Author Topic: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors  (Read 91907 times)

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #120 on: 03/10/2016 12:01 pm »
I changed the title of the topic to better reflect the content.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #121 on: 06/21/2016 02:26 pm »
Based on feedback from various groups, here are the latest bullet points:

The Department of Commerce shall maintain a registry of locations of mineral and ice bearing locations within the Solar System ("claims"), with such information provided by US nationals under the following conditions:

Such claims shall have a physical dimension of no greater than one half square kilometer of surface area, extending towards the center of the celestial object, so that claims extend to subsurface regions under the half square kilometer area.   Claims shall only apply to mineral bearing or ice bearing areas within that half square kilometer.  Such claims are trade secrets and not real property claims.

Within such claims, mineral or ice bearing regions shall be separately identified from non mineral and ice bearing locations. Applications for claims must be accompanied by survey products with sufficient resolution to separately identify mineral and/or ice deposits and distinguish them from non ore-bearing areas.  Areas not containing identified minerals or ice deposits within the claimed areas are not subject to the claims. 

In the event that such mineral or ice deposits have an identified area greater than one half of a square kilometer, US nationals may apply for multiple claims.

All survey products must be generated from instruments located in situ; ie in proximity to the claimed areas and not in Earth orbit or on the Earth itself.  Data collected by or on behalf of national governments, or data that is otherwise publicly available, may not be used for this purpose.

Application fees for such claims should be sufficient to reimburse the government for costs to verify survey materials.

Once registered by the Department of Commerce, such claims may be assigned to third parties, with adequate notice provided to the Department of Commerce of any such assignations.

All survey materials provided to the Department of Commerce shall be considered trade secrets and not subject to FOIA requests. Department of Commerce will make public the general locations of claims and claim owners.

The Department of Commerce shall protect registered claims from encroachment by third parties, whether US nationals or nationals of other nations via international legal process or economic sanction.

The Department of Commerce shall endeavor to expand recognition of such claims by other nations, via bilateral or multilateral agreements.

In no case shall such claims be construed as property claims, either by the United States of America or by the US nationals who own the claim.


BTW, the discovery of the new quasi-satellite may drive further interest in prospecting for minerals in the inner solar system.

Offline D_Dom

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #122 on: 06/22/2016 08:59 pm »
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing this information, it is an area I wish to understand in greater detail. As trade secrets registered by US Dept of Commerce I wonder how many other nations will recognize and/or respect these intellectual property rights.
Space is not merely a matter of life or death, it is considerably more important than that!

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #123 on: 06/23/2016 03:05 am »
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing this information, it is an area I wish to understand in greater detail. As trade secrets registered by US Dept of Commerce I wonder how many other nations will recognize and/or respect these intellectual property rights.

That's why there is language requiring DoC to enforce the IP rights. Let's assume that Albania sends a mining ship to an asteroid and mines an ore body registered to a US company, and returns to Earth with 3 tons of enriched platinum ore. DoC then would ensure that no part of that ore could be imported into the USA, nor anything made with that ore, in effect levying sanctions on the Albanian firm.  It would be therefore more difficult to raise capital for pirate mining missions once this IP regime were in place.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #124 on: 06/24/2016 12:36 pm »
Based on feedback from various groups, here are the latest bullet points:

Thanks for the update.  Real property rights cannot be too far off in the future, I'm thinking.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #125 on: 06/24/2016 02:00 pm »
What needs to be done now is to circulate this set of bullet points to space policy groups around the country.

Offline spacetraveler

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #126 on: 06/29/2016 01:18 pm »
There needs to be a stipulation that you cannot claim property rights unless you have a realistic method and resources to visit and/or use that property.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #127 on: 06/30/2016 12:27 pm »
There needs to be a stipulation that you cannot claim property rights unless you have a realistic method and resources to visit and/or use that property.

Certainly a necessary part of the definition of real property rights.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #128 on: 07/01/2016 10:20 pm »
There needs to be a stipulation that you cannot claim property rights unless you have a realistic method and resources to visit and/or use that property.

There are no property rights available in the bullet points. This proposal only covers intellectual property rights concerning location of ore bodies and water on asteroids.

As for a "Realistic method and resources to visit that property",  a mining claim would only be registered if the company discovers an ore body or water by sending a spacecraft out there.

Please read the bullet points carefully.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #129 on: 07/01/2016 10:20 pm »
There needs to be a stipulation that you cannot claim property rights unless you have a realistic method and resources to visit and/or use that property.

