It was done under the Treaty. It would be next to impossible to beat that. The easiest way out is for the Pres to simply withdraw the USA from the Treaty. My Senator says ‘. . . withdrawing from the Space Treaty may eventually prove a necessary step . . .’ However, if no one seems to be getting the necessary cash together to do space mining, it won’t be necessary. Catch 22, sort of.
I agree with you that it’s a Catch 22: without the property rights, getting funding together is tough, and without the funding, prompting property rights’ emergence is tough.
Bush will likely remain dormant r/e the OST for the reasons that I somewhat unforgivingly mentioned above specifically regarding the OST.
It would help if we could lower the cost of launching though, as that makes it easier to get out into space and make the property rights in space more of a live issue. NASA should be offering prizes for space launches. It has been given the authority (back in Dec. of ‘05). Why isn’t it? Can you spell >monopolistic corruption<? Sigh...