Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company, has, in a news release, applauded the US Senate and President Obama for allowing the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262) to go into law. While the International Outer Space Treaty officially precludes nation states from staking out claims on other bodies in the solar system, the new law allows U.S. citizens to own asteroid resources they obtain effectively encouraging the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids.
“This is the single greatest recognition of property rights in history,” said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc. “This legislation establishes the same supportive framework that created the great economies of history, and will encourage the sustained development of space.”
Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc., said, “A hundred years from now, humanity will look at this period in time as the point in which we were able to establish a permanent foothold in space. In history, there has never been a more rapid rate progress than right now.”
Planetary Resources, Inc., the asteroid mining company, was founded in 2009 by Eric Anderson and Dr. Peter H. Diamandis. The company plans to conduct low-cost robotic space exploration beginning with the Arkyd series of space missions that will identify the most commercially viable near-Earth asteroids. These initial missions will assist the company in enabling the retrieval of raw materials from these select asteroids, including water, precious metals and more.
