territory, because those claims mean exactly nothing. You can claim whatever you want, but nobody cares. Because the Outer Space Treaty prohibits states from claiming territory in outer space, it also prohibits their courts of law from handling cases about the ownership of those territories. Otherwise the state would be claiming sovereignty over that territory.

There are no property rights in outer space, just factual ownership based on your ability to defend your property. The Outer Space Treaty gives limited protection to the property launched from Earth, as well as to its immediate surroundings, but otherwise you would be on your own.

[Sampa]

The outerspace treaty simply forbid nations from extending sovereignty in space. However, these are private companies. Look at on earth. BP currently has oil mining facilities in places that are not the sovereign waters of their perspective nation. This leads me to believe that private companies are exempt to this treaty

[problemecium]

It sounds like a bill ensuring that mining companies get to keep the rocks they mine, not that they own the whole asteroid.

So if I go land on Ceres, I still can't sue someone else for landing on Ceres, per the Outer Space Treaty. Conversely, when I bring the rocks home, people can't go demanding I give them my rocks per the 2015 SPACE act.

[Nothalogh]

Nothing prevents another individual claiming the same territory, because those claims mean exactly nothing. You can claim whatever you want, but nobody cares.

Nothing prevents the claimants from using force to back up their claims, what's more, the OST bars nation states from intervening.

[Kryten]

Nothing prevents the claimants from using force to back up their claims, what's more, the OST bars nation states from intervening.

How exactly are they supposed to 'use force to back up their claims' when the OST bans any kind of weapons or military activity on other celestial bodies? Judo?

[Nothalogh]

How exactly are they supposed to 'use force to back up their claims' when the OST bans any kind of weapons or military activity on other celestial bodies? Judo?

OST only bars the nation state signatories from putting CBRN weapons in space, it has no authority on individuals and or non signatory nation states

[StrandedonEarth]

Anything can be used as a weapon. The Kzinti learned that lesson from humans the hard way. A high powered com laser can wreak havoc at short range; a drill can put holes in "enemy" probes/minebots; and there's always good old kinetic energy. Accelerate to ramming speed!

[Kryten]

OST only bars the nation state signatories from putting CBRN weapons in space, it has no authority on individuals and or no signatory nation states

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.

i.e the provisions of the treaty apply to all citizens of nations that have signed the treaty, and the nation involved must enforce them

The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.

So no weapons on any asteroids.

Here is the OST; read it, because you very clearly haven't. It's not very long or difficult to understand.

Anything can be used as a weapon. The Kzinti learned that lesson from humans the hard way. A high powered com laser can wreak havoc at short range; a drill can put holes in "enemy" probes/minebots; and there's always good old kinetic energy. Accelerate to ramming speed!

Any state party is considered liable for damage caused by a space vehicle registered to them, so they would intervene. It doesn't even matter if the damage is deliberate or not, never mind whether is was strictly caused by a 'weapon'.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Kryten

[SciMan]

What if the asteroid IS the weapon?

The OST only provides a legal framework for punishing violators. Those punishments have yet to be described, so what exactly happens as a result of breaking the OST is yet to be determined.

Besides, laws never stop any entity from doing anything. Fear of the consequences of breaking the law is what dissuades breaking the law.

And laws that can't be (economically) enforced have been historically shown to be ignored (Prohibition, software piracy, etc.).

In other words, as soon as the cost of breaking the law is less than the profit from breaking the same law, that law is functionally null and void even if it's still being enforced and on the books.

This is why OST should either be pared down to just the "no nukes in space" part (with a separate treaty for asteroid mining and things of that nature) or gotten rid of entirely, as soon as it's more obvious to the layperson that it's unenforceable (what are they going to do, take the asteorid away?).

[Kryten]

What if the asteroid IS the weapon?

Then the exact same articles about causing damage still apply? As would national laws against deliberate property damage.

The OST only provides a legal framework for punishing violators. Those punishments have yet to be described, so what exactly happens as a result of breaking the OST is yet to be determined.?

You're not talking about any breakage that isn't illegal even without the OST. The punishments are well established.

Besides, laws never stop any entity from doing anything. Fear of the consequences of breaking the law is what dissuades breaking the law.

And laws that can't be (economically) enforced have been historically shown to be ignored (Prohibition, software piracy, etc.).

You're talking about what would be, in practice, war. At the very least, piracy. Nations do not ignore either, especially when they can stop it just as easily as walking into a control centre somewhere and slapping on handcuffs. If you're thinking that won't happen because people will be living out in space... go back to reading Heinlein novels, and maybe have a think about how much it actually costs to support humans in deep space.