Space mining: the new goldrush

[Elderberry]

Science Focus By Elizabeth Pearson 11th December, 2018

While space mining is still a decade or so off, next year the industry is ramping up their efforts.

The asteroid belt is brimming with metals – everything from iron and nickel, to gold and platinum. It’s estimated there is at least $700 billion billion worth of mineral wealth in the belt, and companies are being set up all around the world to plunder these resources in a gold rush for the 21st century.

“It’s the next boom industry. Once you set up the infrastructure then the possibilities are almost infinite. There’s an astronomical amount of money to be made by those bold enough to rise to the challenge of the asteroid rush,” says Mitch Hunter-Scullion, who founded the UK-based Asteroid Mining Company just after leaving university. The company plans to launch its first prospecting satellite in 2020 and start mining operations in space by 2030.

But there is more to space mining than a gold rush for the sci-fi age. Taking mining off Earth could help relieve humanity’s destruction of our planet’s environment. Society’s hunger for technology is fed by the rare earth metals needed to make the electronics inside our latest gadgets. Mining these metals causes a huge amount of damage to both the surrounding ecosystem and the miners.

“On Earth, rare earth metals are mined under highly toxic and unethical conditions,” says Hunter-Scullion. “[With space mining] you can’t exploit a robot. And it moves all of the polluting industries into deep space, where there is no delicate biosphere to damage. I imagine a future where the Earth will be the protected garden of the Solar System, and all the heavily polluting industries will move off into orbital factories built around captured asteroids or lunar industrial complexes.”

New mines in space could also provide a new source of rare elements to help create the tools we need to alleviate the current environmental crisis. Solar panels, electric cars and energy- saving light bulbs all rely on elements that are increasingly rare on Earth, such as platinum.

More: https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/space-mining-the-new-goldrush/

[thackney]

The US Geological Survey Is Getting Serious About Space Resources and Mining
https://www.space.com/41707-space-mining-usgs-resource-survey.html
September 4, 2018

..."The USGS has been paying steadily increasing attention to the issue of space resources for the last several years," Kestay told Space.com. The drivers for this are diverse, he said. For example, the U.S. human space program seems to be focusing on missions to deep space, where space resources are extremely valuable. Furthermore, commercial efforts to extract space resources are growing in maturity.

Kestay pointed to the USGS' increased responsibility for the Landsat satellites, a venerable series of Earth-observing spacecraft. The USGS is now considered one of the U.S. space agencies, he said.

"The USGS realized that our congressional mandate to assess natural resources extends to space," Kestay said.

At this time, the USGS does not have a funded program to conduct full-scale assessments of space resources. "But we are anticipating that the USGS may be directed to do so soon, and we are taking a number of steps to be prepared for that possibility," he said....

[LaRueLaDue]

Seems to me they are putting the cart before the horse here. We haven't even attempted to land a human being on the moon or any other orbiting body since the 1970s, much less mine, extract and return to earth any valuable ore. We might have the technology, but it is not tested nor proved.

Space mining is a pipe dream, at this point in time.