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Senate Quietly Passes Bipartisan Bill To Allow Conquest Of Space
Submitted by Deirdre Fulton via TheAntiMedia.org,
In a bipartisan bid to encourage commercial exploitation of outer space, the U.S. Senate this week unanimously passed the Space Act of 2015, which grants U.S. citizens or corporations the right to legally claim non-living natural resources—including water and minerals—mined in the final frontier.
The legislation - described by IGN‘s Jenna Pitcher as “a celestial ‘Finders Keepers’ law” - could be a direct affront to an international treaty that bars nations from owning property in space. The bill will now be sent back to the House of Representatives, which is expected to approve the changes, and then on to President Barack Obama for his anticipated signature.
Pitcher continued:
The new Space Act allows ventures to keep and sell any natural resources mined on planets, asteroids and other celestial bodies. Commercial operations could reap trillions of dollars from mining precious metals like platinum, common metallic elements such as iron, and water, the “oil of space.”
The vote was celebrated by the Google-backed “asteroid mining company” Planetary Resources, which lobbied hard for the legislation and says “the market in space is ripe to bloom.”
Planetary Resources president and chief engineer Chris Lewicki added: “Throughout history, governments have spurred growth in new frontiers by instituting sensible legislation. Long ago, The Homestead Act of 1862 advocated for the search for gold and timber, and today, H.R. 2262 fuels a new economy that will open many avenues for the continual growth and prosperity of humanity.”
“This off-planet economy,” he said, “will forever change our lives for the better here on Earth.”
But there could be a snag. Along with Britain, France, and Russia, the U.S. is a signatory to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which reads in part: “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
As Wired noted on Thursday,
“[h]anding out the right to exploit chunks of space to your citizens sounds very much like a claim of sovereignty, despite the Space Act’s direct statement that ‘the United States does not thereby assert sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any celestial body’.”
“[O]n the one hand Congress is saying to these companies, ‘Go get these rights and we’ll defend you,’ and at the same time saying, ‘We’re making no sovereign claim of ownership’,” space lawyer Michael Listner told the Guardian.
“They’re trying to dance around the issue,” he said of U.S. lawmakers. “I tend to think it doesn’t create any rights because it conflicts with international law. The bottom line is before you can give somebody the right to harvest a resource you have to have ownership.”
* * *
How long before the US begins counting future net present vale of mined resources from Mars as current GDP? And will The ECB accept water-rights on Venus as collateral?
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Hubris. I guess they really do need some alien to bail out the financial mess we're in. (We'll sell you these rights to these asteroids, dear UFO, if you buy this securitized debt as well).
Next week we will get the Space Tax Act of 2015 followed by the emergence of off-planet tax havens...
Next century we will get the first Declaration of Independence from Earth in 2115, followed by a message stating, "Come and take it, you broke assholes."
This week we won the contract to mine satellites, work begins immediately.
Please tell me about those things called international treaties again, Daddy.
When Nasa-mae and Sputnik-mac start selling mortgages on the moon for less than prime, I'll buy. But not a minute before cuz I ain't no sucker!
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress!
Just for the record...
I was 2 years ahead of this.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-15/wednesday-humor-iran-has-incont...
My comment is just near the top...
Always cracks me up when I come across notions like "international law" in ZH posts.
I'm a pretty good engineer, and my educated guess is that the true energy costs to send anything into space (first derivative being rocket fuel, second derivative being all the energy costs of developing the unique technology and maintaining it for years, and thirdly the energy needed go find anything in space, mine it, and bring it back and then to slow down those mined products that will always try to fall from space at a minimum of 7 miles per second and burn up on re-entry) will prohibit the mining of anything and everything anywhere in space.
u just dump rocks into earths atmosphere, by the time it his dirt its already refined
BuddyEffed - Seriously...you should click the link just above to the article and scroll down to my comment.
Again...2 years ago. I'm a bit ahead of the curve on most things...
If you were a good engineer, you would know it was all fake.
