No one owns the stars, the planets, the comets and asteroids. But who can mine them for resources?
To answer that question, the House this week passed the Space Act, a bill that among other things seeks to clarify the private property rights of extracting resources from asteroids.
Basically, if you (space corporation) dig it up, you get to keep it, is the general gist of the legislation, according to the Washington Post.
One company that may be paying attention is Planetary Resources, an asteroid-mining company backed by Eric Schmidt, Google s former chief executive, and Larry Page, Google s current head.
The company has a partnership with Bechtel, the giant construction and civil engineering company, as we wrote a couple years ago.
Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, said in a statement that the bill s passage is important but its scope is too limited.
Recognizing effective space property rights now is essential to driving investment in the technologies and businesses that will open the space frontier, he said in a statement.
But a better bill, said Szoka, would have protected property rights in all space resources, not only those extracted from asteroids, and that would have avoided any potential conflict with international law.
Above: The Capitol Building. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT)
