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From: randyk@sequent.com
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.electronics,sci.physics,sci.research,sci.aeronautics
Subject: Re: Excavating (minig) gold in the space by NASA.
Keywords: gold
Message-ID: <1991Jun19.200549.14868@sequent.com>
Date: 19 Jun 91 20:05:49 GMT
References: <sehari.676666308@du248-12.cc.iastate.edu>
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>Today's Washington Post reports that an asteroid has been found orbiting the
>Sun at a distance of about 20 million miles from Earth (closest point).  It
>apparently contains 10000 tons of gold and 100000 tons of platinum, as well
>>as 10 billion tons of iron and 1 billion tons of nickel.  Its estimated
>worth was put at around 1 trillion dollars.

As I understand the issue, besides the engineering problems, there are several
legal issues as well.  Anything not manmade that is in space is unowned.  If
you spend millions getting a valuable meteor back to Earth orbit, anyone can
mine it.  If you mine it and throw the minerals back, anyone can intercept
it.  It isn't yours until you get it onto the Earth.

My information on this issue is almost a decade old now, does anyone have
anything newer?