Can you own part of an asteroid?
December 10, 2015 8:20 AM   Subscribe

How Asteroid Mining Is Changing Space Law

On November 24, President Obama signed the “US Commercial Space Law Competitiveness Act” into law. Among other things (like that the government should not pester SpaceX), it states that any US citizen who takes a chip off an old block of asteroid then owns that chip.

The law also applies to other celestial bodies blessed with “resources,” like the Moon and every other planet and lower-case moon because “resources” is a vague word. The US citizen—or, more likely, a group of citizens who are part of a company, like Planetary Resources, Inc., or Deep Space Industries—can then “possess, own, transport, use, [or] sell” the resource.

Planetary Resources previously
posted by Johnny Wallflower (55 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
We should totally buy a Metafilter asteroid.
posted by RakDaddy at 8:27 AM on December 10, 2015 [9 favorites]


This is how it works. "Man was born to explore", "Curiosity makes us human", "We must confront the unknown" - I'm down with those. But what gets people off their butts and into danger? Profit, fear, or both.

This is a giant leap for interplanetary imperialism, and thus will drive technology and space access like nothing else. The good news is that there are no Native Asteroidians - at least, not on the easy pickings - and we can't mess those space rocks up any more than billions of years of their environment has done, so - have at it!
posted by Devonian at 8:36 AM on December 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


We should totally buy a Metafilter asteroid.

If the Metatalk thread suggesting it doesn't turn into a total shit-show, I will buy Metafilter an asteroid.
posted by bondcliff at 8:41 AM on December 10, 2015 [13 favorites]


Seriously, once ConHugeCo Industries realizes there's no EPA in space it is going to be rocket city.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 8:41 AM on December 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


This is great news for Weyland-Yutani.
posted by markkraft at 8:42 AM on December 10, 2015 [13 favorites]


oh, but pick up a little moon dust, and all of a sudden you're a felon ? ;)
posted by k5.user at 8:45 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Donald Trump has the best asteroid. It's a really high quality asteroid, really classy. They do great asteroids up there and that's why Trump went there because the Trump name is always associated with the best.
posted by Naberius at 8:46 AM on December 10, 2015 [12 favorites]


An asteroid, or should Metafilter buy Biden (VP2012)?
posted by Slackermagee at 8:47 AM on December 10, 2015


Does that also mean I can land on one and claim the whole thing as mine permanently and never return because
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:47 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Sinistar wants a word with you, America. You don't hold title.
posted by scruss at 8:48 AM on December 10, 2015 [7 favorites]


There's a very slight problem with asteroid mining: if a single asteroid contains as much platinum has been mined on earth, and you get that material back to earth, what will that sudden influx of platinum do to the market? Of course, DeBeers has managed their diamonds well enough to maintain their demand, but there are a few competing companies aiming to mine in space.

Then again, they may all be fighting over a limited supply, if a 2014 Harvard study is right and few ("just 10 near earth") asteroids are worth mining.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:52 AM on December 10, 2015


All fun and games until China gets there first. Then we'll hear all about "sharing the bounties from space for the common good" and whatnot.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:55 AM on December 10, 2015 [10 favorites]


if a single asteroid contains as much platinum has been mined on earth, and you get that material back to earth, what will that sudden influx of platinum do to the market?

I'd say a bigger problem would be the expense of sending a mining rig (and developing one in the first place), extracting the ores, and bringing them back. I'm skeptical that the costs will make it worthwhile.
posted by happyroach at 8:58 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hmmmm....I've read enough plausible sci-fi scenarios that suggest that the most devastating weapon ever would be simply to fling big rocks into the gravity well that is the earth. It would seem more profitable to just hold humanity for ransom than actually try to mine stuff and bring it back safely.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:08 AM on December 10, 2015 [12 favorites]


I'd say a bigger problem would be the expense of sending a mining rig (and developing one in the first place), extracting the ores, and bringing them back. I'm skeptical that the costs will make it worthwhile.

Oh it'll totally be cheaper in ten years!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:10 AM on December 10, 2015


SPACE LAW
posted by clockzero at 9:11 AM on December 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


Have we learned nothing from EVE Online?
posted by Foosnark at 9:13 AM on December 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


a bit wouldn’t cover the fixed costs of going. And finding a lot would depress the price possibly sufficiently that finding a lot wouldn’t cover the price of going.

Sorry to be pejorative, but what a lame ass ignorant comment in a blog with aspirations of understanding economics.

