How about mining natural resources from asteroids? There are more of these resources on asteroids than have been mined in the entire history of the Earth.
In literally 100 years, all wars for resources can be completed simply because we will have access to unlimited wealth lying in our backyard - in our solar system.
Is it possible? What can we mine in space? Will it really bring peace to our world, or will it spark new conflicts and competition? Perhaps looking at the past and the future will help us answer some of these questions.
Never fiction
Literally over the past two years, quite a few events have occurred in our world, which made it possible to speak with confidence about the extraction of resources from stone debris, aimlessly wandering around our star system.
One of the companies planning to mine resources on asteroids, Planetary Resources, launched its first spacecraft from the International Space Station. This was the second attempt by the company after the first, which failed along with the unsuccessful launch of the Antares.
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Another asteroid miner, Deep Space Industries (DSI), has won two NASA grants. One of them was aimed at exploring the possibility of creating rocket fuel from asteroid materials, and the other was aimed at creating an asteroid regolith simulator so that equipment could be tested on Earth. DSI was then awarded a contract to help build the BitSat satellite, transmitting Bitcoin transactions.
The Australian Space Research Center at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), in conjunction with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also received funding to study the possibility of producing water to support NASA's planned Martian colony.
In the US, the ASTEROIDS Act (such an acronym) was successfully renamed the Space Exploration and Utilization Act and was approved by Congress. It must close the gaps in the Outer Space Agreement related to ownership of space resources.
According to the law, "any resources mined in outer space are the property of the person who mined those resources and, therefore, are subject to property rights, in accordance with applicable federal law."
A UNSW study found that for a single, iron-rich asteroid, given the existence of a market and other assumptions, investments would be recouped in 85 years if the ore is sent to Earth, and only 5 years if used in space.
Not so expensive
Despite all this activity, skeptics question the prospects of space mining in terms of money and time. Obviously, mining resources in space will be costly. The total budget for the project, which sent Curiosity to Mars and contained for 14 years, was $ 2.5 billion.
But mining resources on Earth is also expensive. Development and production costs are estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. The companies spend this money trying to find new earth deposits. The extraction of fossil resources takes tens of years.
The time and cost framework will be comparable to the space one. Why not just start going out into space and mining there? It should be. Where to start? Let's start with research that suggests that using iron ore in space is much easier than returning it to Earth (assuming there is a market in space).
For high-value commodities like rare earth minerals or platinum-group metals, you can consider sending them to Earth, but “normal” resources that can be mined in space are best used there.
A common argument is that launching a payload from Earth into space costs $ 20,000 per kilogram, so if you produce that kilogram in space for less than $ 20,000, you can save a lot and get a profit.
SpaceX, for example, publishes its launch costs on the site. The current figure for the Falcon 9 is $ 12,600. But so far there is no market as such and it may be necessary to artificially push it (for example, NASA may conclude a contract for the delivery of water in orbit).
Without such a push, the initial demand for water may appear in the space tourism sector, but it is more likely that the field of satellite refueling will develop more actively. Water can be split into oxygen and hydrogen, then used as fuel for satellites.
World Peace or Wild West?
When it comes to world peace, there are a number of problems with the US Space Law, since it is inconsistent with existing treaties and is likely to be ignored in other countries, thus not having legal force. But over time, slow processes will finally put everything in a legal framework. And yet, before peace comes to space, it is possible that, for example, space piracy will develop.
In November, Sydney will host a meeting of world leaders and representatives of space mining companies to discuss the challenges of future resource extraction beyond Earth.
In order to achieve maximum interaction between space experts and experts in the mining industry, it was decided to combine this event with the third Future Mining Conference. Perhaps, after it has passed, we will learn a lot of new and promising things about this, of course, an interesting milestone in our future.