Space, the final frontier. America, Russia, and several other countries from the United Nations meet December 16, 1966 to determine what could be done in and to this new budding dimension that had been recently uncovered with new and exciting enterprises at humanities fingertips.

Obviously, a guideline needed to be made to secure our nation’s future amongst the stars; thus, the “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies” was created. Recently, this treaty has become a major debate as companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries have announced their intentions to harvest materials from the nearby asteroids and our the moon.

The treaty, however, has a different idea because it states, in article two, “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” This means that the act of appropriating materials from the asteroids or any celestial body would be illegal and against the signed agreement that the nations involved agreed upon.

However, some argue that article two only applies to nations, which would allow individual companies to place ownership over asteroids and other celestial bodies. Nevertheless, as the treaty noted before a nation is required to ensure their citizens abide by other provisions of the Outer Space Treaty, including a prohibition against sovereign claims of property rights.

Though the treaty ensures that the appropriation of a celestial body or asteroid is against the agreement it makes it explicitly clear that the exploration and use of outer space shall be free of all restraints and that there will be free access to all parts of space. It also states that anything built or launched into space, as long as it is of peaceful intentions, shall remain the property of the original owner.

Bringing to attention that mining the asteroids without staking a claim to them would technically be a legal action companies can work around. Of course, the treaty has several different interpretations; however, they always defer to customary international law. For example, satellite orbits are allocated by the International Telecommunications Union. Strictly speaking, they are not “owned” by the assignee, but can be renewed on a regular basis, and can be leased to other parties.

In accordance, the asteroid mining will have to fall under them same international laws. Lunar resources are in short supply as there are only 842 pounds of lunar samples left and only 10% have been tested on, meaning there is definitely a profitable field for mining for these special minerals. As NASA themselves have said, the lunar samples are “a limited national resource, a future heritage, and [requires] that samples be released only for approved applications in research, education, and public display.”

This idea of harvesting minerals from the asteroids was unthought-of as a reality during this meeting. However, the regulation still stands to make it difficult for companies to stake claims and attempt to create a profitable organization and business plan. Despite this legal setback, the company, Deep Space, continues to predict that “In a decade, it will be harvesting metals and other building materials from space rocks to build large platforms to replace communications satellites—followed by solar power stations that would beam carbon-free energy back to Earth.” Only time will tell if this treaty is going to be rewritten or if it will even be upheld when these companies fight for the right to gather materials from this new expendable source.