Blog #23, Free Form Post, Asteroid Mining

There is quite a bit of intersection when it comes to astronomy and economics. Unfortunately, usually that pertains to how much money should be cut from national budgets funding space programs. Luckily all of the research and discovery over the past few decades has led to a new a branch of space exploration that may actually bring in huge profits to space companies. Asteroid mining is a hot new branch of space exploration focused on extracting rare metals and gasses from asteroids or other near-earth space objects and bringing using the goods to turn a substantial profit.

The two main companies focused on asteroid mining right now are Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries. Each is a venture backed startup that looks to put its own mining devices onto asteroids and mine for precious materials. The first, and most immediately exciting, prospect of asteroid mining is the money. Researchers believe that in a single asteroid, 1km in diameter, could contain enough nickel ore to supply the Earth for the next 70 million years.



Beyond nickel, iron, and gold, asteroid miners are most excited about the vast abundance of platinum in space. Platinum is relatively rare on the Earth but makes up a significant portion of many asteroids. In a recent article from Space.com, it was predicted that asteroid 2011 UW158 missed the Earth by about 1.5 million miles, roughly the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Although not a very close miss, the asteroid got potential miners very excited as it was predicted to hold up to $20 trillion dollars worth of platinum at the current market price. Trillion. With a t. These kinds of prices are what gets Planetary Resources' engineers to work every morning and what keeps thousands of investors interested in the somewhat crazy sounding business plan.

Still there are skeptics that criticize the idea of mining as a significant waste of money. They argue that the cost of a trip in addition the experimentation and all of the materials required to actually land on an asteroid and extract anything useful far outweigh the current market for the materials they look to bring back to Earth. Economists also argue that such an influx in precious metals may saturate the market, deeming the metals brought back essentially useless, and certainly not worth $20 trillion.

Regardless of who is correct in the economic debate, the prospect of consistently bringing material back to Earth for commercial use is certainly an entertaining prospect. It is exciting to live in a time where the technology is available and ever progressing, allowing humans to do things that were previously considered a dream or a goal far out of reach.

Sources:
http://www.planetaryresources.com/company/overview/
http://www.space.com/30074-trillion-dollar-asteroid-2011-uw158-earth-flyby.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLouRKHknOU
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/04/SEP_Airlock_Concept.jpg
https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/10153/area14mp/35vqmr6c-1335830904.jpg