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Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from
asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
s and other
minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...
s, including
near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...
s. Notable asteroid mining challenges include the high cost of
spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...
, unreliable identification of asteroids which are suitable for mining, and the challenges of extracting usable material in a space environment. Asteroid
sample return A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as lo ...
research missions (see completed missions ''
Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C fo ...
'' and '' Hayabusa2'' and in-progress ''
OSIRIS-REx OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission. The mission's primary goal is to obtain a sample of at least from 101955 Bennu, a carbona ...
'') illustrate the challenges of collecting ore from space using current technology. As of 2021, less than 1 gram of asteroid material has been successfully returned to Earth from space. In progress missions promise to increase this amount to approximately 60 grams (two ounces). Asteroid research missions are complex endeavors and return a tiny amount of material (less than 1 milligram ''Hayabusa'', 100 milligrams ''Hayabusa2'', 60 grams planned ''OSIRIS-REx'') relative to the size and expense of these projects ($300 million ''Hayabusa'', $800 million ''Hayabusa2'', $1.16 billion ''OSIRIS-REx''). After a burst of interest in the 2010s, asteroid mining ambitions have shifted to more distant long-term goals and some 'asteroid mining' companies have pivoted to more general-purpose propulsion technology. The history of asteroid mining is brief but features a gradual development. Ideas of which asteroids to prospect, how to gather resources, and what to do with those resources evolve over the decades.


History


Prior to 1970

Before 1970, asteroid mining existed largely within the realm of science fiction. Stories such as ''Worlds of If'', ''Scavengers in Space'', and ''Miners in the Sky'' told stories about the conceived dangers, motives, and experiences of mining asteroids. At the same time, many researchers in academia speculated about the profits that could be gained from asteroid mining, but they lacked the technology to seriously pursue the idea.


The 1970s

The 1969 Moon Landing spurred a wave of scientific interest in human space activity far beyond the Earth's orbit. As the decade continued, more and more academic interest surrounded the topic of asteroid mining. A good deal of serious academic consideration was aimed at mining asteroids located closer to Earth than the main asteroid belt. In particular, the asteroid groups Apollo and Amor were considered. These groups were chosen not only because of their proximity to Earth but also because many at the time thought they were rich in raw materials that could be refined. Despite the wave of interest, many in the space science community were aware of how little was known about asteroids and encouraged a more gradual and systematic approach to asteroid mining.


The 1980s

Academic interest in asteroid mining continued into the 1980s. The idea of targeting the Apollo and Amor asteroid groups still had some popularity. However, by the late 1980s the interest in the Apollo and Amor asteroid groups is being replaced with interest in the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Organizations like NASA begin to formulate ideas of how to process materials in space and what to do with the materials that are hypothetically gathered from space.


The 1990s

New reasons emerge for pursuing asteroid mining. These reasons tend to revolve around environmental concerns, such as fears over humans over-consuming the Earth's natural resources and trying to capture energy from the Sun in space. In the same decade, NASA is trying to establish what materials in asteroids could be valuable for extraction. These materials include free-metals, volatiles, and bulk dirt.


