Well it's good that aliens can now legally mine asteroids around our solar system. It was always a grey area although not policed much !!!
Luxembourg passes first EU space mining law. One can possess the Spice
Luxembourg's parliament has passed a law that makes it the first European Union country to offer legal certainty that asteroid mining companies get to keep what they find in space. Take Article 1: "Space resources are capable of being appropriated". "It's a great law," Amara Graps, a planetary scientist, asteroid mining …
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Friday 14th July 2017 16:21 GMT macjules
Well it's good that aliens can now legally mine asteroids around our solar system. It was always a grey area although not policed much !!!
Bloody Luxembourgians, as usual they're only after the EU deep space mining subsidies! I already approached Brussels regarding asteroid belt agronomy subsidies, but was told that there are no plans to subsidise space cabbage growers.
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Friday 14th July 2017 15:36 GMT pug0772
Re: Dodgy Picture
Spice comes from worm activity and is a by product of their natural processes. The water of life comes from drowning a juvenile worm. I had the same thought that the picture was wrong - sandworms die when exposed to water. But in a later book Waff genetically altered the sandworms to become seaworms to live in water on Buzzell - maybe that is the picture? /Geek
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Friday 14th July 2017 15:37 GMT Destroy All Monsters
This assumption is correct.
The problem is that there is correctly zero tech to do any sort of space mining whatsoever, and you will have to touchdown in China or the US or the Africa-reformatted-by-China, and thus pay "landing taxes"...
It also doesn't agree with Luxembourg's anti-nuclear stance. Chemical rocket space mining? I laugh. Now, if the next law allows plutonium reprocessing to begin in the industrial wastelands of its southern part, I will change my current sarcastic stance.
Interestingly, Peter Marquez served as director of space policy under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama
Looks pretty junior. I don't know what he got paid for his efforts, pretty sure it must be a 7-number figure. It sounds like he has one of those close-to-State revolving door jobs that are amply rewarded for emitting Word documents.
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Friday 14th July 2017 15:36 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: Existing Sentient claims
You better hire the United States Space Corps to protect your claims.
Looking forward to seeing actual Space Marines in action.
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Wednesday 19th July 2017 09:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Existing Sentient claims
@allthecoolshortnamesweretaken - Yep, for at least a decade previously Mr Heinlein in his historical document "Starship Troopers" released in 1959 was writing about space marines.. I still have a NEL edition showing lots of white space-suited figures with red weapons 'on the bounce' during combat on the cover. Still one of my favourite books, and far, far better than the dreadful film of the same name.
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Friday 14th July 2017 19:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
> "Who will testing the materials mined for odd chemicals or pathogens that might be coming back to Earth?"
Somebody has been watching old movies.
"Odd chemicals"? Can't compare to the ones we create right here on Earth. I mean, the idea of Rampaging Minerals from Space is sooo 50's (pretty good movie tho).
About the pathogens. No fear; any poor, radiation-raddled microbe that somehow manages to arrive intact will find itself at the mercy of an existing (and highly advanced) biosphere, that will of course show no mercy. At best it will somehow survive and become a distinct part of the biosphere, like Archaea but more foreign.
It's really our implacable microbes that might threaten other potential biomes (Mars, Europa).
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Monday 17th July 2017 17:34 GMT IT Poser
It's really our implacable microbes that might threaten other potential biomes (Mars, Europa).
Are you sure about that?
Earth microbes have evolved to compete on Earth. I find it highly doubtful that Earth life will be able to out-compete Martian(or any other location) life in its native habitat.
That said, we want to identify and understand alien life before we start mixing. We wouldn't want the microbe that produces the cure for cancer to die before we find it.
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Friday 14th July 2017 19:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Depends. How many asteroids are bigger than Luxembourg? Might want to pick a smaller unit, like say, the 'guam,' or maybe even the 'liechtenstein.'
About that iceberg, Delaware seems to be a natural unit, altho "Two Rhode Islands" might be more apropos. Wales is not useful because it's bigger than any known iceberg.
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Friday 14th July 2017 16:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
They need more than just this
There would need to be some form of laws which apply in space, otherwise what stops me from letting you do all the hard work of mining an asteroid, then coming along and simply taking what you mined? Are the laws of Luxembourg going to help you now? Thought not.