Certainly a necessary part of the definition of real property rights.

... which are not the subject of this proposal.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #130 on: 07/02/2016 10:52 am »
Well, Brussels is finding out that individuals, not corporations, want to control their own destinies. Space mining is a possible "destiny", depending on the power of the individual, among a great many other things. People want to own the  fruits of their labor.

As to "realistic" means and methods, there are few individuals, Elrond being the most notable, who have what it takes to mine asteroids.

But thanks for the update.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #131 on: 07/30/2016 04:49 pm »
Please remember that the mining claims registry is for prospecting, not for mining. Once claims are registered, the owner of the claim may sell the claim to a mining company, which may sit on it until the technology has matured to make mining easy.

And also remember that this is not a real property claim, but an intellectual property claims registry.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #132 on: 07/31/2016 01:44 pm »
Well, maybe they'll set up a prospecting claims registry for mining...
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline bad_astra

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #133 on: 09/05/2016 08:33 pm »
I'm late to the discussion, but if an asteroid is found containing  nitrogen, phosphate and potassium, it can be claimed as US Territory for the finder under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The law is on the books and will remain so as the United States has several territorial claims, at least one disputed, that reply on the Guano Act, still.

"Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other Government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other Government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States."


No where in my reading of that law does it require said minerals be excreted from a sea bird.
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Offline R7

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #134 on: 09/06/2016 10:35 am »
Other OST signees might object circumventing OST article II for guano asteroids  ;D
Russian might hastily enact similar law and claim Moon, Mars and Venus arguing that Luna 2, Mars 2 and Venera 7 had some bird droppings on them. Storage facilities in 50s/60s Soviet Union weren't always perfect...
AD·ASTRA·ASTRORVM·GRATIA

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #135 on: 09/09/2016 12:38 pm »
Remember, guys, that nothing in this proposal has anything to do with claiming territory.  This is a registry for intellectual property protection, ie the location of valuable ores on celestial bodies.

In theory, you could get a mining claim duly registered, and someone else could build a hotel on top of your claim.   What they couldn't do is mine your claimed ore body.

Of course, if you actually mined the property after your claim were registered, then the 1967 OST would protect your operations.

This proposal does not violate the 1967 OST, in fact, it complements it very well.
« Last Edit: 09/09/2016 12:38 pm by Danderman »

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #136 on: 11/15/2016 05:04 am »
The next steps would be to have the US and Luxemburg both setting up a claims registry that recognizes each other's claims.

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #137 on: 11/15/2016 05:29 am »
The "mining claims" model worked back in the Old West and works in some places today because discovery was the hard part.  Once it was discovered, extraction was relatively easy -- the product sold more than paid the costs of extraction.

We're not at that point today with space mining.  There's a danger with this proposal that we'd reach the point where discovery was practical but extraction was not.  Then, we'd just be encouraging a bunch of people to go discover where the resources were without any practical way to exploit them.  That's not good, because there's really no fundamental benefit to society of having people make the discoveries before they can be exploited.  On the contrary, it just makes it harder for later people who do end up with the ability to profitably extract the resources, because then a lot of the resources already will have been claimed, and those with the claims can charge prices that are so high they discourage exploitation.

So, it's too early for this.  We would have to wait until we have the technology to profitably exploit space resources, and only then go and consider a mineral claims registry.

Right now, a mineral claims registry would be more like opening the doors to let people register domain names 20 years before the internet existed.

Also, historically mining claims were always registered with governments that already controlled the place the claim covered.  Having the U.S. set up a registry for claims outside what the U.S. government controls and outside what any other country recognizes as U.S. authority is going to lead to all kinds of claims and counter-claims.

I know the model here is supposed to be patents, but people at large aren't going to see it that way.  They're going to see it as a land-grab by the U.S.  They'll never accept that the U.S. has the authority to do this.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #138 on: 11/15/2016 10:24 am »
The argument seems to be that a Mining claims registry would provoke a flood of exploration missions, and that would be a bad thing.

I kind of makes me nostalgic for the days when the naysayers claimed that there were no markets for space except for GEO communications.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Mineral Claims Registry for Space Prospectors
« Reply #139 on: 11/15/2016 10:29 am »
I am going to rewrite the clauses on the physical dimensions of the claims to eliminate all references to meters or kilometers, and instead state that the Department of Commerce will determine the size of the claim,  based on the sensor data provided to them by the applicant. Neither we nor Congress should limit claim sizes at this point in time, I am not that smart, nor is Congress.

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