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This multigenerational memoir sketches the lives of three generations of the author’s family that were involved with some of the most profound issues of the twentieth century. Smith’s paternal grandfather was present at the creation of General Motors Corporation and served as its Vice President and General Counsel. His maternal grandfather, William G. Maguire, was an entrepreneur and natural gas pipeline pioneer with a visionary grasp of natural gas’s significance in the twentieth century American economy. Smith’s father served as a senior diplomat under five presidents, working to constrain the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia and to curtail proliferation of nuclear weapons.
This monograph addresses the legal and policy issues relating to the commercial exploitation of natural resources in outer space. It begins by establishing the economic necessity and technical feasibility of space mining today, an estimate of the financial commitments required, followed by a risk analysis of a commercial mining venture in space, identifying the economic and legal risks. This leads to the recognition that the legal risks must be minimised to enable such projects to be financed. This is followed by a discussion of the principles of international space law, particularly dealing with state responsibility and international liability, as well as some of the issues arising from space mining activities. Much detail is devoted to the analysis of the content of the common heritage of mankind doctrine. The monograph then attempts to balance such interests in creating a legal and policy compromise to create a new regulatory regime.