Minerals in space

As
resource depletion Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources (see also mineral resource classification). Use of either ...
on Earth becomes more real, the idea of extracting valuable elements from asteroids and returning these to
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
for profit, or using space-based resources to build solar-power satellites and space habitats, becomes more attractive. Hypothetically, water processed from ice could refuel orbiting
propellant depot An orbital propellant depot is a cache of propellant that is placed in orbit around Earth or another body to allow spacecraft or the transfer stage of the spacecraft to be fueled in space. It is one of the types of space resource depots that ...
s. Although
asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
and
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
accreted from the same starting materials, Earth's relatively stronger gravity pulled all heavy siderophilic (iron-loving) elements into its core during its molten youth more than four billion years ago. This left the crust depleted of such valuable elements until a rain of asteroid impacts re-infused the depleted crust with metals like
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
,
cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, pr ...
,
iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
,
manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
,
molybdenum Molybdenum is a chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42 which is located in period 5 and group 6. The name is from Neo-Latin ''molybdaenum'', which is based on Ancient Greek ', meaning lead, since its ores were confused with lea ...
,
nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
, osmium,
palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...
,
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...
,
rhenium Rhenium is a chemical element with the symbol Re and atomic number 75. It is a silvery-gray, heavy, third-row transition metal in group 7 of the periodic table. With an estimated average concentration of 1 part per billion (ppb), rhenium is one ...
,
rhodium Rhodium is a chemical element with the symbol Rh and atomic number 45. It is a very rare, silvery-white, hard, corrosion-resistant transition metal. It is a noble metal and a member of the platinum group. It has only one naturally occurring i ...
,
ruthenium Ruthenium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ru and atomic number 44. It is a rare transition metal belonging to the platinum group of the periodic table. Like the other metals of the platinum group, ruthenium is inert to ...
and
tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolat ...
(some flow from core to surface does occur, e.g. at the
Bushveld Igneous Complex The Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) is the largest layered igneous intrusion within the Earth's crust. It has been tilted and eroded forming the outcrops around what appears to be the edge of a great geological basin: the Transvaal Basin. It i ...
, a famously rich source of
platinum-group The platinum-group metals (abbreviated as the PGMs; alternatively, the platinoids, platinides, platidises, platinum group, platinum metals, platinum family or platinum-group elements (PGEs)) are six noble, precious metallic elements clustered t ...
metals). Today, these metals are mined from Earth's crust, and they are essential for economic and technological progress. Hence, the geologic history of Earth may very well set the stage for a future of asteroid mining. In 2006, the
Keck Observatory The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and when co ...
announced that the binary Jupiter trojan 617 Patroclus, and possibly large numbers of other Jupiter trojans, are likely
extinct comet An extinct comet is a comet that has expelled most of its volatile ice and has little left to form a tail and coma. In a dormant comet, rather than being depleted, any remaining volatile components have been sealed beneath an inactive surface la ...
s and consist largely of water ice. Similarly, Jupiter-family comets, and possibly near-Earth asteroids that are extinct comets, might also provide water. The process of
in-situ resource utilization In space exploration, in situ resource utilization (ISRU) is the practice of collection, processing, storing and use of materials found or manufactured on other astronomical objects (the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc.) that replace materials th ...
—using materials native to space for propellant, thermal management, tankage, radiation shielding, and other high-mass components of
space infrastructure Human presence in space is about humanity in space, particularly about all anthropogenic presence in space and human activity in space, that is in outer space and in a broader sense also on any extraterrestrial astronomical body. Humans have ...
—could lead to radical reductions in its cost. Although whether these cost reductions could be achieved, and if achieved would offset the enormous infrastructure investment required, is unknown. From the
astrobiological Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investig ...
perspective, asteroid prospecting could provide scientific data for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (
SETI The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...
). Some astrophysicists have suggested that if advanced extraterrestrial civilizations employed asteroid mining long ago, the hallmarks of these activities might be detectable. An important factor to consider in target selection is orbital economics, in particular the change in velocity ( Δv) and travel time to and from the target. More of the extracted native material must be expended as propellant in higher Δv trajectories, thus less returned as payload. Direct Hohmann trajectories are faster than Hohmann trajectories assisted by planetary and/or lunar flybys, which in turn are faster than those of the
Interplanetary Transport Network The Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN) is a collection of gravitationally determined pathways through the Solar System that require very little energy for an object to follow. The ITN makes particular use of Lagrange points as locations wh ...
, but the reduction in transfer time comes at the cost of increased Δv requirements. The Easily Recoverable Object (ERO) subclass of Near-Earth asteroids are considered likely candidates for early mining activity. Their low Δv makes them suitable for use in extracting construction materials for near-Earth space-based facilities, greatly reducing the economic cost of transporting supplies into Earth orbit. The table above shows a comparison of Δv requirements for various missions. In terms of propulsion energy requirements, a mission to a near-Earth asteroid compares favorably to alternative mining missions. An example of a potential target for an early asteroid mining expedition is 4660 Nereus, expected to be mainly enstatite. This body has a very low Δv compared to lifting materials from the surface of the Moon. However, it would require a much longer round-trip to return the material. Multiple types of asteroids have been identified but the three main types would include the C-type, S-type, and M-type asteroids: #
C-type asteroid C-type (carbonaceous) asteroids are the most common variety, forming around 75% of known asteroids. They are volatile-rich and distinguished by a very low albedo because their composition includes a large amount of carbon, in addition to rocks ...
s have a high abundance of water which is not currently of use for mining but could be used in an exploration effort beyond the asteroid. Mission costs could be reduced by using the available water from the asteroid. C-type asteroids also have high amounts of organic
carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...
,
phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...
, and other key ingredients for
fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
which could be used to grow food. #
S-type asteroid S-type asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the secon ...
s carry little water but are more attractive because they contain numerous metals, including nickel, cobalt, and more valuable metals, such as gold, platinum, and rhodium. A small 10-meter S-type asteroid contains about of metal with in the form of rare metals like platinum and gold. #
M-type asteroid M-type (aka M-class) asteroids are a spectral class of asteroids which appear to contain higher concentrations of metal phases (e.g. iron-nickel) than other asteroid classes, and are widely thought to be the source of iron meteorites. Definition ...
s are rare but contain up to 10 times more metal than S-types. A class of ''easily retrievable objects'' (EROs) was identified by a group of researchers in 2013. Twelve asteroids made up the initially identified group, all of which could be potentially mined with present-day rocket technology. Of 9,000 asteroids searched in the NEO database, these twelve could all be brought into an Earth-accessible orbit by changing their
velocity Velocity is the directional speed of an object in motion as an indication of its rate of change in position as observed from a particular frame of reference and as measured by a particular standard of time (e.g. northbound). Velocity is a ...
by less than . The dozen asteroids range in size from .


