AUGH

[james_davis_nicoll]

Timon Singh
Could mining helium-3 from the Moon solve Earth's energy problems?

Comments

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

Over at Centauri Dreams the replies to one of their recent posts, advocating manned space exploration, include one arguing that He3 is a good reason for building a moonbase. Other responses included the always popular "We have to go into space to ensure mankind survives!" and someone claiming letting free enterprise loose in space will help foster manned space exploration. As to the latter I'm not sure what is stopping some big company with lots of money sending people into space now, other than the very obvious question of what would allow them to make a profit.

[anzhalyumitethe.livejournal.com]

There are nontrivial legal questions, actually. Can you even MAKE a profit in space legally? Or anything you take from space be held or sold legally? or...?

Space law is the wild, wild west right now. it needs either legislation or test cases. or both.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Well, Elon Musk thinks he can. In fact, he may actually be doing so.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Comsat companies seem to have no trouble making a profit in space.

[graydon saunders (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah, but that's not really in space. That's just expensive terrestrial communications infrastructure. All the resources and transactions are terrestrial.

Somebody sending a bunch of self-reproducing robots off to mine asteroids and drop thousand tonne ingots of heat-shielded platinum group metals into San Francisco Bay raises just bunches of novel legal questions.

As I recall, one of the NASA Venus probes created tax law precedent; the ~5 carat diamond imported from the Netherlands for a sensor window was claimed as re-exported by NASA (which affected the import duty owing) because they'd put it in the lander and stuck that on a rocket and sent it to another planet. NASA wound up in court over whether or not sending something to another planet counts as export when there's not trade involved.

I can see that sort of question getting really awkward in the context of semi-autonomous robots. ("We're not accounting the activity of the robots, just our terrestrial end point sales, so no taxes on the economic activity in space, right?")

[rpresser.livejournal.com]

You only have to pay on the mining operations for retrieving the ingots from the bay. "I don't know how it got there, but it's mine now."

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Bay's not zoned for mining. CA will seize them as sunken treasure and charge the extractors with archaeological plundering.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Time to buy mining rights to a worthless piece of desert, and then deorbit ingots into it. They'll have to dig them out of the impact craters - does that count as mining?

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

If the desert's in Texas, you might get it classified as mine tailing cleanup and get a tax abatement for it.

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

In that case, royalties will be owed to the government.

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

United Launch Alliance makes a profit in space, as its co-venturers Boeing and Lockheed-Martin (and their predecessors) did for decades before.

I'm all for clarification in space law, but its uncertainties are a minor barrier compared to those of engineering and economics.

[montedavis.livejournal.com]

As to the latter I'm not sure what is stopping some big company with lots of money sending people into space now, other than the very obvious question of

DINGDINGDING Danger, Will Robinson! Do not ask that question, or you will get many answers about Lack of Vision, Meddling Bureaucrats, Hysterically Anti-Technology Public Opinion, and so on.

What you will not get is a business case that comes within an AU of closing.