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Every Airline company is subject to the FAA when they fly a passenger, if the government wants to be a customer then their is IN ADDITION a contractual relationship, but oversight is always present regardless. This is the analogy with Space-X and ANY launch service company, they are a commercial provider that can sell services to both governmental and non-governmental customers but are always under government oversight (and frankly the nature of the COTS program grants NASA a whole lot of additional oversight of the development/validation process).
The main driver of Platinum high price is automotive Catalytic Converter usage which is something like 30% of consumption if I recall correctly. Elon Musk's OTHER company will eventually kill off that demand and bring down the price and because Cats are highly recyclable (mostly being turned into New Cats currently) the obsolescence of Internal Combustion would dump a huge amount of Platinum back onto the market and probably permanently deflate prices.
As for mining Platinum any ware off the Earth when you look into the number the 'rich' Asteroids are only about 20x richer then the Earths Platinum ore bodies. Thus your cost of extraction couldn't be more then 20x that of Earth surface mining if you expect to make a profit. If anyone is going to make money on material brought back from space is NOT going to be by refining the material down to base elements 99.9% of which are the most common elements in the Earths crust. Naturally fallen metallic meteorites sell for $5 a gram and up, so refining asteroid material would be literally SPINNING GOLD INTO STRAW!
If these investors have ANY kind of viable business model it will be return small <1000 kg qualities of asteroid and selling it a gram at a time as a souvenir or in bulk to governments for research purposes. This would also be on firmer legal grounds as the US governments precedent of hoarded it's Apollo moon rocks. Once the rocks back on Earth it's arguably no longer part of 'Space', but NASA never sold rocks for profit so it's in my opinion a gray area.
The REAL money is in selling the fuel in space to other missions and vehicles. But this is even more questionable as you clearly need to own something before you can sell it and your right back to the OST. Take for example on the ISS the American section of the station produces most of the Energy from solar panels a resource collected in space, can that energy be sold? I think the ISS partners buy and sell these resources/services between themselves in some kind of regulated by treaty manor. Private companies might get into the same thing, so long as they only sell what they actively collect and their is a legal regime involved then it can be argued they are selling the SERVICE of collection ware as the resources are free and anyone else could collect them if they wished. The analogy would be a bit like panning for gold without making a claim, what you extract you can sell but you don't have exclusivity.
Yes we DO need to develop our capabilities is cis-lunar space for sever more decades and most likely do one or both of a NEO visit or a Moon base first. It's just the incremental engineering and safety validation that's necessary even if we weren't putting in place any infrastructure like Lagrange point bases/depots. Insisting that we go from ware we are now with LEO stations and brief moon landings to a Mars landing is like saying that the follow up to Alan Shepard's sub-orbital flight should have been to land John Glenn on the Moon!
Just look at the DeltaV totals, Moon and back is a raw (ignoring atmosphere) ~16 kms and Mars and back is ~30 kms for just the slow trajectory, a factor of 2. Likewise the Duration of a Moon and back trip ~9 days compared to a Mars trip of ~800 days, a factor of 100. Back calculate the same factor of 2 and 100 on Apollo and you get a sub orbital 8 kms and a duration of 2 hours, basically Alan Shepard's MERCURY flight. You need to do at least some kind of Gemini equivalent mission/s in between and that's still being being very aggressive.
Zubrin's Mars Direct proposals particularly with regard to ISRU may ultimately be for Mars what Lunar orbital Rendezvous was for Apollo, a great mission architecture that makes the goal achievable under a reasonable budget and within launch vehicle constraints but it won't let us skip the necessary intermediate steps and technology validations. Orbital docking technology was validated under Gemini, without that you could never have relied on it for Apollo.
NASA's commitment to gradualism should be seen as a return to the strategy that actually worked in the Moon race, if you don't like the slow pace that the current funding provides that's fine but thinking we can just jump directly to the final Mars vehicle/s is in violation of every sound Engineering principle and is of course politically naive as well.
With regard to the proposed Consortium, it would absolutely be bound by the OST and if American companies like Space X are involved it will be subject to NASA oversight regardless of NASA's membership in it. The only way a for-profit consortium for space development can exist is if their is a legal regime for them to operate under, conducting business in legal gray areas is simple the harshest environment possible, its worse then outright illegal business activities like smuggling because at least their your competition is being suppressed by government.
The 'myth' (I think delusional ant-social fantasy is the better term) of 'free individuals pursuing their goals without state interference' is most definitely NOT harmless when it comes to Space exploration for several reasons.
First because the people who have these fantasies are invariable engaged in techno-fantasy as well and over sell the pace of Space development to the public.
Second this individualistic mindset invariably promotes Jingoism and isolationism on a national level which hurts the necessary international cooperation.
Third all this talk of space settlement/colonies being sovereign and independent states on near term timelines provides no guarantee of the Earth recouping it's costs.
Forth public pressure and enthusiasm for the realistic near term regulation which would promote space is squandered on fantasy libertarian propaganda.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2058/1
The fact that this loophole exists is actually a good thing for those of us who wish the OST to be revised and allow a limited claiming of land in space. Especially if it gives Mineral rights. What we have on these forums is the continual chicken and egg scenario. We need cheap lift to space to colonise and utilise space for profit but we cant get anyone to invest in this until we can show that we can profit from space.
I'm not surprised the pro-loophole position is advanced by a conservative think-tank, theirs even the association with a "Tea party in Space" group which proves my point about libertarian fantasy to the hilt. Fortunately the article you sight also has a rebuttal from someone who actually works with and knows space law so the existence of this loophole is very much in doubt. The rebuttal basically goes into much the same problem I anticipated, the claiming mission would need to originate ENTIRELY from the resources, facilities and nationals of non-signatory nations and THEN be recognized by all the Nations of the world to be effective, an absurd scenario.