Asteroid cataloging

The
B612 Foundation The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation headquartered in Mill Valley, California, United States, dedicated to planetary science and planetary defense against asteroids and other near-Earth object (NEO) impacts. It is led mainl ...
is a private
nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...
with headquarters in the United States, dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid strikes. As a
non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
it has conducted two lines of related research to help detect asteroids that could one day strike Earth, and find the technological means to divert their path to avoid such collisions. The foundation's 2013 goal was to design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding
space telescope A space telescope or space observatory is a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects. Suggested by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, the first operational telescopes were the American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, OAO-2 launched ...
,
Sentinel Sentinel may refer to: Places Mountains * Mount Sentinel, a mountain next to the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana * Sentinel Buttress, a volcanic crag on James Ross Island, Antarctica * Sentinel Dome, a naturally occurring grani ...
, hoping in 2013 to launch it in 2017–2018. The Sentinel's infrared telescope, once parked in an orbit similar to that of
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...
, is designed to help identify threatening asteroids by cataloging 90% of those with diameters larger than , as well as surveying smaller Solar System objects. Broad, William J
Vindication for Entrepreneurs Watching Sky: Yes, It Can Fall
, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' website, February 16, 2013 and in print on February 17, 2013, p. A1 of the New York edition. Retrieved June 27, 2014.
After
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
terminated their $30 million funding agreement with the B612 Foundation in October 2015 and the private fundraising did not achieve its goals, the Foundation eventually opted for an alternative approach using a constellation of much smaller spacecraft which is under study . NASA/ JPL's NEOCam has been proposed instead.


Mining considerations

There are four options for mining: # In-space manufacturing (ISM), which may be enabled by
biomining Biomining is the technique of extracting metals from ores and other solid materials typically using prokaryotes, fungi or plants (phytoextraction also known as phytomining or biomining). These organisms secrete different organic compounds that ...
. # Bring raw asteroidal material to Earth for use. # Process it on-site to bring back only processed materials, and perhaps produce propellant for the return trip. # Transport the asteroid to a safe orbit around the Moon or Earth or to the ISS. This can hypothetically allow for most materials to be used and not wasted. Processing ''in situ'' for the purpose of extracting high-value minerals will reduce the energy requirements for transporting the materials, although the processing facilities must first be transported to the mining site. ''In situ'' mining will involve drilling boreholes and injecting hot fluid/gas and allow the useful material to react or melt with the solvent and extract the solute. Due to the weak gravitational fields of asteroids, any activities, like drilling, will cause large disturbances and form dust clouds. These might be confined by some dome or bubble barrier. Or else some means of rapidly dissipating any dust could be provided for. Mining operations require special equipment to handle the extraction and processing of ore in outer space. The machinery will need to be anchored to the body, but once in place, the ore can be moved about more readily due to the lack of gravity. However, no techniques for refining ore in zero gravity currently exist. Docking with an asteroid might be performed using a harpoon-like process, where a projectile would penetrate the surface to serve as an anchor; then an attached cable would be used to winch the vehicle to the surface, if the asteroid is both penetrable and rigid enough for a harpoon to be effective. Due to the distance from Earth to an asteroid selected for mining, the round-trip time for communications will be several minutes or more, except during occasional close approaches to Earth by near-Earth asteroids. Thus any mining equipment will either need to be highly automated, or a human presence will be needed nearby. Humans would also be useful for troubleshooting problems and for maintaining the equipment. On the other hand, multi-minute communications delays have not prevented the success of robotic
exploration of Mars The planet Mars has been explored remotely by spacecraft. Probes sent from Earth, beginning in the late 20th century, have yielded a large increase in knowledge about the Martian system, focused primarily on understanding its geology and habi ...
, and automated systems would be much less expensive to build and deploy.


