Headline October 28, 2018/ '' 'OUTER SPACE TREATY' '' : STUDENTS

'' 'OUTER SPACE TREATY' '' : STUDENTS

SMOOTHING A PATH TO SPACE ROCKS........and of course, whooping tons and tons and tons of profits.........

Planetary Resources is a small company but its very early investors included Larry Page, co-founder  of Google, and Charlies Simonyi, a former chief software architect at Microsoft...................

What are private companies allowed to do in space?

Can a company mine the Moon or an asteroid and then sell what it has pulled out? How are countries to regulate these businesses?

Internationally countries have been discussing how to answer these questions. In the United States, Congress has begun tackling regulatory issues.

But some warn that if the United States does not set up business-friendly policies and policies, then the start-ups could move elsewhere - including such seemingly unlikely places as Luxembourg.

A Quick Fix Before Launching - Then

The Outer Space Treaty - officially it is the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space - declares that:

That ''The Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all states parties to the treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes.''

The treaty also prohibited nations from making any claim of sovereignty over any part of the rest of the solar system.

Moon Express ran into a bureaucratic wall because the treaty declares that activities of  nongovernmental entities - a classification that includes commercial companies - ''requires authorization and continuing supervision'' of the government.

{The United States insisted on the clause, rejecting the Soviet view that space exploration should be limited to governments}.

''We had a mission planned, we had investors invested but didn't have a way forward at the end of  2015,'' Dr. Richards testified during a Senate committee hearing in May.

''There wasn't anybody that didn't want to say yes. There was just no mechanism to do so.''

The Federal Aviation Administration licenses rocket launchings and re-entry of commercial spacecraft from orbit to ensure the safety of people on the ground.

The Federal Communications Commission regulates communications satellites, and the Department of Commerce regulates commercial remote sensing satellites.

But the United States does not as yet have a process for authorizing or supervising novel endeavors like a private company's landing on the Moon.

Moon Express spent about a year working with the F.A.A., the State Department and other agencies to devise what Dr. Richards called a ''temporary patch,'' using the F.A.A's existing authority to review  rocket payloads to gain the approval Moon Express was seeking.

In announcing the decision, however, the F.A.A. said the approval applied only to this one Moon Express launching and that not even Moon Express could count on favorable outcome in the future.

Smoothing A Path To Space Rocks : another space upstart is Planetary Resources, a small company in an unremarkable office park outside Seattle. Its early investors included Larry Page, co-founder of  Google, and Charles Simonyi, a former chief software architect at Microsoft.

The company is also taking advantage of an investment from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

Planetary resources goal is to mine the solar system's asteroids. Luxembourg a tiny nation with a long history in mining has bet 200 million euros - more than $225 million - on this industry, which does not exist.

That includes $28 million invested in Planetary Resources .

In return, Luxembourg owns a 10 percent share of the company, said Etienne Schneider, the country's deputy prime minister.

In June, Mr. Schneider was host to a symposium with a roomful of bankers and venture capitalists, a virtual demonstration that private space investment has reached a tipping point of credibility.

A Goldman Sachs report about innovative space businesses that came out in the spring seemed to agree.''Space mining could be more realistic than perceived,'' the report said.

''While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower.''
   
The Honor and Serving of this latest Operational Research on Space, Mining and Treaties and Students, continues.

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