The national space programs have an historic opportunity to help solve the global-scale economic and environmental problems of Earth while becoming more effective at science through the use of space ...resources. Space programs will be more cost-effective when they work to establish a supply chain in space, mining and manufacturing then replicating the assets of the supply chain so it grows to larger capacity. This has become achievable because of advances in robotics and artificial intelligence. It is roughly estimated that developing a lunar outpost that relies upon and also develops the supply chain will cost about 1/3 or less of the existing annual budgets of the national space programs. It will require a sustained commitment of several decades to complete, during which time science and exploration become increasingly effective. At the end, this space industry will capable of addressing global-scale challenges including limited resources, clean energy, economic development, and preservation of the environment. Other potential solutions, including nuclear fusion and terrestrial renewable energy sources, do not address the root problem of our limited globe and there are real questions whether they will be inadequate or too late. While industry in space likewise cannot provide perfect assurance, it is uniquely able to solve the root problem, and it gives us an important chance that we should grasp. What makes this such an historic opportunity is that the space-based solution is obtainable as a side-benefit of doing space science and exploration within their existing budgets. Thinking pragmatically, it may take some time for policymakers to agree that setting up a complete supply chain is an achievable goal, so this paper describes a strategy of incremental progress. The most crucial part of this strategy is establishing a water economy by mining on the Moon and asteroids to manufacture rocket propellant. Technologies that support a water economy will play an important role leading toward space development.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The space mining industry is undergoing a wave of commercialisation which entails a tremendous amount of unpredictable risk. Whilst the legal framework governing the use of outer space lays down the ...main principles for space activities, it does not address whether or how the investments of private actors in space ventures are protected. Despite the growing attention and investment that has been afforded to space mining ventures due to the economic and social benefits of such ventures as discussed below, there has been little attention paid to the protections that might be afforded to private investors in such activities. The unique nature of space mining poses a variety of unique challenges in applying international investment law ('IIL') principles originally designed for terrestrial activities to operations that use resources in areas that under international space law are not subject to national appropriation or sovereignty. This article therefore endeavours to examine whether the scope of a typical international investment agreement ('IIA') is applicable to protect foreign investments in commercial mining activities in outer space. This is done by first providing an overview of the relevance of investment law to space mining, then examining the inadequacy of the law on the use of outer space and celestial bodies, including an overview of the general international law framework relevant for space mining activities. Thirdly, the article examines the general applicability of investment law primarily comprised from a large body of IIAs. Finally, the article briefly examines the application of some of the main IIL protections available when States do not honour their obligations. This article demonstrates that investment law can and should be applied to space activities and thus that investors may be able to avail themselves of the favourable protection standards in IIAs.
A growing majority of artificial intelligence (AI) scientists and engineers believe human-level intelligence will be attained before the dawn of the 22nd century, while a large number believe this ...will happen much sooner. At this point, the elevation to "superintelligence," or systems that have superhuman levels of general intelligence, would likely proceed very rapidly. With this in mind, this commentary has three goals: (1) to provide an overview of how a leading scholar, Nick Bostrom, conceives of superintelligence, with its potential and risks, (2) to bring attention to a burgeoning form of common pool resource extraction, space mining, that may benefit from superintelligence management, and (3) to suggest that environmental social scientists should play a key role in programming seed AI, infusing it not only with our existing collective knowledge, but also with just values.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
The purpose of this book is to propose a legal regime to govern the exploitation of natural resources of the moon and other celestial bodies. Considering, on the one side, the interest shown by ...states and private operators to extract and use extraterrestrial natural resources and, on the other, the absence of specific rules dealing with such an option, the establishment of a legal framework to regulate the exploitation of natural resources of the moon and other celestial bodies is needed so as to ensure its peaceful, safe and orderly development.
