“The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event”
This statement by Elon Musk illustrates the seriousness of the problem for human civilization of forever being confined to Earth. And while one of Musk’s long-term plans is to develop a colony on Mars and enable our civilization to become a multiplanetary species, it begs the question with what resources we will be able to build and sustain such colonies.
Due to the strong growth forecasts of emerging and developed markets and a resulting increasing demand, experts from the World Bureau of Metal Statistics expect that most of Earth’s natural non-renewable resources will be depleted within 50 years. More specifically, they published a report in 2012 displaying the following numbers based on current and estimated growth and extraction rates:
These numbers state that Earth’s resources will be gone very soon. Yet, in recent years technology has advanced so much that we are beginning to understand how to mine resources that are not on Earth, but on asteroids, which conveniently happen to have an abundance of precious resources. This idea of mining resources from near-Earth asteroids is known as asteroid mining.
There are around 16,000 near-Earth (between Earth and Mars) asteroids that have similar orbits like the Earth and have a relatively low velocity which makes operations on them much easier. NASA estimated that the value of the asteroids within the entire asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, could exceed $700 quintillion. That’s 700 times a million times a million times a million – it’s simply mindboggling. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
According to the company Planetary Resources, a pioneer in the field of asteroid mining, there is an estimated amount of around two trillion tonnes of water available on near-Earth asteroids. This water, which will initially be in the form of ice, could be used as propellant for spacecrafts to travel further into space or to sustain human life on or off Earth. Other resources found on Asteroids include gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead, palladium and other valuable metals.
These new resources could serve several purposes: 1) fuel the growth of humanity into new ventures 2) construct service space platforms or 3) support growing demand on Earth. Worth noting here, however, is that it’s likely not going to be very economical in the near future to mine the resources in space and bring them back to Earth. The transportation costs would outweigh the value of the resources. Rather, the resources would need to be mined and processed on the celestial body and utilized in space.
The first step in the process of asteroid mining involves the selection of an appropriate target. Mining firms will be scanning the skies with powerful telescopes to find near-Earth asteroids with a velocity of around 5.5 to 8.0 km/s (i.e. 19,800 to 28,800 km/h). Asteroids will then usually be classed into one of three categories: C-Type, S-Type or M-Type.
C-Type: These types of asteroids are the most common ones, accounting for around 75% of known asteroids. They contain a vast amount of water, carbon and phosphorus which can be used to support the establishing of colonies or other mining operations in space.
S-Type: These stony asteroids are the second most common asteroids, forming around 17% of all known asteroids. They are most often found in the inner part of the asteroid belt and contain a large part of magnesium, nickel and iron.
M-Type: These metallic Asteroids are made up of mostly nickel-iron and are found in the middle region of the asteroid belt. They distinguish themselves from the S-Type by having around 10 times more soil, gravel and minable ore.
The S and M-Type asteroids would certainly be the most profitable for mining companies as they contain the largest amount of valuable metals. And while the C-Type asteroids will not be the main targets of “for-profit” organizations, they will be immensely important for long term space endeavours.
Asterank.com, an asteroid data base, used various data such as asteroid composition and mass to estimate the economics of the most significant asteroids. The following table provided by them gives an indication of the potential of this new market.
Looking at these numbers, it is understandable why experts state that the first trillionaire will emerge from asteroid mining. And while this might not happen within our lifetime, once the space mining industry is sufficiently developed, the chances are not that bad that this industry will form new trillionaires, they might not be the first trillionaires, but I guess that is something they would be able to live with. Eventually, being listed on Forbes Billionaire list will not attract as much attention as it does right now.
The next steps in the asteroid mining process involve the selection of targets, the approach with the necessary technology, the actual mining operation and finally the transport of the mined resources to its final destination. Developing the technology and machinery for this entire process will need significant influence from the fields of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and 3D Printing. Having humans on the asteroids itself to oversee the mining process will be complicated due to the low surface gravity of these bodies. The low surface gravity also affects the structure and design of the mining machineries as they will have to withstand different forces than on Earth and the Moon.
Having briefly touched upon the purpose and benefits of asteroid mining, I wanted to look at the legal side of asteroid mining. Is it even legal and which laws govern this entire process? This happens to be a large topic in the legal world.
The United Nations Outer Space Treaty from 1967, provides the basic framework on international space law. Its declarations include: “The exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind; outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation.”
In November 2015, Obama signed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act which gave U.S citizen and commercial entities the explicit right to own, sell and use resources extracted from space. These rights are meant to encourage the advancement of the space resource industry as humanity expands its reach into the solar system.
Similarly, Luxembourg, in 2015, initiated a law that ensured that private operators can be confident about their rights on resources they extract in space.
But are these laws passed in the U.S and in Luxembourg even legal, considering the UN Outer Space Treaty? The U.S and Luxembourg state their laws are consistent with the treaty, as no sovereign nation is laying claim to an area of outer space. Rather it is just private entities that are laying claim on individual resources.
We will have to wait until the first company brings back their mined resources from space mining, to see if this argument holds up in the international courts.
This development of potentially evolving into a multiplanetary species, with large scale mining operations going on in space, is probably one of the most exciting and surreal developments ever. However, I don’t want to convey the picture that asteroid mining solves all problems and comes with no adverse side effects. Just think about it:
The legal conflict that could arise between space giants such as the U.S, China and Russia on who gets to own what, could potentially be one of the major conflicts coming up that could spill over to political and economical distress.
Furthermore, the economic viability of asteroid mining is still in question. It is still extremely expensive to launch space rockets and to develop the necessary technology. NASA’s Osiris-Rex expedition, which aims to bring only two kilos of asteroid material to Earth by 2023, is said to cost $1bn. Jeff Bezos, who founded the space company Blue Origin in 2000, said that if we can reduce the cost of launch by a factor of ten and then by a factor of hundred, we will be living in a completely new world. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has already pushed launch costs down by as much as 75% by using their ground-breaking reusable rocket technology. In December of 2017, SpaceX became the first company to launch a reused rocket on a NASA mission. “Rapid and complete reusability is really the key to opening up space” Musk explained.
The possibilities of asteroid mining are endless – however we are not there yet. Economic and technological limitations are still restricting companies in making further progress in this field. Nevertheless, it is one of the most exciting operations out there and could get us one step closer to the possibility of being born on Earth and dying peacefully on Mars.