Working out how to build the space elevator would alter the economics a lot.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
(It would be a bit of a military target though)
This is all BS hyping the darn fake Space Program that sucks trillion$ and delivers nothing - NADA or rathe NASA (Not a single Astro-Not)...The whole thing was a setup from the gitgo, everything you've been told about so-called SPACE, the Moon, Mars etc. is horse manure! Just saw the movie 'The Martian'....nothing more than an infomercial for NASA with lousy acting and even lousier story just like Gravity and Interstellar. All these movies, the fake ISS, the fake let's go to Mars programs are all PROGRAMS (as in PROGRAMMING, like MK Ultra with the whole world as test subjects). Ask yourself if they haven't been back to the Moon in 40+ years, we are to believe that will actually make it to Mars? Would it not have been logical to perfect Moon travel, Moon mining, Moon tourism etc. before heading to infinity and beyond! We see all these Mars and deep Space movies, have you ever seen a big budget Hollywood movie about Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong? They have conveniently removed the Moon from the picture (O the Moon! that's so 60's), we are setting our sights much higher! All Bullshit and all Crap, you've been had, there never was a Space Program except on your TV sets and movie screens - NASA is nothing more than a movie production company - and not a very good one at that. Their whole lie is based on the so-called 'Big Bang' which never happened and therefore all of modern Physics, like modern Economics is one giant mind f--k lie! Get over it, you ain't never travelling to the Moon let alone Mars. Everything you've been told about the Universe and even the Earth you live on is one big f---ing Manchurain candidate MK Ultra, Tavistock mind control lie, just like pretty much everything you believe to be the truth. Like BuddyEffed above notes, mining in outer space is a joke! The Chinese just found big gold reserves a mile and a quarter below the sea and they are talking about how difficult the logistics of such mining would be! And they are going to mine Mars??? Ha ha ha ha ha ha .....Do some darn research on the fakeries of NASA and throw out of your mind everything you've been taught about Space, the Solar System, Sun, Moon, Stars, the Earth, everything....it literally is feces they've shoved into your minds to forward their twisted, corrupt and Evil Masonic agenda....The conspiracy about the true nature of the Cosmos is the biggest conspiracy of all, the Fed, 9-11, JFK all pale in comparison!
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
another good heinlein novel...i'll have to dust that one off (25 years since i read it)
The earth is burning and these aholes making law over outer space? Oh wait a minute,maybe they are looking out over the headlights.
Space is to be administered by the Interplanetary Government which will oversee the Interplanetary Financial System and the Interplanetary Courts.
Each planet sends one appointed hereditary delegate for life and gets one vote.
Interplanetary Headquarters is currently located in Basel Switzerland.
Arthur C Clarke kinda wrote about this: The Hammer of God http://www.amazon.com/The-Hammer-God-Arthur-Clarke/dp/055356871X
"Arthur C Clarke kinda wrote about this: The Hammer of God"
Arthur C. Clarke was a pedocriminal.
That dirtbag's books are guaranteed brain rot.
"The Solar System Is Your Oyster, Dear Investor"
Manifest destiny, bitches!
US ignoring treaties in space, while condemning the chinks and their new islands. Nope. No hypocrisy there.
- they've been HIDING land from us - which is why no humans are allowed to explore where Admiral Byrd did in the 1930s to 1950s -
THE SECRET LAND - Operation High Jump - Antarctica Expedition 1947https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skjjfKwHFFs
p.s. - there is no real ISS (int'l space station)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e-RnKAN9qY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhzjx8TsuQk
then check out 1950's Operaton Fishbowl (high alt. nuke detonations)
1st good post in thread
Hasn't Halley's Comet has already been rolled into a synthetic CDO?
Now there's an asset with tail risk.
You want to encourage private industry to explore space? Just tell them that extraterrestrial aliens exist & will work for almost nothing. That's the ticket.
They will work for free only if you have a better and more lethal weapons technology than they do... otherwise very bad things may happen.
Hang on the scripts all say the aliens will come to earth to take its resources.
- see above post about Adm Byrd's explorations in Antarctica - he said there is territory bigger than the USA and has vast resources to power human civilization for many hundreds of years.
That documentary link above has the real film that Byrd took as they went beyond the Ice Wall and found mountains of coal, fresh lakes in the high 30's degrees F .....
Did he run in Cthuhlu while he was there? Who needs an alien invasion when we can tax the Old Ones.
The Federal Reserve must really be out of Treasuries to monetize if outer space exploration for minerals is being floated.
What happens to prices with the massive flood of supply of commodities currently on the market when tens of trillions of malinvestments in comet minerals gets dumped on the terrestrial market?
The government crazies just dont want to take over the world, but the universe too.
Execpt the gvt retards don't realize that a God they don't believe in lives up there, that could cause a problem.
+1
Oh yeah, she's gonna be pissed.
