ABSTRACT
The NASA Center for Near Earth Object Studies website offers a primer on Near Earth Objects, or NEOs. “Target Earth” describes a need for “some form of NEO insurance” to protect against an eventual devastating hit from an NEO. On the same website, “NEAs as Resource” projects an entirely different relationship with Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) that integrate them with terrestrial energy systems. NASA claims that rather than encounter NEOs and NEAs as objects which must be kept at a distance, we ought to encounter them as resource extraction opportunities. This chapter critically explores the growing legal and policy framework for extraterrestrial private mining and resource extraction in the United States. While these policies attempt to commodify NEAs, they do significantly more than just that. They are part of a project to redefine the boundaries of the planetary while providing a psychological focus on speculative technologies in order to obfuscate debates around the restructuring of economic, social, and political institutions on Earth. In a Schmittian sense, the re-imagination of the planetary constructs a new conception of space, and, in doing so, it opens up radical space for expansion, political maneuvering, and potential conflicts. Using eco-Marxism, we contend that the introduction of consumptive resources from outside the terrestrial ecological system will further exacerbate the ecological crisis.
