US Congress pushes for space mining

A bill that could allow mining on asteroids has been passed to the US Oval Office for President Obama to sign into law, according to a report on Popular Science.

The bill, called the “US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act,” aims to, “To facilitate a pro-growth environment for the developing commercial space industry by encouraging private sector investment and creating more stable and predictable regulatory conditions, and for other purposes.”

There is no provision stating that an entity can own an asteroid or other body in space, but under Title IV, it states that, “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.”

But as Popular Science pointed out, there’s still the question of whether the US can actually give out property rights to celestial bodies since they don’t own these properties.

“Academia is pretty much split right down the middle on this,” lawyer Michael Listner told Popular Science. Listner is the founder of the firm Space Law and Policy Solutions. “When you have that much dissent, you have to talk about it.” — Bea Montenegro/TJD, GMA News