Commercial Space Resource Claims

The question of whether private companies may lawfully extract and own resources taken from the Moon or asteroids, given the Outer Space Treaty's Article II ban on national appropriation of celestial bodies, has been addressed unilaterally rather than through new international agreement. The United States enacted the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act in November 2015, whose Title IV, the Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act, grants U.S. citizens engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid or space resource the right to possess, own, transport, use, and sell that resource under U.S. law, while explicitly disclaiming any U.S. claim of sovereignty, exclusive rights, or ownership over any celestial body itself, a distinction its drafters argued keeps the law consistent with Article II by separating resource ownership from territorial appropriation.