Beyond the Pale Blue Dot: Sustainability in Space Resource Policy

Abstract

Which type of resource management regime is best suited to encourage the sustainable development of large-scale asteroid mining practices in the future? Using economic metrics of excludability and rivalry as a means of classifying resource types, this thesis reexamines the history of outer space policy in the international community and, more particularly, the United States. I analyze the extent to which policies governing permissible activities in space have aligned with the contemporaneous function of space as a resource pool. I then extrapolate into the future, considering whether near-Earth asteroids may one day function as a common-pool resource amidst heightened mining activity in space. I argue that such a scenario should not be discounted, and that within such a landscape, we should establish an international asteroid permit agency through the UN to ensure an orderly, sustainable, and equitable mining environment.