Asteroid Mining

[a completely inoffensive name]

All true, but...

Bringing materials to Earth raises the question of ownership; I believe asteroid material would come under the same (or a similar) arrangement granted to Antarctica. As such, it is and remains, essentially international property.

That won't last long though. If a mining company stakes a claim on an asteroid first, who is going to enforce any rules on them? There are no police or military forces in space.

When short distance space travel is possible, we are going to see a wild bonanza of exploitation and de facto property ownership without the approval of earth governments until that one treaty (I forget what it is called) that bans the militarization of space is repealed or ignored.