ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the nascent space mining industry, placing the anticipated exploitation of mineral reserves in outer space within an historical trajectory of frontier resource appropriation. It examines unrealised resource claims of an embryonic industry within its broader historical, political and social context. As the Tea Party in Space demonstrates, 'the frontier' trope is alive and well in contemporary space advocacy – if the government-centred Apollo Program forged the path to outer space, a new wave of private entities may yet settle this frontier on an entrepreneurial Oregon Trail extending beyond Earth's gravity well. The chapter focuses on American space mining start-ups like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, and the broader social network that they inhabit: a loose community of individuals, organisations and enterprises that self-identify as 'NewSpace'. It also focuses on 'real' property rights on tangible physical resources in space, as opposed to, say, allocation of intellectual property laws regarding technology patents developed in outer space.
