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Comment by kiiski | Hacker News Reader

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty mentioned in the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

That's amusing. A document proposing to regulate ownership and activities of the rest of the universe?! That'll be up to the folks who end up living out there. Busybodies back on earth can write all the fiction they like, but unless they're prepared to project their sovereignty then its all hot air.

I doubt that projection of sovereignty is going to be a problem anytime soon...

That's just a red herring.

Noone is claiming celestial bodies... it's just that if you mine something in space, and bring it to Earth, you can claim it (i.e. when it's already on Earth). The bits left unmined in the space are still unclaimed.

A fine piece of legal manoeuvring.

I think it's following the spirit of the treaty. The idea is, that celestial bodies are "to the benefit of all mankind". So whoever can go and mine it! Now, obviously, if you prevent the miners from keeping the profits by distributing them, then obviously noone will even try...

I'm not claiming your land, I'm just tearing up every square meter of its surface area to mine it. Whatever's left over is still yours.

Well, it's not my land...

Earth-based metaphors and forms of thinking break down here, because it's not Earth. There's no "tearing up every square meter" analogue here. To the extent that there is one, the entire universe is already "torn up". So far as we know, it's not "alive", there's no meaningful way in which it is "pristine", there's nothing there to "hurt".

On Earth, you can casually assume that effectively every cubic centimeter has some life in it. That assumption, and other similar ones, must be examined when discussing space.

I'm not trying to say anything about original owners or inhabitants. My only point is that its nonsensical to say that you can mine an asteroid and cast off the slag without saying you haven't laid claim to it. Having the right to control use of or destroy an object is as good a definition of ownership as any I know of, and that's precisely what you're claiming when you mine an asteroid. I guess I should have just said that, instead...

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