Senate Votes To Legalize Space Mining

[Disir]

After much delay, an important space bill has finally passed in the Senate.

The Space Act of 2015 would do a lot of things to encourage the private space industry--including extending the "learning period" wherein fledgling spaceflight companies can operate without too much government oversight. It would also give companies the rights to the resources they might one day extract from asteroids, such as platinum and water (which, believe it or not, is a valuable resource in space).

The bill has just passed in the Senate with unanimous approval and a few amendments. Now it will be sent back to the House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the changes, and then on to President Obama.

Although the bill hasn't officially been signed into law yet, Planetary Resources--one such company that hopes to extract resources from asteroids--issued an effusive letter thanking the Congressmen who supported the bill.

The bill would make those property rights official, at least under U.S. law. Although companies can't own the asteroids themselves, the current version reads:

“A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States."
Senate Votes To Legalize Space Mining

This is rather exciting actually.

 

[Mr. H.]

This will spawn the Space Environmentalism movement.

On a serious note- what if we were to accidently bring back a form of bacteria that would wipe out the earth's population?

 

[ScienceRocks]

Wahoooooo!!!!! This is awesome and great news!

The resources of space are vast and should be used for the betterment of this country.

 

[Mr. H.]

Wahoooooo!!!!! This is awesome and great news!

The resources of space are vast and should be used for the betterment of this country.

Are you fucking kidding me? We are shutting down valuable resource production and usage in this country, denying resource exports, and resource infrastructure.

You blithering idiot.

 

[Disir]

This will spawn the Space Environmentalism movement.

On a serious note- what if we were to accidently bring back a form of bacteria that would wipe out the earth's population?

Well, we do have over 500,000 pieces of trash out there.

It's ok. We just need to start with the supplemental to the Captain's log, stardate 1704.2. We can see that had Lieutenant Junior Grade Joe "Joey" Tormolen followed proper protocol and not removed his glove then the Naked Time episode would never have happened.

The Naked Time (episode)

 

[Delta4Embassy]

After much delay, an important space bill has finally passed in the Senate.

The Space Act of 2015 would do a lot of things to encourage the private space industry--including extending the "learning period" wherein fledgling spaceflight companies can operate without too much government oversight. It would also give companies the rights to the resources they might one day extract from asteroids, such as platinum and water (which, believe it or not, is a valuable resource in space).

The bill has just passed in the Senate with unanimous approval and a few amendments. Now it will be sent back to the House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the changes, and then on to President Obama.

Although the bill hasn't officially been signed into law yet, Planetary Resources--one such company that hopes to extract resources from asteroids--issued an effusive letter thanking the Congressmen who supported the bill.

The bill would make those property rights official, at least under U.S. law. Although companies can't own the asteroids themselves, the current version reads:

“A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States."
Senate Votes To Legalize Space Mining

This is rather exciting actually.

Have concerns about bringing things from space onto the planet. One microbe no one has a natural immunity for and we're done.

 

[anotherlife]

After much delay, an important space bill has finally passed in the Senate.

The Space Act of 2015 would do a lot of things to encourage the private space industry--including extending the "learning period" wherein fledgling spaceflight companies can operate without too much government oversight. It would also give companies the rights to the resources they might one day extract from asteroids, such as platinum and water (which, believe it or not, is a valuable resource in space).

The bill has just passed in the Senate with unanimous approval and a few amendments. Now it will be sent back to the House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the changes, and then on to President Obama.

Although the bill hasn't officially been signed into law yet, Planetary Resources--one such company that hopes to extract resources from asteroids--issued an effusive letter thanking the Congressmen who supported the bill.

The bill would make those property rights official, at least under U.S. law. Although companies can't own the asteroids themselves, the current version reads:

“A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States."
Senate Votes To Legalize Space Mining

This is rather exciting actually.

Have concerns about bringing things from space onto the planet. One microbe no one has a natural immunity for and we're done.

And is that a bad thing? We have punished this planet already bad enough, you bet Earth will be happy to put this chapter behind it. Besides, the very source of Earth life is cosmic, like all Earth rocks too, so there is little chance for such microbes.