The rebutting side extols the virtues of reasonable near term regulation both national and international based off the Law of the Sea (as I said its the best analogy for Space). He proposes private space companies salvaging satellites and receiving compensation for the "removal of navigational hazards" would be an excellent way to immediately create a viable business model which would promote technology development in rendezvous/robotics/navigation/orbital mechanics/ion engines etc. This is an excellent example of how appropriate regulation CREATES business ware none was possible before.
Read it Here http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/ … ty-rights/
Is their even any infrastructure and skill base left to MAKE the solid rocket booster? I don't see why the manufacturer would or even could retain the capability. While Ares I was still on the drawing board their was a point but that's gone now and I think it's only a matter of time until all the shuttle derived concepts are scrapped because of their unsustainable costs, this may simply mean we never see another >100mt Super Heavy and have to work with fully liquid configurations.
Grypd: Whats your source for this legal opinion that the OST can be circumvented by this kind of transnational finagling?
The way I read it the Isle of man (or some other hypothetical non-signatory state) would need to make a territorial claim on the moon first and THEN grant property rights to the private party. The US or any signatory state would then be recognizing the Isle of man's territorial claim to the moon not the private parties property rights and this recognition MIGHT be permissible under the treaty but it would not bind any other nation either signatory or not to recognize the Isle of mans claim. I don't see the major Space faring nations going out of their way to aid 'flag of convenience' nations in laying claim to space while refraining from making their own claims. If the US, Russia or China wanted to get some of the Moon they would simply withdraw from the OST which is allowed for in Article XVI and proceed to 'appropriate' the Moon via the established methods of occupation, defense and seeking to have their claims recognized by other nations.
But it is even arguable that the OST is now part of 'customary international law' and can be considered a "Peremptory Norm" from which no withdraw or is possible, much like the Geneva convention which every nation can be held to account for violating regardless of signatory status. The standard for for Peremptory Norm is very high but the OST arguably fulfills most of the requirements (duration & broad near universal adoption), all that's lacking is the accumulation of more strong enforcement precedents such as multiple nations reaching the Moon and forgoing territorial claims or signatory governments prohibiting non-governmental activities under Article VI grounds. Neither of these has been possible due to the NASA monopoly of manned lunar landing but once these precedents are set I'd think this would cement the OST.
I'm sorry but 90% of what people are speculating about in this thread is just Bunk. The 1976 Space treaty is not ambiguous as to private ownership of outer space, first off the treaty binds all signatory nations to not allow their nationals and legal entities (corporations) to violate the treaty either.
Article VI
States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non- governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. When activities are carried on in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, by an international organization, responsibility for compliance with this Treaty shall be borne both by the international organization and by the States Parties to the Treaty participating in such organization.
Right their in black and white, non-governmental agencies are MORE restricted because they are both bound the same restrictions as governments AND they can do nothing without their host government's "authorization and continuing supervision". If the US government through NASA can't do an activity which would violate the treaty then it can not authorize someone else to do it either. The US can authorize anything which is treaty compliant but if their is a dispute over this activity it is by definition and international dispute and not something any one government can dictate.
Antarctica is not actually the best Earth-side analogy for the Moon and Mars because most of Antarctica is 'nominally' claimed by government but all the claimant governments mutually agreeing to treat Antarctica as a Scientific commons without renouncing any of their claims. The appropriate analogy for Space is that of International waters, which have never been claimed and are never can be, the space treaty firmly places space in this category. But it IS legal to profit from international waters because an international legal regime has been created to govern it, a UN agency grants mining leases to large areas of the ocean floor for the purpose of Manganese nodule harvesting. Several leases have already been made to various corporations and they will have to pay mining royalties for this. The US is the only nation that hasn't joined the seafloor mining treaty but even the Bush administration had been willing to do so and it's established international law.
A similar convention for space mining is the most likely long-term outcome. Anyone actually serious about Asteroid mining should be clamoring for this kind of legal regime not indulging in libertarian fantasies of going out and making extra-legal claims to any moon or asteroid. I HOPE their are enough serious people within the space enthusiast community to create advocacy and public preshure for proper treaties and they can squelch the childish American space-libertarians camp.
I thought NASA had already deemed the whole 'liquid second stage on-top of solid first stage' configuration non-viable for any purpose (which is not to say its impossible, just that it would be inferior in cost and safety vs traditional architecture). That whole Obama ostensibly budget-based killing of both the Constellation launch vehicles was effectively allowing NASA and Congress to save-face over the fact they had been betting their whole launch system on a technology that didn't pan out. Private companies are notorious for doggedly sticking with old discarded NASA concepts long after they are obsolete.
Assuming the Engine proves viable the proposed Vehicle should be extremely affordable, probably an Order of Magnitude over the ideal expendable Rocket targets (SpaceX). The only downside I see is the relatively small payload size of 12 tons, about half of what current Heavy lift rockets can manage. Assuming the vehicle can't practically be enlarged then I would see Skylon falling into more of a Tanker role delivering LOX & LH2 to stations and dry boosters in LEO, I bet it would be desirable from payload size and construction standpoint to make versions of the vehicle that replace the cargo bay and straddling LOX tanks with one continuous LOX tank, just size all the tanks such that the vehicle has the right ratio of remaining fuel to dispense to the delivery point. I bet you could squeeze another ton or two of payload with that.