Posted by Ryan Neligan.
Human beings have a natural tendency to expand upon whatever the present is. In America, pilgrims settled in the state of Massachusetts and eventually expanded all the way to California. This trend of expanding continues today, as now people look forward to what is beyond Earth: Outer Space. This week Congress has passed a bill called the Space Act of 2015, which will help the small business of asteroid mining become an official operation.
The resources that are in outer space could be quite valuable to our world for the future. There are so many things untouched out there and in such great supply. In the past, “the prospect of large scale extraction of minerals from other planets or cosmic bodies has been both technologically and legally questionable, with starry-eyed entrepreneurs hard at work on the first part, but without much guidance on the second” (Good Magazine). Our civilization has not had the knowledge or technology in order to make obtaining a vast amount of resources from outer space an appropriate business. That has changed in current day though, as technology has made leaps forward in progress of this venture, and now to is officially about to become legitimate. With the passing of the Act, the business of space mining could boom into a full blown industry in the market, for “this lays the legal groundwork for private businesses to own extra-planetary resources, as well as sell their goods back on Earth” (Good Magazine). Huge potential is seen for space mining. Businesses are waiting for the new act to become official so they can jump into the extraterrestrial world of space mining and make as profit off of it.
The Space Act of 2015 is not yet complete to be used, but it is laying the foundation to open up endless possibilities that reach far beyond he extant of this world. Humans continue to expand the horizons that are in front of them, and this act would put them in the galaxies.
Ryan Neligan is a finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2018.