There are rather many approaches between "a bit" and "flood the market" that would be massively, yea insanely remunerative. As in, what's the term after trillionair? The diamond industry currently has a supply sufficient to drop the price to pennies a carat, they seem to make profits.

Once there are resources in orbit to build and fuel that does not need to be launched the possibilities are kinda huge. How about taking all industry off the planet?
posted by sammyo at 9:13 AM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


It would seem more profitable to just hold humanity for ransom

Real issue but probably not for big thinking entrepreneurs. The entire planet long term is a pauper compared to the riches "out there". billion trillion new-word-illions awaits.
posted by sammyo at 9:17 AM on December 10, 2015


Quadrillion?
posted by ian1977 at 9:20 AM on December 10, 2015


How about taking all industry off the planet?

But people need the stuff down here.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:22 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Lots cheaper to send it down than up. Once there is reaction mass (fuel) up there there will be ways to slow down shipments so they don't need to come down in fiery reentry.
posted by sammyo at 9:25 AM on December 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


If the Metatalk thread suggesting it doesn't turn into a total shit-show, I will buy Metafilter an asteroid.

Looks like we're not getting an asteroid.

thatsthejoke.jpg
posted by Talez at 9:27 AM on December 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


Well, Asteroid B612 is already taken
posted by dov3 at 9:28 AM on December 10, 2015


.
posted by mecran01 at 9:30 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


But people need the stuff down here.
Meatbomb

That's the point, though. We could get the stuff we need here, but do the dirty work that would pollute here up there where it isn't destroying the environment and killing people.

As sammyo says, it's easier to ship down to Earth than up to space. If someday we could develop a system that is cheap enough to be profitable, it would be ideal. Remove the pollution from Earth, reap the benefits.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:38 AM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


if a 2014 Harvard study is right and few ("just 10 near earth") asteroids are worth mining.

What??? Were Larry Niven and Bon Heinlein wrong? Say it ain't so!
posted by GuyZero at 9:44 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


if a single asteroid contains as much platinum has been mined on earth, and you get that material back to earth, what will that sudden influx of platinum do to the market? Of course, DeBeers has managed their diamonds well enough to maintain their demand, but there are a few competing companies aiming to mine in space.


If we're at a point where we have the energy and material resources to mine and return an entire asteroid's worth of X, then scarcity of resources is not going to be problem.
posted by thecjm at 9:46 AM on December 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


The real value is not bringing scarce things down here. The value of platinum on earth (and the market for it) is insignificant next to the value of water, oxygen and reaction mass that's already outside the gravity well.

The money is in mining asteroids and setting up space filling stations.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 9:48 AM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Sounds like an updated version of the Guano Islands Act
posted by wcfields at 9:50 AM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


What??? Were Larry Niven and Bon Heinlein wrong? Say it ain't so!

Niven and especially Heinlein were wrong about a lot of things, but not necessarily about this. The article and study itself note that there is still enormous uncertainty regarding many of the assumptions underlying the study.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:50 AM on December 10, 2015


I'm told that the new Vogon hyperspatial express route will take care of all the transportation issues. Has anyone seen the plans for it yet?
posted by Lanark at 9:54 AM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


But people need the stuff down here.

Not if we're up there too.

Really, hauling stuff up and down the gravity well is like sailing to America a 16th century caravel. After a bit, you stay on the other side, and after quite a bit you and all your friends there invent the aeroplane.
posted by Devonian at 9:58 AM on December 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


The Harvard 2014 study limits itself to only counting asteroids that are worth more than $1 billion, so assuming only 10 asteroids exist, $10 billion is a sizable pie to split among a small handful of companies.
posted by fragmede at 10:20 AM on December 10, 2015


Honestly I'm quite surprised an asteroid worth $1 billion is considered worth it.
posted by deadwax at 11:14 AM on December 10, 2015


trillionair

®
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:17 AM on December 10, 2015


Cool! Maybe I can translate all that playing Belter and Asteroid Zero-Four into a job!

