Glancing over headlines there’s clearly a lot we’ve
got to sort out on Earth. But with Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin announcing promising advancements towards
privatized space travel, can you blame anyone for looking to the stars?
Like Luxembourg, whose government announced on
Wednesday that they would be investing in space mining companies and
establishing a legal framework to entice people to engage with the activity. A
new frontier, to be sure. So how exactly does the law stand around it now?
Space mining is not a new concept. As technological
ability to reach space grew, coupled with greater understanding of
environmental science on the planet, space bodies began to look pretty
enticing. Asteroids vary in composition, but many can be rich in water or
metals and minerals hard to find on earth—some estimates have the value of
minerals mined from just a cubic meter in an asteroid at 1,000 billion USD.
Add in the fact that there’s about 1700 near-Earth
asteroids that are easier to get to than the moon, and it’s no surprise there’s already two U.S. companies vying to be the leader of a burgeoning industry.
Luxembourg is ready to get in on that action. In a
statement yesterday Étienne Schneider, the country’s deputy prime
minister, announced the company would be providing support for research and
development (R&D) technologies to make space mining possible, as well as
investing in companies directly.
“Our aim is to open access to a wealth of previously
unexplored mineral resources, on lifeless rocks hurtling through space, without
damaging natural habitats,” said Schneider. “We will support the long-term economic development
of new, innovative activities in the space and satellite industries as a key
high-tech sector for Luxembourg. At first, our aim is to carry out research in
this area, which at a later stage can lead to more concrete activities in
space.”
For now that means not “tax haven-type” advantages.
Instead, Schneider says Luxembourg aims to give the infrastructure and R&D
support companies need, even providing the opportunity to reimburse 45 percent of the company’s R&D
investment. In his mind, companies have
no more excuses to go to California.
Although there is one (at least for now): Last
November, the President Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act
(CSLCA), which allows U.S. citizens
to own whatever they mine from an asteroid and bring back to the U.S. It seemed
to fly in the face of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which would prevent mining for profit, only for the
benefit of mankind. But as Space News reports, so far the U.S. legislation has been
received positively:
The U.S. bill appeared headed for international legal
protest because it endorses commercial extraction by U.S. citizens of resources
from asteroids, the moon or other celestial bodies. But the International
Institute of Space Law has issued a mainly favorable assessment of the legal
validity of the Space Act, and senior European Union officials have as well.
Schneider likened the Space Act to fishing rights in
international waters – the fisherman can harvest the resources without laying
claim to ownership of the oceans.
He stressed that it is more than just legality.
Luxembourg, he said, has a non-threatening, neutral-party reputation that might
serve to blunt legal protests against space mining and elicit more
international participation in a collective effort.
No doubt Luxembourg will soon have its own version of
the CSLCA, in an effort to further entice extraterrestrial mining companies to
their country. Schneider and his staff have encouraged European entrepreneurs to followin the footsteps of their American counterparts. No
doubt a legal framework like the one Luxembourg is angling to create will spark
opportunity for more to join the market.
But some hope that before that happens we can better
sort out what those laws should look like. Tim Worstall, a contributor to Forbes, for instance, thinks there’s room for growth in the
current space law:
That’s something which, if you look at the UN law, is
impossible: Other people should have, under that law, access
to such discovered resources. That’s just not going to work in an economic
sense. The U.S. law is better, in that it clarifies ownership of extracted
minerals, but it still doesn’t address this issue. Why would I go explore and
prove a resource if the moment I have done it, anyone can mine it? What we need
therefore is a system of ownership not just of minerals extracted, but of
minerals not extracted.
Effectively, what we mean is that there has to be some
way to stake a claim, and that claim has to be exclusive for some period of
time. And it must cover some area (or with asteroids, perhaps a volume). For
example, say someone found that Asteroid 123x had platinum in it that could be
extracted.
There must be some method of their being able to claim all of
Asteroird 123x as being theirs, perhaps for some reasonable period of time to
allow for organizing extraction or for the claim to fail if they don’t organize
extraction. Asteroid mining law essentially has to mirror Earth-based mining
law because we’re facing exactly the same problems. The prospecting and proving
of a resource is akin to a public good. Once the knowledge is there, then just
as with other innovations, anyone can copy it/turn up and mine it. So, as we do
with inventions (patents, copyrights) we’ve got to protect that prospecting
expense with an excludable claim.
This is what space law simply doesn’t include at
present, and it’s the bit that absolutely has to be done before it can possibly
be economic. Or, again, we must have the correct legal structure to protect
property rights.
Whether Luxembourg will take a new approach remains to
be seen. The country itself, though small (total population is over half a
million), already boasts a pretty strong record in the space industry, home to several satellite operators including SES, so it’s not as if they’re new kids on the block. No
matter what, this could be one giant leap for space law.
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