Failed mining projects

On April 24, 2012, a plan was announced by billionaire entrepreneurs to mine asteroids for their resources. The company was called
Planetary Resources Planetary Resources, Inc., formerly known as Arkyd Astronautics, was an American company that was formed on 1 January 2009,ARKYD Astronautics Founded http://www.planetaryresources.com/2009/01/draft-arkyd-astronautics-founded/ and reorganized an ...
and its founders include aerospace entrepreneurs Eric Anderson and
Peter Diamandis Peter H. Diamandis (; born May 20, 1961) is a Greek-American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur best known for being founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University and coauthor of ' ...
. Advisers included film director and explorer
James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
and investors included Google's chief executive
Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unti ...
. Its executive chairman was Eric Schmidt. They planned to create a fuel depot in space by 2020 by using water from asteroids, splitting it to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for
rocket fuel Rocket propellant is the reaction mass of a rocket. This reaction mass is ejected at the highest achievable velocity from a rocket engine to produce thrust. The energy required can either come from the propellants themselves, as with a chemical ...
. From there, it could be shipped to Earth orbit for refueling commercial satellites or spacecraft. In 2020, the scheme was wound down and all hardware assets were auctioned off. Telescope technology was proposed by
Planetary Resources Planetary Resources, Inc., formerly known as Arkyd Astronautics, was an American company that was formed on 1 January 2009,ARKYD Astronautics Founded http://www.planetaryresources.com/2009/01/draft-arkyd-astronautics-founded/ and reorganized an ...
to locate and harvest these asteroids has resulted in the plans for three different types of satellites: # Arkyd Series 100 (the Leo Space telescope) is a less expensive instrument that will be used to find, analyze, and see what resources are available on nearby asteroids. # Arkyd Series 200 (the Interceptor) Satellite that would actually land on the asteroid to get a closer analysis of the available resources. # Arkyd Series 300 (Rendezvous Prospector) Satellite developed for research and finding resources deeper in space. In 2018, all plans for The Arkyd space telescope technology were abandoned, and
Planetary Resources Planetary Resources, Inc., formerly known as Arkyd Astronautics, was an American company that was formed on 1 January 2009,ARKYD Astronautics Founded http://www.planetaryresources.com/2009/01/draft-arkyd-astronautics-founded/ and reorganized an ...
assets were acquired
ConsenSys ConsenSys is a blockchain software technology company founded by Joseph Lubin and based in New York City. History Joseph Lubin founded ConsenSys in early 2015 as a software foundry to develop decentralized software services and applications ...
, a blockchain company with no public space facing goals.
Deep Space Industries Deep Space Industries, or DSI, was an American private ly-held company operating in the space technology and space exploration sectors. It was acquired on January 1, 2019 by Bradford Space. The company is developing and building spacecraft tech ...
, was started in 2013 by David Gump, who had founded other space companies. At the time, the company hoped to begin prospecting for asteroids suitable for mining by 2015 and by 2016 return asteroid samples to Earth. Deep Space Industries planned to begin mining by 2023. Deep Space Industries sold water thrusters, and in 2019 was acquired by Bradford Space, a company focusing on earth orbit systems and space flight components.


Proposed mining projects

At ISDC-San Diego 2013, Kepler Energy and Space Engineering (KESE, llc) also announced it was going to mine asteroids, using a simpler, more straightforward approach: KESE plans to use almost exclusively existing guidance, navigation and anchoring technologies from mostly successful missions like the Rosetta/Philae,
Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's hori ...
, and
Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C fo ...
, and current NASA Technology Transfer tooling to build and send a 4-module Automated Mining System (AMS) to a small asteroid with a simple digging tool to collect ≈40 tons of asteroid regolith and bring each of the four return modules back to
low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
(LEO) by the end of the decade. Small asteroids are expected to be loose piles of rubble, therefore providing for easy extraction. In September 2012, the
NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is a NASA program for development of far reaching, long term advanced concepts by "creating breakthroughs, radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts". The program operated under the name ...
(NIAC) announced the Robotic Asteroid Prospector project, which will examine and evaluate the feasibility of asteroid mining in terms of means, methods, and systems.Robotic Asteroid Prospector (RAP) Staged from L-1: Start of the Deep Space Economy
nasa.gov, accessed 2012-09-11
Technology is being developed by TransAstra Corporation to locate and harvest asteroids with the Apis family of spacecraft, which comprises three classes of flight systems: # Mini Bee is an experimental technology demonstration vehicle designed to showcase the company's patented approach to asteroid mining using concentrated solar energy known as optical mining # Honey Bee is a mid-sized spacecraft designed to utilize optical mining technology to harvest asteroids up to 10 meters in average diameter # Queen Bee is the largest spacecraft in the Apis family, an evolution of the Honey Bee that is scaled to enable capture and mining of asteroids up to 40 meters in average diameter


