New Law Gives Asteroid Mining Companies the Right to Keep Space Gold

Artist rendition of a mining operation in space.

And companies are exploiting this fact, now looking to develop technologies that will allow them to extract gold, platinum and other metals from orbiting asteroids.

The law has been praised space mining companies, a burgeoning industry that have made significant headway in just the past few years, and is expected to make mining missions to asteroids in the coming decades.

Private companies in the United States can now legally extract materials from the moon, asteroids and other celestial bodies after a commercial space act was approved by Congress. This law recognizes the right of USA citizens to own asteroid resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids.

The new Space Act of 2015 requires approval from the House of Representatives before moving on to President Obama.

“There are many investors who had questions about this issue”, Chris Lewicki, president and chief engineer of Planetary Resources, told Space.com. Eric Anderson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc. said in a statement that this is so far the greatest recognition of property rights ever made in the history. Much of the ownership of space is regulated by the “Outer Space Treaty”, a document that was signed by the USA and Russian Federation among other countries in the 1960s.

Among them, the Department of Defense Appropriations bill, and a law that updates the way the U.S. government thinks about the commercial space industry.

Ram Jakhu from McGill University’s institute of air and space law said natural resources found in space should not be the property of anyone. Though, it is meant to help young firms, Blue Origin and SpaceX, get private space flights going as quickly as possible, it also raises the possibility that safety and other important considerations will take a back seat.

The new law, however, does include a very important clause, as it clarifies that it does not grant “sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any celestial body”.