I find it hard to believe anyone is going to invest billions in this until there is some assurance they won't have their hard earned gains simply stolen from them.
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Friday 14th July 2017 17:24 GMT horriblicious
Re: They need more than just this
It would be very expensive to build and operate the hardware required for mining in space. Where do you think funds are coming from for hardware for pirates? I can see it now: "Here's $5BN to build ships and armaments. Try to break even in the first year." All sarcasm aside, I look forward to the day when space travel is so common and inexpensive that piracy is a problem. I think the concern is a bit premature though.
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Saturday 15th July 2017 20:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
How to pirate
You wait for one of the miners to go bankrupt before they ever make it to the mining stage, and buy their ships for pennies on the dollar.
Though really, if there are no laws against piracy in space, it wouldn't be illegal, so nothing would stop someone from forming a company called "Space Pirates, Inc." that specifically says it will launch ships to go steal someone else's loot when they try and bring it back from the asteroid belt!
The large majority of the expense of space mining would be in either developing robots that can do the mining unassisted (they can't be remote controlled from Earth due to being dozens of light minutes from Earth) or in sending men out there to do it. Compared to those costs, the cost of simply launching a ship out of Earth's gravity well is a pittance. You don't need to go to the belt to pirate, just hang out at L2 and wait for someone to send their stuff back. Your ship "grabs" theirs and redirects it from its original destination to wherever you want. You can afford to have a larger ship and a lot more fuel since you are close to Earth, and the return mission ship probably taking the 'long slow journey' to save cost, so you can always overpower the rockets on it.
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Saturday 15th July 2017 11:21 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: wtf ??
It's a law about companies on Earth dealing with mining in space, in particular property and taxation aspects.
This is just standard.
Unfortunately we are very far away from having viable space mining tech.
The way things are going, maybe infinitely away. Well, I have confidence the Chinese can pull something off eventually.
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Monday 17th July 2017 10:59 GMT Cuddles
Seems to be missing some definitions
"Space resources are capable of being appropriated."
There does not appear to be any mention of what is meant by either "space" or "resources". As it stands, this law allows people to appropriate* things such as communications satellites or the Hubble space telescope.
* Definition - "take (something) for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission".
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Monday 17th July 2017 14:05 GMT Rol
Yee haw!!
How does one go about staking a claim?
That is the most important aspect of all this space mining talk.
Can I send a fleet of shoe box sized drones out with hundreds of rol flags to plant on everything they touch, and hence own the entire Sol system's resources?
or more importantly can Precious Metals Inc, effectively go on an asteroid banking mission to ensure its more Earth bound resources remain highly scarce and therefore highly profitable.
We've seen how land banking works to the detriment of communities, so surely we need to take that experience and legislate against that happening out in space.
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Monday 17th July 2017 14:44 GMT Rol
Re: Yee haw!!
Perhaps one solution could be that all the asteroids you own get taxed at the rate they would be if in production.
So to bank an asteroid, as in own it and not allow it to be worked, costs the same in tax as if it was in full production.
There's no point trying for something like that with our current land banking blight, as the ones benefiting from it are the ones we would have to ask to legislate against it.
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Monday 17th July 2017 16:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Yee haw!!
If it's anything like patents, there'll be no need to actually plant flags. It will be enough to vaguely describe the object being "claimed". The system will be introduced in the US first, and then the US claims will be extended to other jurisdictions through inter-governmental "free trade" "agreements" that bypass national legislatures.
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Monday 17th July 2017 17:05 GMT Nocroman
Once again the EU prove it's lack of intelligence and greed.
1.) The EU does not own the asteroids, nor does it own any of the other planets
2.) The United States of America was the first to step on the moon, but did not claim it for ourselves but instead making it a giant step for all of MANKIND.
3.) The EU members are insane And their idiotic way will carry war from this planet into space on to other planets. Is this really what the people of earth want ourselves to be known for If we do make contact with any other lifeform out there? Not me says I.
To the EU I say. Stand up. Sitting on your brain not only squishes it, but also deprives your brain of the oxygen it needs to think in a logical manor.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