Economics

Currently, the quality of the
ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 Apr ...
and the consequent cost and mass of equipment required to extract it are unknown and can only be speculated. Some economic analyses indicate that the cost of returning asteroidal materials to Earth far outweighs their market value, and that asteroid mining will not attract private investment at current commodity prices and space transportation costs. Other studies suggest large profit by using
solar power Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic e ...
. Potential markets for materials can be identified and profit generated if extraction cost is brought down. For example, the delivery of multiple
tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000  kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...
s of water to
low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
for rocket fuel preparation for
space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...
could generate a significant profit if space tourism itself proves profitable. In 1997 it was speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of contains more than US$20 trillion worth of industrial and precious metals. A comparatively small
M-type asteroid M-type (aka M-class) asteroids are a spectral class of asteroids which appear to contain higher concentrations of metal phases (e.g. iron-nickel) than other asteroid classes, and are widely thought to be the source of iron meteorites. Definition ...
with a mean diameter of could contain more than two billion metric tons of
iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...
ore, or two to three times the world production of 2004. The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain of nickel–iron, which could supply the world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also be precious metals. Not all mined materials from asteroids would be cost-effective, especially for the potential return of economic amounts of material to Earth. For potential return to Earth,
platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...
is considered very rare in terrestrial geologic formations and therefore is potentially worth bringing some quantity for terrestrial use. Nickel, on the other hand, is quite abundant and being mined in many terrestrial locations, so the high cost of asteroid mining may not make it economically viable. Although
Planetary Resources Planetary Resources, Inc., formerly known as Arkyd Astronautics, was an American company that was formed on 1 January 2009,ARKYD Astronautics Founded http://www.planetaryresources.com/2009/01/draft-arkyd-astronautics-founded/ and reorganized an ...
indicated in 2012 that the platinum from a asteroid could be worth US$25–50 billion, an economist remarked any outside source of precious metals could lower prices sufficiently to possibly doom the venture by rapidly increasing the available supply of such metals. Development of an infrastructure for altering asteroid orbits could offer a large
return on investment Return on investment (ROI) or return on costs (ROC) is a ratio between net income (over a period) and investment (costs resulting from an investment of some resources at a point in time). A high ROI means the investment's gains compare favourably ...
.


Scarcity

Scarcity In economics, scarcity "refers to the basic fact of life that there exists only a finite amount of human and nonhuman resources which the best technical knowledge is capable of using to produce only limited maximum amounts of each economic good. ...
is a fundamental economic problem of humans having seemingly unlimited
want The idea of want can be examined from many perspectives. In secular societies want might be considered similar to the emotion desire, which can be studied scientifically through the disciplines of psychology or sociology. Want might also be exami ...
s in a world of limited
resource Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their ...
s. Since Earth's resources are finite, the relative abundance of asteroidal ore gives asteroid mining the potential to provide nearly unlimited resources, which would essentially eliminate scarcity for those materials. The idea of exhausting resources is not new. In 1798,
Thomas Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book '' An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Mal ...
wrote, because resources are ultimately limited, the exponential growth in a
population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
would result in falls in
income per capita The median income is the income amount that divides a population into two equal groups, half having an income above that amount, and half having an income below that amount. It may differ from the mean (or average) income. Both of these are ways of ...
until
poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...
and starvation would result as a constricting factor on population. Malthus posited this years ago, and no sign has yet emerged of the Malthus effect regarding raw materials. * Proven reserves are deposits of mineral resources that are already discovered and known to be economically extractable under present or similar demand, price and other economic and technological conditions. * Conditional reserves are discovered deposits that are not yet economically viable. * Indicated reserves are less intensively measured deposits whose data is derived from surveys and geological projections. Hypothetical reserves and speculative resources make up this group of reserves. * Inferred reserves are deposits that have been located but not yet exploited. Continued development in asteroid mining techniques and technology will help to increase mineral discoveries. As the cost of extracting mineral resources, especially platinum group metals, on Earth rises, the cost of extracting the same resources from celestial bodies declines due to technological innovations around space exploration. , there are 711 known asteroids with a value exceeding
US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
100 trillion.


