Legal and political aspects of space mining
Legal and political aspects of space mining

Summary/Abstract: In recent years, there has been a great interest of states and international corporations in the problem of obtaining raw materials from celestial bodies. Space mining is a future branch of industry that does not exist yet, related to the extraction of natural resources from celestial bodies. Although we currently bring from space at most samples of material for research, serious companies have been established that deal with the development of technologies related to the extraction of raw materials. Today, space mining is treated as an inevitable and important element of the future world economy. Moreover, it is already a source of conflicts. Space mining is of interest mainly to those countries which have not been endowed by nature with deposits of rare raw materials sufficient to meet the needs and ambitions, and private entities encouraged by the scale of potential profits. The flagship example of the first type is the United States, for which the ultimate goal of the space programme is the expansion of humanity throughout the solar system; it also counts on quick and big profits. For years, the Americans have been concerned about maintaining freedom of action, e.g. by remaining outside the regime of the Moon Treaty; they even introduced in their domestic legislation preliminary regulations regarding extraterrestrial extraction and ownership of raw materials.

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