Sending a spacecraft to the far reaches of our solar system to mine asteroids might seem like an improbable ambition best left to science fiction. But it’s inching closer to reality. A NASA mission is underway to test the feasibility on a nearby asteroid, and a niche group of companies is ramping up to claim a piece of the pie.
Industry barons see a future in finding and harnessing water on asteroids for rocket fuel, which will allow astronauts and spacecrafts to stay in orbit for longer periods. Investors, including Richard Branson, China’s Tencent Holdings and the nation of Luxembourg, see a longer-term solution to replenishing materials such as iron and nickel as Earth’s natural resources are depleted.
Millions of asteroids roam our solar system. Most are thought unsuitable for mining, either because they’re too small, too inaccessible to Earth or because the materials that make up the asteroid have little value. But we know of almost 1,000 asteroids that show potential. Timing is everything, though. The varied orbits of these asteroids mean that many are nearby only once every several years.
The estimated potential value of some of these asteroids–assuming you could completely mine them, and assuming current market valuations–is so substantial as to be barely comprehensible. The most valuable known asteroid is estimated to be worth $15 quintillion, according to Asterank, a database owned by Planetary Resources, a company that aims to mine asteroids. That represents the world’s total gross domestic product (about $80 trillion) 192,283 times over. (...)
Osiris-Rex, a U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration spacecraft, is on its way to a near-Earth asteroid to check out whether it will be viable for extracting water and minerals.
It’s expected to reach the asteroid, Bennu, in December, becoming the first U.S. mission to retrieve a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth to be studied, said Dante Lauretta, a University of Arizona professor, who is working in conjunction with NASA as he oversees the mission.
“We’re interested in finding sources of water for furthering exploration,” Lauretta said in an interview. “Anytime you’re involved in space flight, it’s a risky business. We have a lot of technologies to overcome the challenges of navigating a spacecraft around the asteroid.”
Bennu comes very close to Earth every six years and scientists estimate that asteroids of its type are made of about 10 percent iron and nickel. Asterank values Bennu at $670 million, though Lauretta says too little is known about Bennu’s composition to understand its potential value.
During its time at Bennu, the spacecraft will analyze the asteroid’s shape and chemistry, sample its surface materials and collect data on its orbit so scientists can determine the likelihood of it crashing into Earth in the future. The spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth in 2023, he said.
“The next iron age is going to be in space as people use technology to build communities,” said Chris Lewicki, president of Planetary Resources, one of the first movers on asteroid mining. The company aims to launch a mission by 2020 to identify water resources in asteroids.
Mining will take longer, but he says that shouldn't surprise anyone. It’s “not unusual” for mining projects on Earth to take upwards of 15 years before they're productive, he said.
Lewicki expects the space economy could morph into at least a $1 trillion market as mining picks up. “It’s unchartered territory.”
The U.S. isn’t the only country eyeing intergalactic mining. Tiny Luxembourg wants to become the space hub of the European Union. It passed a law in 2017 that gives companies the rights to whatever they extract from asteroids. The U.S. has similar rules in its 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. Setting early ground rules was the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, administered by the UN’s Vienna-based Office for Outer Space Affairs. It keeps space free of all national sovereignty or ownership claims–plus nuclear weapons–and restricts the use of the moon and other space bodies to peaceful purposes. It was signed by about 60 countries, including the U.S.
by Susanne Barton and Hannah Recht, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Industry barons see a future in finding and harnessing water on asteroids for rocket fuel, which will allow astronauts and spacecrafts to stay in orbit for longer periods. Investors, including Richard Branson, China’s Tencent Holdings and the nation of Luxembourg, see a longer-term solution to replenishing materials such as iron and nickel as Earth’s natural resources are depleted.
Millions of asteroids roam our solar system. Most are thought unsuitable for mining, either because they’re too small, too inaccessible to Earth or because the materials that make up the asteroid have little value. But we know of almost 1,000 asteroids that show potential. Timing is everything, though. The varied orbits of these asteroids mean that many are nearby only once every several years.The estimated potential value of some of these asteroids–assuming you could completely mine them, and assuming current market valuations–is so substantial as to be barely comprehensible. The most valuable known asteroid is estimated to be worth $15 quintillion, according to Asterank, a database owned by Planetary Resources, a company that aims to mine asteroids. That represents the world’s total gross domestic product (about $80 trillion) 192,283 times over. (...)
Osiris-Rex, a U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration spacecraft, is on its way to a near-Earth asteroid to check out whether it will be viable for extracting water and minerals.
It’s expected to reach the asteroid, Bennu, in December, becoming the first U.S. mission to retrieve a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth to be studied, said Dante Lauretta, a University of Arizona professor, who is working in conjunction with NASA as he oversees the mission.
“We’re interested in finding sources of water for furthering exploration,” Lauretta said in an interview. “Anytime you’re involved in space flight, it’s a risky business. We have a lot of technologies to overcome the challenges of navigating a spacecraft around the asteroid.”
Bennu comes very close to Earth every six years and scientists estimate that asteroids of its type are made of about 10 percent iron and nickel. Asterank values Bennu at $670 million, though Lauretta says too little is known about Bennu’s composition to understand its potential value.
During its time at Bennu, the spacecraft will analyze the asteroid’s shape and chemistry, sample its surface materials and collect data on its orbit so scientists can determine the likelihood of it crashing into Earth in the future. The spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth in 2023, he said.
“The next iron age is going to be in space as people use technology to build communities,” said Chris Lewicki, president of Planetary Resources, one of the first movers on asteroid mining. The company aims to launch a mission by 2020 to identify water resources in asteroids.
Mining will take longer, but he says that shouldn't surprise anyone. It’s “not unusual” for mining projects on Earth to take upwards of 15 years before they're productive, he said.
Lewicki expects the space economy could morph into at least a $1 trillion market as mining picks up. “It’s unchartered territory.”
The U.S. isn’t the only country eyeing intergalactic mining. Tiny Luxembourg wants to become the space hub of the European Union. It passed a law in 2017 that gives companies the rights to whatever they extract from asteroids. The U.S. has similar rules in its 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. Setting early ground rules was the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, administered by the UN’s Vienna-based Office for Outer Space Affairs. It keeps space free of all national sovereignty or ownership claims–plus nuclear weapons–and restricts the use of the moon and other space bodies to peaceful purposes. It was signed by about 60 countries, including the U.S.
by Susanne Barton and Hannah Recht, Bloomberg | Read more:
Image: NASA/Kim Shiflett
