How space law could cause conflicts—or cooperation—on Earth
There’s gold in them thar skies, or at least some platinum and a substantial amount of water, according to hopeful space prospectors. Over the past several years, a few companies have announced plans to mine asteroids. If successful, they could reinvigorate earthbound industries with infusions of rare earth minerals.
They could also catalyze a new phase of space exploration by creating orbiting caches of material to build spacecraft as well as water, which could fuel them. Even if these efforts fail, they could lead to new technologies and lower the cost of a rocket ride to orbit.
Of course, there are technical challenges. A vast, radiation-filled vacuum separates the space entrepreneurs from the space rocks of their ambitions, and any actual mining is many years away and might fail. But the current crop of space entrepreneurs are far more credible than the cranks of yesteryear, people who might have sold plots of lunar real estate in the days before the Apollo missions.
There are tech giants with proven track records, such as X Prize Founder Peter Diamandis, whose Planetary Resources boasts James Cameron as well as Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt as investors. There is a real possibility that asteroid mining could become a reality within our lifetimes.
That possibility raises some very interesting questions. First and foremost, it’s not entirely clear whether mining and selling asteroid stuff is even legal, which could really hamper the whole enterprise. Space is really big, and doing stuff there is really expensive. Even billionaires need additional investors for that sort of thing, and if you’re investing in a platinum mine in the sky, you want to know the miners actually have the rights to that platinum.
The nascent asteroid mining industry is pushing the United States to pass legislation clarifying the matter since the United States has obligations to regulate its country’s private space activities under international law.
If these mining ventures are successful, the world could see billions of dollars flowing down from space to American companies. Is there a system for dealing with any conflicts that asteroid mining will likely arouse? The historical record certainly suggests the possibility of bitter, even violent disputes.
Just consider the Arctic. Impenetrable ice was once the foil for those who dreamed of a Northwest Passage, but global warming has made the oil- and natural-gas-rich Arctic seabed accessible for the first time, and there has been a rush to lay claims to territory. The United States and Canada have been making careful geological measurements in order to determine territorial boundaries.
Russia has pursued a different path: In 2007, the country used a submersible to plant its flag on the seabed at the North Pole. It’s an example of how contested things can get even when there is a system of rules in place, according to Joanne Gabrynowicz, a space lawyer and editor emeritus of the Journal of Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. There is a system of international governance in place for the Arctic, but she says it is being strained by the recent thaw because, “it’s so much easier to govern something when you can’t get to it.”
If emerging space technologies can be thought of as melting Arctic ice, it might be time to start discussing some basic rules before everything thaws.
This is what worries Gabrynowicz. Current efforts to clarify the legal status of asteroid-mined resources, if approached the wrong way, she says, could guarantee Arctic-like international disputes over future space activities. The reverse is also a concern: Disagreements over space could influence disputes on Earth. It might be fun to imagine Battlestar Galactica–type conflicts over resources in space, but why spend millions on space weapons when you can hurt your competitor at home and on the cheap?
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/10/asteroid_mining_and_space_law_who_gets_to_profit_from_outer_space_platinum.single.html