Asteroids as a Resource

Recently, the company planetary resources unveiled their plan to mine asteroids. Their approach to this extremely challenging task by trying to get there in 4 different stages, seems to be a practical. They are planning to mine asteroids for platinum group metals and water. With all this attention to mining from outer space it is worthwhile to consider whether asteroids actually have the potential to be a resource that is economical to exploit.

There is no denying that asteroids contain valuable metals and water in abundance. But these are even found on earth. At the moment there is no shortage of platinum here on earth although it is quite expensive due to the costly extraction process. Unless platinum occurs as pure metal on asteroids, processing will still have to be done, and doing it in outer space is going to be even more difficult.

Looking at this situation it might seem a better option to invest on the existing platinum mining and processing here on earth in order to make it more efficient. However mining from asteroids has the advantage of avoiding the environmental damage created by mining on earth. Also if the platinum demand rises sharply within the next few decades and if it becomes increasingly difficult and costly to mine for platinum on earth, mining it from asteroids will be the best solution.

Although lots of minerals and metals are found in the crust of the earth, most of the heavier metals such as iron and nickel lie inside the core of the earth due to the gradual gravitational sinking of these metals during the formation of the earth. Asteroids however are mostly of small sizes and therefore in most cases the metals are somewhat evenly distributed throughout the volume of the asteroid. This makes mining easier. Even in larger asteroids where metals have settled like on earth, accessing it will be easier.

The other important resource that is planned to mine form asteroids is water. A source of water outside earth is valuable because it would no longer be necessary to carry a heavy load of water in future space missions. It would also pave the way to colonization in space since one of the main challenges faced in such a situation is finding access to an appreciable reserve of water.

If the constituents of water, Hydrogen and Oxygen are separated, they can be used to power rockets. This could also one day lead to fuel stations in space which will not only reduce the cost of space travel but also widen our reach in space. Having both fuel and water readily available in space, our dream to colonize in space will come closer to us.

Mining asteroids seems a far fetched idea and it might not look like it is economical at a first glance. But this situation will change in the future and sometimes asteroid mining might be the only option. We will be able to advance only if we plan for the future and act accordingly. We should remember that before the internal combustion engine was invented, commercial drilling of petroleum seemed unnecessary..

image from : wikipedia