Clearly any company that has the technical ability to mine celestial bodies is entitled to them. I doubt jimmy jones or Phung Yong Phat of China can bitch about it if they can't get there themselves. It's not like your claiming something that you can drive or fly to - it's space for damn sake.
If it results in technological leaps to get to these bodies then it is likely a good thing.
"If it results in technological leaps to get to these bodies then it is likely a good thing."
Actually it's not the getting to these bodies that I am concerned about... it's about safely nudging these huge platinum meteors and asteroids into low earth orbit where they can be cost effectively mined.
Not that mistakes could ever happen or anything...
I vote the US federal government move full opperations to "space"
Preferably somewhere deep inside the Van Allen radiation belts...
Lol Zer0, not a worry if you're navigating them in a tin can.
I think this act may serve in the future as a landmark for the dangerously acute combination of arrogance and stupidity that currently infects the U.S. Govt.
False sense of entitlement and exceptionalism, combined with delusional sense of event unfolding around or consequences of thy own actions, topped with an inferior decision-making skillset and finalized with lack of any vision or a strategy.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say there were collectively on drugs.
Just so long as you keep your stinking paws off my moon you morons.
Once I find a way to attach a giant cable to it I'll pull it back to earth and somehow figure out a way to make some money off it...
Too late, the moon has already been subdivided.
And good luck evicting the Nazis, they take their property rights VERY seriously.
There is a claim of ownership for either the moon or Mars (can't remember which) on file in the official public records in Sabine County in Texas.
Seriously.
I wonder if it is your Lunar Land guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mi0w8bLtUM
the moon has many unusual characteristics, one primary being that it only faces us with one same face - our supposed 1,000 mph spinning globe amidst a solar system and galaxy and universes, all spinning ....
there is something very different from what we have been conditioned to believe happening ...
maybe watch the movie "Truman Show" again ...
Then the beady eyed greys start showing up with photon torpedos saying "keep ya fithy hands of our moon rocks bitchez" --Oh Brother.
The entire profit margins of Google and 10 like it could not get a good size dumptruck load of ore and the equipment and means to mine, loaded and hauled back from say mars.
Freaking retarded idiots. ALL of them. If there is intelligent life out there, they have got to be laughing their asses off because there is none here.
WHERE THE HECK IS ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX WHEN YOU NEED HIM>
Space TTP?
They just want investment $$$. The fucking entire US ship is headed into the ground, not into space.
They're already putting high-rise condos on the Earth's core.
No more heating bills!
You can hedge that risk with AIG Space default swaps...
Bean; precisely and thank god for that. I don't want my fellow humans fucking up any more of the creation and I bet I'm not the only one thinking that way.
This Is Very Curious As The Russians Rockets Today Are Far Superior In Lift Load Then The American Ones.
as a matter of fact, right now America doesn't even have the capability of sending U.S. citizens or corporations into space. They have to pay the Russians to take them.
This smells like 'false finders-keepers' to me.
Fuck rockets... this is a job for the "Space Gun" that can shoot stakes into the celestial object you are claiming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_gun
You hit it you own it.
Well, we can send the heavy equipment and ruggedized stuff up with the space gun and we will be able to reduce the G force on the astronauts, the CEOs, and and delicate scientific devices by using the Space Catapult.
Sky people cannot learn.
So here and now I lay claim to all of outer space.
It's mine.
Commander Corzine at the ready for some intergalactic rehypothecation.
Hey, let's don't get too personal here. We might wind up with another "Angry Red Planet". Its only recently recovered from Robinson Crusoe and his messy stay on Mars. It's not his fault. He had just seen "Mars Needs Women".
they can finally use all the cat bulldozers and hi hoes they left on the moon. these guys think ahead years.
So that explains why they are so far behind the 8 ball.
hmm. cat bulldozers in space. could be good for the stock. free shipping.
we have ownership by legal fictions
of space junk, do you you see the systemic
stupidity?
It's Saturday night blindman...time to party at the Midnight Ramble
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta-mbJ4ftEM
Where in Article 1 Section 8 is this authorized? Even if you accept SCOTUS' commerce clause ruling, that regulates trade between the states, this is outside that. Congress can put a tarrif on imports from space, fine, but they have no say over what goes on in space.
What, didn't you read the fine print in the new 5800 page TPP Trans-Planetary Partnership?
Good catch. No jurisdiction.
They can pass a bill declaring themselves emperor's of the fucking universe for all I care. Their days are numbered and they know it...