Financial feasibility

Space ventures are high-risk, with long lead times and heavy capital investment, and that is no different for asteroid-mining projects. These types of ventures could be funded through private investment or through government investment. For a commercial venture it can be profitable as long as the revenue earned is greater than total costs (costs for extraction and costs for marketing). The costs involving an asteroid-mining venture have been estimated to be around US$100 billion in 1996. There are six categories of cost considered for an asteroid mining venture: # Research and development costs # Exploration and prospecting costs # Construction and infrastructure development costs # Operational and engineering costs # Environmental costs # Time cost Determining financial feasibility is best represented through
net present value The net present value (NPV) or net present worth (NPW) applies to a series of cash flows occurring at different times. The present value of a cash flow depends on the interval of time between now and the cash flow. It also depends on the discount ...
. One requirement needed for financial feasibility is a high
return on investment Return on investment (ROI) or return on costs (ROC) is a ratio between net income (over a period) and investment (costs resulting from an investment of some resources at a point in time). A high ROI means the investment's gains compare favourably ...
s estimating around 30%. Example calculation assumes for simplicity that the only valuable material on asteroids is platinum. On August 16, 2016, platinum was valued at $1157 per
ounce The ounce () is any of several different units of mass, weight or volume and is derived almost unchanged from the , an Ancient Roman units of measurement, Ancient Roman unit of measurement. The #International avoirdupois ounce, avoirdupois ounce ...
or $37,000 per kilogram. At a price of $1,340, for a 10% return on investment, of platinum would have to be extracted for every 1,155,000 tons of asteroid ore. For a 50% return on investment of platinum would have to be extracted for every 11,350,000 tons of asteroid ore. This analysis assumes that doubling the supply of platinum to the market (5.13 million ounces in 2014) would have no effect on the price of platinum. A more realistic assumption is that increasing the supply by this amount would reduce the price 30–50%. The financial feasibility of asteroid mining with regards to different technical parameters has been presented by Sonter and more recently by Hein et al. Hein et al. have specifically explored the case where platinum is brought from space to Earth and estimate that economically viable asteroid mining for this specific case would be rather challenging. Decreases in the price of space access matter. The start of operational use of the low-cost-per-kilogram-in-orbit
Falcon Heavy Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle that is produced by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. The rocket consists of two strap-on boosters made from Falcon 9 first stages, a center core also made from a Falc ...
launch vehicle in 2018 is projected by astronomer Martin Elvis to have increased the extent of economically minable near-Earth asteroids from hundreds to thousands. With the increased availability of several kilometers per second of
delta-v Delta-''v'' (more known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as ...
that Falcon Heavy provides, it increases the number of NEAs accessible from 3 percent to around 45 percent. Precedent for joint investment by multiple parties into a long-term venture to mine commodities may be found in the legal concept of a mining partnership, which exists in the state laws of multiple US states including California. In a mining partnership, " achmember of a mining partnership shares in the profits and losses thereof in the proportion which the interest or share he or she owns in the mine bears to the whole partnership capital or whole number of shares."


Mining the Asteroid Belt from Mars

Since
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
is much closer to the
Asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...
than
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
is, it would take less
Delta-v Delta-''v'' (more known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as ...
to get to the Asteroid belt and return
minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed ...
to Mars. One hypothesis is that the
origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...
of the
Moons of Mars The two moons of Mars are Phobos (moon), Phobos and Deimos (moon), Deimos. They are irregular in shape. Both were discovered by American astronomer Asaph Hall in August 1877 and are named after the Greek mythology, Greek mythological twin charac ...
( Phobos and Deimos) are actually
Asteroid capture Asteroid capture is an orbital insertion of an asteroid around a larger planetary body. When asteroids, small rocky bodies in space, are captured, they become natural satellites. All asteroids entering Earth's orbit or atmosphere so far have been n ...
s from the Asteroid belt. 16 Psyche in the main belt could have over $10,000
Quadrillion Two naming scales for large numbers have been used in English and other European languages since the early modern era: the long and short scales. Most English variants use the short scale today, but the long scale remains dominant in many non-E ...
Dollars Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, U ...
worth of minerals.
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
is planning a mission for October 10, 2023 for the Psyche orbiter to launch and get to the asteroid by August 2029 to study. 511 Davida could have $27 quadrillion Dollars worth of minerals and resources. Using the moon Phobos to launch spacecraft is energetically favorable and a useful location from which to dispatch missions to main belt asteroids. Mining the asteroid belt from Mars and its moons could help in the
Colonization of Mars Colonization or settlement of Mars is the theoretical human migration and long-term human establishment of Mars. The prospect has garnered interest from public space agencies and private corporations and has been extensively explored in scien ...
.