In November 2015, the Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act of 2015 ("SREU Act") became law. Private space companies hoping to mine asteroids for commercial gain rejoiced. For years, such ...private companies had struggled to obtain adequate funding and support for their revolutionary space missions due to a lack of legal certainty regarding property rights in space under the vague legal framework of the Outer Space Treaty ("OST"). The SREU Act purportedly eliminated this uncertainty by explicitly granting U.S. citizens property rights in any asteroid or space resource recovered for commercial purposes from space. Nevertheless, much tension remains between this unilateral grant of property rights and the international obligations of the United States under the OST. This Note concludes that the SREU Act abrogates the United States' international obligations and that the United States should have initiated discussions at the international level first to champion a more effective and long-lasting multilateral solution. Finally, this Note finds this abrogation to be all for naught, as the law itself fails to achieve its goal of providing the private space industry with the legal certainty it so desires and requires.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, CEKLJ, NMLJ, NUK, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
On June 6, 2017, a draft bill entitled the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act was introduced to the US House of Representatives. Even though the bill has not been enacted into law yet, its ...relevance should not be underestimated. Indeed, it not only represents the latest step in regulating the nascent space mining industry but also contains several provisions that, to a large extent, challenges the traditional understanding of basic international space law rules. For example, the draft bill refers to the right of the US entities to engage in space undertaking without conditions or limitations, argues that not all the obligations of the Outer Space Treaty are imputable to those entities, and claims that outer space is not a global commons. In the light of the above, the purpose of the present viewpoint was to review the most innovative, yet controversial, elements of the draft bill and to assess their possible impact on future space resources utilization activities as well as on the overall stability of the space law regime.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
The extraction of natural resources from outer space sources - once the stuff of science fiction - is closer than ever to becoming a reality, as several entities pursue the best way to unlock our ...solar system's most valuable resources. Space mining raises several intriguing legal questions to which there is currently no clear answer, as the scarce body of international law applicable to outer space activities lags behind the rapid advances in technology fuelling the advancement of this burgeoning industry. This paper provides an introduction to the outer space mining industry and the legal challenges it faces, including an overview of proposed space mining operations, the industry's first movers and the current state of the governing law (both domestic and international). It also analyses the potential for application of existing principles of both international law, including the law of the sea and terrestrial mining projects, to the not-so-distant future of space mining.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, PRFLJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The exploitation of terrestrial mineral resources has been a source of economic benefits, environmental damage and human costs. New technologies, however, have been promoting space mining with the ...potential of synchronizing the benefits of this economic activity and reducing social and environmental damages. In this perspective, the present study examines two legal implications of this technological innovation: the legal nature and the ownership of natural space resources. With the objective of recognizing the most plausible legal subject, according to legal, logical and ethical criteria, in order to obtain title to the right of ownership of space ores and to propose the most appropriate treatment for their profits, the approach adopted aims to link land and space mining based on the perspective of renewed continuity. In order to reach this theoretical proposition, were previously analyzed the human and environmental impacts of terrestrial mining; the feasibility of using and exploiting space ores, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of space mining; and both the political and normative positions —international and local— and the academic-doctrinal positions —negationists, expansionists and analogists—about this property right. It is concluded that space ores are best classified as res nullius, appropriable by any persons, physical or legal, public or private, as long as they commit to certain requirements as to their profits, which culminates in a reasonable proposal of regulation for mining, which is both feasible and beneficial to mankind and the environment.
La exploración de los recursos minerales terrestres ha sido fuente de beneficios económicos, perjuicios ambientales y costos humanos. Nuevas tecnologías, sin embargo, están promoviendo la minería espacial con el potencial de, simultáneamente, maximizar los beneficios de esa actividad económica y reducir los daños socio-ambientales. Con esta perspectiva, el presente estudio examina dos implicaciones, en el ámbito jurídico, de esa innovación tecnológica: la naturaleza jurídica y la titularidad de los recursos naturales espaciales. Con los objetivos de reconocer al sujeto de derecho más plausible —según criterios jurídicos, lógicos y éticos— para obtener la titularidad del derecho de propiedad sobre minerales espaciales y de proponer el tratamiento más adecuado en relación a sus lucros, el abordaje adoptado pretende concatenar las explotaciones mineras terrestre y espacial sobre la base de la perspectiva de continuidad renovada. Para alcanzar esa proposición teórica, fueron analizados, previamente, los impactos humanos y ambientales de la minería terrestre; las viabilidades de utilización y de exploración de los minerales espaciales, así como las ventajas y desventajas de la minería espacial. Asimismo, se estudiaron los posicionamientos político-normativos —internacionales y locales—, así como los posicionamientos académicodoctrinarios — egacionistas, expansionistas y analogistas— acerca de ese derecho de propiedad. Se concluye que los minerales espaciales son mejor clasificados como res nullius, apropiables por cualquier persona, física o jurídica, pública o privada, siempre que se comprometan con determinados requisitos en cuanto a sus lucros, lo que culmina en una razonable propuesta de regulación para la minería espacial que es, simultáneamente, ejecutable y beneficiosa para la humanidad y el medio ambiente.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Mining off-Earth minerals: a long-term play? Craig, G A; Saydam, S; Dempster, A G
Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy,
12/2014, Volume:
114, Issue:
12
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The Moon, asteroids, and planets of the solar system represent the most distant caches of wealth that humanity has ever considered recovering. Yet, in addition to the potentially recoverable values ...represented there, harvesting off-Earth resources has a second, almost incalculable sustainable benefit in that they can be retrieved with absolutely no damage to Earth. Previous research mostly assessed the potential of asteroids and the Moon for mining purposes from a theoretical and scientific point of view. These studies investigated drawbacks that could be experienced in this type of operation, but no detailed economic evaluation that is meaningful for mining project management has been conducted and the parameters that are most likely to make an operation feasible are unknown. This paper provides a preliminary economic and sensitivity analysis of a possible off-Earth mining business extracting minerals from an existing asteroid.
In recent years a range of corporate and governmental entities have made increasingly strident moves toward the establishment of an off-Earth mining industry, often touting an imminent "gold rush in ...space." For many proponents these proposals are thoroughly entangled with an even more ambitious set of possibilities for a new age of human history in space that will include the exploration and eventual colonization of extraterrestrial environments. This article takes off-Earth mining as an entry point into this complex terrain, exploring the way in which problematically homogenous notions of humanity and an open and available space are being deployed to do a kind of regulatory ethical work that simultaneously imposes and overcomes any limits to off-Earth expansion. In contrast to such an approach, this article aims to develop an ethics of interstellar flourishing grounded in an attentiveness to the consequential processes of worlding that are already linking up and remaking possibilities for everyone, both on and off-world.
PDF