If nobody can own bits of space. Why bother going there?
Did you notice that since the Outer Space Treaty, interest in space has flatlined? Everything just stopped and that's why.
Bomb Mars Now!
* This slogan used to occasionally appear in MAD magazine in the late 1960's. Mort Drucker and others would slip it into a larger cartoon panel, as a bumper sticker or a sign that a goof was carrying or graffiti on a wall or something. Always subtly placed and always funny as Hell when you'd notice it.
Just claim the entire Andromeda galaxy while you're at it. Fuckin' A. Discover it, claim it. Totally in character for the US.
I was going to mention the Arctic for oil control but after I read this?... Kinda pairs well with the idea of unlimited monetary printing!
Instead of thinking in "trillions of USD" we can look to "QE infinity" no longer being a euphemism but a real possiblity!... So when do we start taxing the Russians, Indians and Chinese for travel beyond 100,000 feet?...
Now you know for certain the NWO chieftans are bat fucking shit crazy and WWIII is "ON"!!!!...
Too Late USA
I have the deed to Mars.
signed by Linda Green
MERS as nominee.
Lke the Chinese will give a fuck once they build the first colony on Mars.
It's America's way to counter international claims on other planets. Another fail off course.
You may in deed, but in word ?
All talk. Obama has been dismantling NASA and directing the money to social programs.
NASA is another political organization now. Used to be a space agency.
...the Google-backed “asteroid mining company”
LMAO!!!
As Earth is a planet in space, I hearby claim the Earth!
omg, I didn't expect the spanish inquisition!
I was just looking at some of this last night. Planetary Resources is a private company so unless one has big bucks there is no way to get a piece of the action.
Anybody know how the small investor can get in on the action?
Anybody here getting in somewhere?
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Abolish the Senate! Long live the Emperor! Palpatine/Vader 2016!
China might have to launch some spacecraft in a "freedom of navigation" display.
The decadence of these parasites has no limits...
uh, ET already has dibs
The US claims space for itself ... UK, EU, China, Russia oh and the rest of the planet is not allowed any claim on space now. You couldn't make this kind of concept up.
The US has become the equivalent of an English king of England, the one person that under the same concept claimed full divine right to the land the US government is currently standing on.
Can't see the difference now, we just need minutemen on every asteroid and lump of rock in space to start the war of independence from the US.
Is this a joke?
The US has to bum a ride into space from the Russians.
Obama is dismantrling what's left of NASA.
You can have your solar system I claim the rest of the universe as mine.
Lol at the comments.
Now off to piss off the rest of the UK population on this one because I am going to kindly advise them of this.
Anybody talking about mining something in space is simply dumber than a box of rocks and can only be called a NASATARD extraordinaire. Those phony liars can't get a rocket to land anymore(as if they ever did) much less take off. You people need to start using your brain instead swallowing all the ridiculous crap NASA spews.
http://www.nasamoonhoax.com/
and just 2 years ago the Chinese shortly claimed to have landed on the moon .... their video "evidence" looked so fake they gave it up quickly and said they wouldn't talk about it anymore ....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YhzZ_Bdg9E - Chinese Moon Landing Hoax
of course an alternative take on the moon, is John Lear, who claims the back side of the moon is highly populated with cities, roads, factories, etc. He does also say the universe is an illusion .... interesting fella, nonetheless : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cahBk2jQyc
NASA should be dismantled, along with DHS, DEA, CIA, ATF, just for starters...
Do they actually have a capability to go out, establish mine, dig for resources out there and even bring them back and all that without consuming more than they gain? I doubt...
the imperial senate and emperor obolatine vs the federation....that would be a matchup worthy of attendiing
I control outer-space, and veto all decision making made by anyone but myself, forthwith. From this date forward MASTER OF UNIVERSE owns the Universe lock, stock, and barrel. All trespassers will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the laws that emanate out of this adhocracy.
Note: This is not a democracy!
signed, MASTER OF UNIVERSE 14/11/2015
So, then why do you continue to allow humans full run of the Earth then Mr Smartie Pants?
Is this the same space that has bubbles like all the nasa space walks supposedly done in space?
The same space that has scuba divers caught on tape? In outer f'n space?
This is the same government that doesn't have the capability to put a man in orbit anymore. Too funny.
Or has NEVER put a man on the moon...
Awesome. The Outer Space Treaty was crap signed at a time that no one could technologically exploit space.