Phobos as a space elevator for Mars

Phobos is Synchronously orbiting Mars, where the same face stays facing the planet at ~6,028 km above the
Martian surface The study of surface characteristics (or surface properties and processes) is a broad category of Mars science that examines the nature of the materials making up the Martian surface. The study evolved from telescopic and remote-sensing techniques ...
. A
space elevator A space elevator, also referred to as a space bridge, star ladder, and orbital lift, is a proposed type of planet-to-space transportation system, often depicted in science fiction. The main component would be a cable (also called a space tethe ...
could extend down from Phobos to Mars 6,000 km, about 28 kilometers from the surface, and just out of the
atmosphere of Mars The atmosphere of Mars is the layer of gases surrounding Mars. It is primarily composed of carbon dioxide (95%), molecular nitrogen (2.8%), and argon (2%). It also contains trace levels of water vapor, oxygen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and no ...
. A similar space elevator cable could extend out 6,000 km the opposite direction that would
counterbalance A counterweight is a weight that, by applying an opposite force, provides balance and stability of a mechanical system. The purpose of a counterweight is to make lifting the load faster and more efficient, which saves energy and causes less wear ...
Phobos. In total the space elevator would extend out over 12,000 km which would be below
Areostationary orbit An areostationary orbit or areosynchronous equatorial orbit (AEO) is a circular areo­synchronous orbit (ASO) in the Martian equatorial plane about above the surface, any point on which revolves about Mars in the same direction and with the sa ...
of Mars (17,032 km). A rocket launch would still be needed to get the rocket and cargo to the beginning of the space elevator 28 km above the surface. The surface of Mars is rotating at 0.25
km/s The metre per second is the unit of both speed (a scalar quantity) and velocity (a vector quantity, which has direction and magnitude) in the International System of Units (SI), equal to the speed of a body covering a distance of one metre in a ...
at the equator and the bottom of the space elevator would be rotating around Mars at 0.77 km/s, so only 0.52 km/s of
Delta-v Delta-''v'' (more known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as ...
would be needed to get to the space elevator. Phobos orbits at 2.15 km/s and the outer most part of the space elevator would rotate around Mars at 3.52 km/s.


Regulation and safety

Space law involves a specific set of
international treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...
, along with national
statutory law Statutory law or statute law is written law passed by a body of legislature. This is opposed to oral or customary law; or regulatory law promulgated by the executive or common law of the judiciary. Statutes may originate with national, state legi ...
s. The system and framework for international and domestic laws have emerged in part through the
United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is an office of the U.N. Secretariat that promotes and facilitates peaceful international cooperation in outer space. It works to establish or strengthen the legal and regulatory framew ...
. The rules, terms and agreements that space law authorities consider to be part of the active body of international space law are the five international space treaties and five UN declarations. Approximately 100 nations and institutions were involved in negotiations. The space treaties cover many major issues such as arms control, non-appropriation of space, freedom of exploration, liability for damages, safety and rescue of astronauts and spacecraft, prevention of harmful interference with space activities and the environment, notification and registration of space activities, and the settlement of disputes. In exchange for assurances from the space power, the nonspacefaring nations acquiesced to U.S. and Soviet proposals to treat outer space as a commons (res communis) territory which belonged to no one state. Asteroid mining in particular is covered by both international treaties—for example, the
Outer Space Treaty russian: link=yes, Договор о космосе es, link=yes, Tratado sobre el espacio ultraterrestre , long_name = Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moo ...
—and national statutory laws—for example, specific legislative acts in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
. Varying degrees of criticism exist regarding international space law. Some critics accept the Outer Space Treaty, but reject the Moon Agreement. The Outer Space Treaty allows private property rights for outer space natural resources once removed from the surface, subsurface or subsoil of the Moon and other celestial bodies in outer space. Thus, international space law is capable of managing newly emerging space mining activities, private space transportation, commercial spaceports and commercial space stations/habitats/settlements. Space mining involving the extraction and removal of natural resources from their natural location is allowable under the Outer Space Treaty. Once removed, those natural resources can be reduced to possession, sold, traded and explored or used for scientific purposes. International space law allows space mining, specifically the extraction of natural resources. It is generally understood within the space law authorities that extracting space resources is allowable, even by private companies for profit. However, international space law prohibits property rights over territories and outer space land. Astrophysicists
Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...
and
Steven J. Ostro Steven Jeffrey Ostro (March 9, 1946 – December 15, 2008) was an American scientist specializing in radar astronomy. He worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ostro led radar observations of numerous asteroids, as well as the moons of Jupiter ...
raised the concern altering the trajectories of asteroids near Earth might pose a collision hazard threat. They concluded that orbit engineering has both opportunities and dangers: if controls instituted on orbit-manipulation technology were too tight, future spacefaring could be hampered, but if they were too loose, human civilization would be at risk.


