Resolved: The United States Federal government should mine asteroids.

Contention 1: The Economy Subpoint 1: CompetitionAs I brought up in my first contention last round that the Federal Government needs to be involved in the early stages of new projects to help get them going and to show that doing such a project is worth it. I turn to my example of the Rail Roads and the Panama Canal the Federal Government passed a bill in 1862 to help rail roads get a huge kick start and helped them get involved. (http://www.ourdocuments.gov...) This lead to the many rail roads popping up everywhere and after the government started breaking up monopolies they helped make riding the Rail affordable. As for the Panama Canal, it was a gold mine. it meant cheaper shipping and receiving goods faster. The thing was that no one wanted to do it due to the malaria in the region (just ask the French) and because the Federal Government stepped in there the project got completed and good became cheaper. (http://www.infoplease.com...) I have also shown last round that private companies do not want to chance it yet, because private investors don't want to wait too long as they think that they might not see a return on investments. In order to compensate the time that it takes. (https://isulibrary.isunet.edu...) So we can see that the United States Federal Government must kick-off the project here. NASA is a research and development organization so their production of the technology and oversite is very important as they are our nation's space administration and this is their field of expertise. Subpoint 2: Flooding the market. Here's a fun fact of the day, did you know that the diamond mined in South Africa is practically worthless. The only reason that it is worth so much is that South Africa withholds a lot of their diamonds from the global market to increase their value. Much like OPEC and how much oil that they decide to export a year. This is what the US would do. The US would release small amounts onto the Global Market to create a profit and drive down US national debt. The US would keep the rest in the US where they would be made into different things or just stay in warehouses like South African Diamonds. Remind you that once we start this project that we will increase jobs by the thousands and create an industry worth over a trillion dollars which beats the US marine time industry. (http://www.space.com...) and (http://blog.chron.com...) Contention 2: Legality of the Outer Space Treaty. I shall now quote Space law professor Art Dula, "I am pleased to say that the American people and the corporations they form are presently free to conduct mining operations in outer space for commercial purposes, as this activity has not been made either illegal or regulated by the federal government or the several states." Here she shows that the US Federal Government does not have a law regulating the business nor restricting it. Keep in mind that she is also highly a where of the OST of 1967. (http://www.livescience.com...) .NASA is even planning to do such an action before the year 2021 by capturing an asteroid and having astronauts observe it. This is legal under the OST, because it also says that we have free access to celestrial bodies. (http://www.space.com...) JAXA (Japanese version of NASA) mined an asteroid in 2005 and returned with great results. (http://www.spaceanswers.com...) The OST does not apply to asteroids, the only reason it was created in the first place was to prevent a winner of the Cold War between the US and the USSR. Each nation was fearing the other with territorial disputes as well as nuclear weaponry on the moon. The next question is is the asteroids really a celestial body? Andrew Tingkang stated in an Article for the Seattle University that, "If you can move it, then it isn't a celestial body." (http://www.popularmechanics.com...) US Federal Government mining of an asteroid would not be harmful as it will benefit the entire Global Economy along with China. ( http://www.investopedia.com...) Both of which are Global Trade Titian's as I have brought up in my last round and that which the US receiving these REMs there will be many countries out there that want to by the new raw materials from the US, by the technology so they themselves can mine space and thus negating that section of the OST as many nations will then be mining space and increasing their nation's welfare. This is just essentially Ronald Reagan's Trickle Down Theory (or also known as Reaganomics) on a Global Scale. (http://money.howstuffworks.com...) We will be affecting the entire world population in a positive and great manner.