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Obama signs revolutionary Asteroid exploration Bill into US law

26th November 2015

By: Natalie Greve

Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

  

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – US President Barack Obama has signed into law a pioneering new Act that recognises the right of US citizens to own asteroid resources they obtain and that encourages the commercial exploration and use of resources from asteroids, providing a legislative blueprint that will guide asteroid exploration by six-year-old asteroid mining company Planetary Resources.

Welcoming the move, the fledgling company described the US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act as the single greatest recognition of property rights in history.

“This legislation establishes the same supportive framework that created the great economies of history and will encourage the sustained development of space,” Planetary Resources cofounder and co-chairperson Eric Anderson said in a statement this week.

Planetary Resources, which was founded in 2009, sought to establish a new paradigm for resource utilisation that would integrate the Solar System within humanity’s economic sphere of influence.

The company planned to conduct “low-cost” robotic space exploration, beginning with the Arkyd series of space missions, which would identify the most commercially viable near-earth asteroids.

These initial missions would assist the company in enabling the retrieval of raw materials from select asteroids, including water and precious metals.

Planetary Resources, which was financed by Google CEO Larry Page, Google chairperson Eric Schmidt and Hillwood and Perot Group chairperson Ross Perot, maintained that its pathway in identifying the most commercially viable near-earth asteroids had led to the development of transformative technologies that are applicable to several global markets.

“A hundred years from now, humanity will look at this period in time as the point in which we were able to establish a permanent foothold in space. In history, there has never been a more rapid rate of progress than right now,” Planetary Resources co-founder and co-chairperson Peter Diamandis said of the new Act.

Among the members of the US Congress to lobby for the introduction of the revolutionary law, Florida senator Marco Rubio believed the reforms included in the Act made it easier for innovators to “return” the US to suborbital space and further develop the domestic space industry.

“Throughout our entire economy, we need to eliminate unnecessary regulations that cost too much and make it harder for American innovators to create jobs. This Bill is an important win for Florida’s space coast and the entire space exploration community,” he commented.

Fellow Congress lobbyist and Florida senator Bill Posey described the bipartisan, bicameral legislation as a landmark for US leadership in space exploration.

“Recognising basic legal protections in space will help pave the way for exciting future commercial space endeavours. Asteroids and other objects in space are excellent potential sources of rare minerals and other resources that can be used to manufacture a range of products on earth and support future space exploration missions.

“US companies willing to invest in space mining operations need legal certainty that they can keep the fruits of their labour and this Bill provides that certainty,” he maintained.

Planetary Resources was further supported by the Bechtel Corporation, film maker and explorer James Cameron, former US chief of staff General T Michael Moseley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Planetary Science and Physics Professor Sara Seager and University of Arizona Planetary Science Professor and National Aeronautics and Space Administration OSIRIS-REx mission principal investigator Dante Lauretta.

Members of the company’s technical staff had worked on every recent US Mars lander, including Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity.

Edited by Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online

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