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Space Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/spacepol
Can space mining benefit all of humanity?: The resource fund and citizen's
dividend model of Alaska, the ‘last frontier’
Morgan Sterling Saletta
a,∗
, Kevin Orrman-Rossiter
b
a
Department of Management and Marketing and, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
b
School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Space resources
Asteroid mining
Outer Space Treaty
Space exploration
Resource funds
Privatization of space
ABSTRACT
Economically profitable resource exploitation in space is becoming increasingly feasible as more actors - na-
tional, public and private-are engaging in space exploration. The Outer Space Treaty (OST), which serves as the
basis for the current corpus juris spatialis, declares that no government can claim sovereignty over celestial bodies
or outer space itself. Because this is generally interpreted as denying private ownership, the OST is sometimes
claimed to be an obstacle to commercial venture, particularly resource exploitation. Such claims ignore a wealth
of terrestrial models which promote profitable commercial resource exploitation independent of fee-simple
ownership. To achieve an approach to space exploration and exploitation which balances national, international,
and commercial interests and a need to prevent conflict and militarization of outer space, terrestrial approaches
to managing resource exploitation should be carefully examined for frameworks and mechanisms with potential
to serve as models in further elaborating an international regime for space resource exploitation. A previously
overlooked terrestrial example, the Alaska Permanent Fund, and its unique citizen's dividend, is explored as one
possible model for such a balanced approach that could encourage profit-driven exploration and exploitation of
extra-terrestrial resources, reduce the risk of conflict between actors in outer space and simultaneously accrue
tangible benefits to all of humanity.
1. The ‘final frontier’, utopian ideals and pragmatic governance: is
it possible to balance commercial space exploitation, profit
motives, and benefits to all of humanity?
In 1903, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested that exploiting asteroid
resources [1] would be key to conquering what Gene Roddenberry and
his fellow producers later called the ‘final frontier’ [2]. While the idea
of asteroid mining thus predates the space age, the prospect of a space
economy fuelled in part by the exploitation of asteroids, the moon and
other celestial bodies is increasingly technologically and financially
feasible.
In situ resource exploitation is often cited as a crucial part of am-
bitious plans underway by the steadily increasing number of space-
faring nations and commercial, entrepreneurial ventures in space-plans
that include orbital outposts and hotels, space based solar power sta-
tions [3] and manned and/or robotic missions to the Moon and Mars in
the coming decades. Resources from the Moon, Mars and asteroids have
been proposed for use in human space exploration to produce pro-
pellants, water for life support, structural materials, radiation shielding
and heat shields [1,4]. While competing and evolving visions for space
exploration and political, budgetary and economic realities make the
future of such plans uncertain, there are many indications that resource
exploitation of near Earth objects (NEOs), the moon or other celestial
bodies is rapidly becoming feasible [5].
Additionally, the mining of celestial bodies, including NEOs, has
frequently been presented, both in specialist literature and in popular
media as a way to solve terrestrial shortages of precious metals, semi-
conducting materials and rare elements such as Helium-3. Because of its
proximity and composition, the moon is an attractive starting point for
resource prospecting [6]. On the other hand, NEOs have received par-
ticular attention because they may be richer in some desired raw ma-
terials, especially metals, than the surface of the moon, while also
having a much weaker gravity well [7–10]. Public scientists and science
communicators such as Neil deGrasse Tyson have promoted asteroid
mining both as a way to solve conflicts over terrestrial resources while
enriching humanity as well as providing the technologies necessary to
detect and deflect asteroids that threaten Earth [11]. The popular
founding manifesto for asteroid mining, John S. Lewis' Mining the Sky
(1997) estimated that mining asteroids for valuable metals could pro-
vide trillions of dollars of precious metals [12], though such claims, oft
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.02.002
Received 22 September 2016; Received in revised form 22 January 2018; Accepted 4 February 2018
∗
Corresponding author. School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia.
E-mail address: msaletta@unimelb.edu.au (M. Sterling Saletta).
Space Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
0265-9646/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Sterling Saletta, M., Space Policy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spacepol.2018.02.002
