Really? Harmful contamination? Really?
The treaty also states that outer space shall be the “province of all mankind … and that states shall avoid harmful contamination of space".
You mean with the amount of satellite housings, dead comms birds, spent stages, spent geosynchronous orbit boosters and floating radioactive material that is ALREADY up there in sufficient quantities to present a not-insignificant hazard to further spaceflight that we *HAVEN'T* contaminated space? Or at least near-Earth space?
http://ota.fas.org/reports/9033.pdf
Also - if i'm totally honest, I don't have a problem with the story at all. If some company wants to spend a fortune to massively push forwards human spaceflight capabilities to the extent we can not only REACH other (sub-)planetoids, but be able to mine them (either by advanced robotics, or by sending humans there a la 'Armageddon'), potentially sustaining life in space for an indefinite period, developing the technology that can be used to send humans to other 'proper' planets (think Mars) and all the rest of the stuff they'd need to develop to be able to exploit the practically infinite resources in the asteroid belt alone, meaning we don't need to carry on doing it on this planet - then you know what?
I'm perfectly happy for a company to be able to "lay claim" to a particular asteroid they've reached, and to then be able to exploit that asteroid for profit. It's when the USA starts planting flags on Mars and pretending it belongs to them and them alone; or claiming the entire asteroid belt just because they've landed on a single rock; or anything like that I'd have a problem with.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