The Militarization of Space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjLns8uREz4
Nov 11, 2015 STRATFORvideo
I need a legal advice here, for a friend. Let's say I have a friend who is a Strong AI, legally property of a dummy corporation that is in actuality just my friends certificate of a "citizenship". Is there anything that stops my friend from seeding trillions of nanobots across the universe and legally claiming resources as his own?
P.S. I am on to you, "Google"...
Google cracks me up...why I remember back in the old days when they used to resemble the rest of us; they went from "dont be evil", to "dont be too evil" to "hey Larry and that other guy, Satan called, he wants his horns back". FUCK YOU, Google.
This country is literally falling down around us, in agonizingly slow motion, and all these *douche nozzles* spend their time (and our tax dollars) on this nonsense?
Any idiot can plainly see that it is impossible to travel in space.
Reading the comments from this blog makes me want to puke. You are some of the dumbest, most unimaginative...
Oh, I remember, never underestimate the intellegence of the 'murican public.
Eat shit and die!
Thank you, come again!
Fear not. Humans are not going to get to go any farther out than the moon. This is by and large recognized as a failed experiment, to be contained.
As if anyone of sound mind or money cares about what CONgress does next. BS, isn't it.
As if anyone of sound mind or money cares about what CONgress does next. BS, isn't it. Declare whatever they want. They can't make it. They can't keep it. They are money whores in hock to insolvent banksters. And so is the rest of the world's self proclaimed 'leaders'.
You mean there are still Earthians that "believe" Mercans "landed" on the moon (no pun intended) dicked around in a "moon" buggy, played golf and supposedly had lunch before they flew their whirlycan back to mother ship orbitting at almost 4,000 kilometers per hour, docked their Fred Flintstone contraption for the almost 400 thousand kilometer return journey? I am flabbergasted that the human animal is so capable of "believing" such conspiratorial nonsense.
Onward with the sacred tenets and dodgy dogma of the Holy Hubris of Pox Amerikana!
Nr. 1; Harvey Lee did indeed and all alone smite the Knight of Camelot, because said knight wanted to share all our stuff with Third Worlders. Nr. 2; 17 box cutter wielding Saudi Mercan camel herders did blow up USSA on 9 11 coz "they hate our freedumbs". And Nr. 3, holy of holies USSA did "land" on moon, shoot some golf, jump around, eat lunch and get back to 60's Slumville just in time to catch Archie Bunker. Blessed are those that believe these sacred tenets of the Holy Hubris.
All others be damned!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybJMuowl0UU
time to call in in the "commercial towing vehicle NOSTROMO, registration # 180924609 out of the Solomons...."
I don't care what the Kingons do to Uranus
Someone forgot Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold The Moon" (1951)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon
There is no limit to what can be accomplished when you believe your own lies.
Looking forward to the day when our representatives physically live on Mars. Not just mentally.
"In a bipartisan bid to encourage commercial exploitation of outer space, the U.S. Senate this week unanimously passed the Space Act of 2015, which grants U.S. citizens or corporations the right to legally claim non-living natural resources—including water and minerals—mined in the final frontier."
Far out! This is the new colonialism. Much like the original colonialism was used to prop up the dying feudal order, this new colonialism will be used to prop up the dying Western industrial order. They'll squeeze out a couple more centuries of this form of injustice before having to create a new one.
Be funny if aliens came here, with lawyers and enforcement, to tell us they were foreclosing on Earth. We'd discover that the generations before us secretly mortgaged our planet but then fell behind on the payments, and we have been ignoring all their messages so they went and got a default judgment...
Really, what hubris! Who are they to hand out 'claims' on space? As if they own it...
It's not yours, Senate morons! In fact, YOU may be squatting illegally on someone ELSE'S property down here!
What evil morons! This stupidity would open the door for China and potentially other real (productive) economies to take over the solar system.
However, it might have an unintended benefit for those of us who realize "space is the place [for individualists and liberty-lovers]". Because one place that cannot be dominated by predators-DBA-government is outer space.
Why? Because the cost (in energy or any other measure) of trying to force anyone to pay taxes or comply with regulations greatly exceeds any value they could collect. It is too easy to hide effectively in space (the asteroid belt), the distances involved are too great, and it is so much easier to defend any position (within or behind an asteroid) than attack that position, any activities of "government" are futile.
Space is the place for self-sufficiency... liberty... individualism.
Nonetheless, this insane proposal shows how far gone the evil empire is.