REAL LIFE NEWS: NEW LAW SAYS ASTEROID MINERS CAN KEEP WHAT THEY MINE
by Hazed
The path towards commercial mining of asteroids took one tiny step forward last week, as a country ruled that asteroid mining companies could keep what they find in space.
Existing space law is governed by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. This doesn’t make it clear whether private companies can stake a claim to resources they find in space. To help clarify this, the US Congress passed its own space mining law a few years back.
Now Luxembourg has followed suit. Its parliament passed a law which is reportedly more flexible than the US version. The main difference is that the US law states that it only applies to companies where the majority of the stakeholders are in the US; the Luxembourg version doesn’t have such restrictions.
That means any company can register in Luxembourg to take advantage of the ‘finders keepers in space’ law. I foresee a lot of new space ventures taking advantage of this, leading to the tiny country becoming something of a space hub.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/07/14/luxembourg_passes_space_mining_law/
