Seemingly everyone is excited about asteroids these days. Earlier this year, analysts from Goldman Sachs told investors that the price of mining space rocks has never been cheaper. And the potential rewards are enormous: in 2023, a Nasa probe will visit one asteroid containing an estimated $10,000-quadrillion worth of iron ore. So who among the world’s spacefaring nations is ready to start extracting that value? You probably didn’t guess Luxembourg, the European banking hub with a population not much bigger than the US state of Albuquerque. But on August 1, a new law goes into effect there that could serve as a model for other small countries hoping to explore asteroids — and to get a piece of the booming space business. Luxembourg’s interest in the field is longstanding. In 1985, its government was a major supporter of Europe’s first private satellite operator, which eventually paid huge dividends: SES SA, as it’s now known, is the biggest satellite operator in the world, and Luxem...
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