But seriously, this is great. Let's start getting heavy industry off-world so that we convert our Homeworld into an idyllic nature preserve of peace and harmony.
posted by Rob Rockets at 11:47 AM on December 10, 2015


No, the time traveling Oxygen farmers dropped the seeds of life in, went to lunch, and will be back with the freezer ships soon. Someone on Earth recently took payment and an escape guarantee for specified genetic material deposited into a friendly race a little farther out.
posted by Oyéah at 12:42 PM on December 10, 2015


This will never be profitable except when we have colonies on other planets. Way cheaper to get it here. A total pipe dream.
posted by Ironmouth at 1:07 PM on December 10, 2015


> So... a new life awaits us in the off-world colonies, is what you're saying?

there's a hell of a good universe next door.
posted by Leon at 1:34 PM on December 10, 2015


Maybe we should mine our landfills first: There’s something like 32 tons of gold in all the world's cell phones.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:00 PM on December 10, 2015


Nanotechnology holds the potential to eliminate the need to mine our landfills. Pour down a self-reproducing array of engineered critters, and sit back and watch as the worms create ever-growing piles of precious metals and other valuables, already sorted.
posted by yesster at 2:05 PM on December 10, 2015


Sorry to be pejorative, but what a lame ass ignorant comment in a blog with aspirations of understanding economics.

If you're sorry, please don't do it.
posted by howfar at 2:13 PM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


and sit back and watch as the worms create ever-growing piles of precious metals and other valuables, already sorted. grey goo.

FTFY.
posted by GuyZero at 2:35 PM on December 10, 2015


Or sit back and watch as an organism with no limits in our ecosystem systematically dismantles our technology infrastructure then turns the remaining surface into a grey ooze.
posted by cmfletcher at 2:49 PM on December 10, 2015


We live in an overall capitalistic world, you can own anything for the right price. From what I hear, owning parts of outer space are a booming industry. One day it may be useful, who knows.
posted by Michael Jansen at 2:50 PM on December 10, 2015


> I'm told that the new Vogon hyperspatial express route will take care of all the transportation issues. Has anyone seen the plans for it yet?

Pfft, they'll never bother building it, now that the Infinite Improbability Drive is going into production. Hyperspace bypasses are obsolete!
posted by Sunburnt at 2:57 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Imagine much it would suck to be the last planet demolished for a hyperspace bypass before they became obsolete...
posted by The Tensor at 3:53 PM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm not what I would describe as enthused with the idea of private industry taking up the slack in our species' efforts to get offplanet, but on the other hand, I think the profit motive -- as Devonian and others have suggested -- is going to be the driver, as it so often has been in our history. People like Elon Musk and his assertion that his basic underlying driver is a clear-eyed analysis of how to increase the chances of humanity's long-term survival aside, I think it has become abundantly clear that expecting our governments to push the frontier or expecting that valuing pure science will push us forward isn't going to bring results. It's been a half a century since we got to the moon, for goodness sakes.

It's not going to be pretty, but framing it as a potential bonanza for the daring and slightly mad and stupidly rich, in the (yes, horrifying imperialist exploitative) model of European world 'exploration' of a half-millennium ago, or a new gold rush, or even a new internet-boom (creating untold wealth, bringing technologies that have utterly transformed life for the wealthiest societies, at least, for better and for worse), well: that seems like the way to make it happen. Ugly and capitalist and kinda dystopian, but.

I'm just hoping, as always, that biotech (like CRISPR and all the rest, and a vast array of things we haven't figured out yet) gives us some usable, affordable life-extension therapies in the next couple of decades, because even though I'm not entirely optimistic, I really want to see what happens, and the clock is ticking for this old fart.

I'll probably all go to shit as climate change kicks in, and if we make it through as a civilization, it might be by focusing on fixing the problems we've created right here at home, rather than looking outwards, as many have argued in space-exploration-related threads here. I reckon we need to do that, but I also think pursuing the expansion of the species into space -- even if, Mars included, there aren't any even marginally hospitable planetary bodies around -- can and should be a part of it, even if it's pursued as a purely commercial endeavor.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:55 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Whoops, missed the edit window: It'll probably all go to shit...
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:11 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, if it is, you will too. If you're still here. (and I hope you are)
posted by yesster at 8:14 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


I should be excited by this. I really should. But actually I feel a sense of dread as the new robber barons gear up to carve out territories in the resources out there.

I'm sure the profits will fall trickle down to the benefit of all.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 1:56 AM on December 11, 2015


Naberius..is it a big asteroid? "It's yuge!"
posted by judson at 8:40 AM on December 11, 2015


It's been a half a century since we got to the moon, for goodness sakes.

I basically agree with what you're saying, but to be fair to the human race, we were stuck on the earth's surface for millions of years (or at least tens of thousands depending on what you want to call "human") until about 1903 when the Wright Brothers took their flight. The fact that it only took another sixty or so years to get from the air to space and the moon skews the average a bit. I'm going to cut us a bit of slack if it takes longer than 60 years to get from the moon to mars (or whatever the next big milestone ends up being).
posted by VTX at 9:14 AM on December 11, 2015




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