 Why was Altair regarded at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value?
Interplanetary ruling. I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. You walk into a newly opened planet with your smart little bag of tricks, walk in here with a shaky passport and no permit, with no knowledge of the natives outside of two paragraphs of inaccuracies in the Explorer's Guide, and even then you're not content to come in and sell something legitimate, something the natives might conceivably be able to use. No, nothing so simple for you. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing to sell all the trading possibilities here down the river just to get you out of a mess. I'm here to keep you from botching things up still worse for the Trading Commission, that's all. Trading brought scalpers; it was almost inevitable that where rich and unexploited trading ground was uncovered, it would first fall prey to the fast-trading boys. The first men in were the richest out, and through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and underhand their methods. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word.
 They have a large reservoir of 'unclaimed' uranium
 They do not understand the loopholes in the trading laws  They have a large amount of 'unclaimed' land  They were an ideal location for an interplanetary prison system  They have a large reservoir of 'unclaimed' uranium