The Outer Space Treaty

After ten years of negotiations between nearly 100 nations, the Outer Space Treaty opened for signature on January 27, 1966. It entered into force as the constitution for outer space on October 10, 1967. The Outer Space Treaty was well received; it was ratified by ninety-six nations and signed by an additional twenty-seven states. The outcome has been that the basic foundation of international space law consists of five (arguably four) international space treaties, along with various written resolutions and declarations. The main international treaty is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967; it is generally viewed as the "Constitution" for outer space. By ratifying the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, ninety-eight nations agreed that outer space would belong to the "province of mankind", that all nations would have the freedom to "use" and "explore" outer space, and that both these provisions must be done in a way to "benefit all mankind". The province of mankind principle and the other key terms have not yet been specifically defined (Jasentuliyana, 1992). Critics have complained that the Outer Space Treaty is vague. Yet, international space law has worked well and has served space commercial industries and interests for many decades. The taking away and extraction of Moon rocks, for example, has been treated as being legally permissible. The framers of Outer Space Treaty initially focused on solidifying broad terms first, with the intent to create more specific legal provisions later (Griffin, 1981: 733–734). This is why the members of the COPUOS later expanded the Outer Space Treaty norms by articulating more specific understandings which are found in the "three supplemental agreements" – the Rescue and Return Agreement of 1968, the Liability Convention of 1973, and the Registration Convention of 1976 (734). Hobe (2007) explains that the Outer Space Treaty "explicitly and implicitly prohibits only the acquisition of territorial property rights" but extracting space resources is allowable. It is generally understood within the space law authorities that extracting space resources is allowable, even by private companies for profit. However, international space law prohibits property rights over territories and outer space land. Hobe further explains that there is no mention of “the question of the extraction of natural resources which means that such use is allowed under the Outer Space Treaty” (2007: 211). He also points out that there is an unsettled question regarding the division of benefits from outer space resources in accordance with Article, paragraph 1 of the Outer Space Treaty.


The Moon Agreement

The Moon Agreement was signed on December 18, 1979, as part of the
United Nations Charter The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
and it entered into force in 1984 after a five state ratification consensus procedure, agreed upon by the members of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). As of September 2019, only 18 nations have signed or ratified the treaty. The other three outer space treaties experienced a high level of international cooperation in terms of signage and ratification, but the Moon Treaty went further than them, by defining the Common Heritage concept in more detail and by imposing specific obligations on the parties engaged in the exploration and/or exploitation of outer space. The Moon Treaty explicitly designates the Moon and its natural resources as part of the Common Heritage of Mankind."Common Pool Lunar Resources."
J. K. Schingler and A. Kapoglou. Lunar ISRU 2019: Developing a New Space Economy Through Lunar Resources and Their Utilization. July 15–17, 2019, Columbia, Maryland.
However, exploitation of resources is suggested to be allowed if it is "governed by an international regime" (Article 11.5), but the rules of such regime have not yet been established.

Legal regimes of some countries


Luxembourg

In February 2016, the
Government of Luxembourg The politics of Luxembourg takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic monarchy, whereby the Prime Minister of Luxembourg is the head of government, and the multi-party system. Executive power is under the constituti ...
said that it would attempt to "jump-start an industrial sector to mine asteroid resources in space" by, among other things, creating a "legal framework" and regulatory incentives for companies involved in the industry. By June 2016, it announced that it would "invest more than in research, technology demonstration, and in the direct purchase of equity in companies relocating to Luxembourg". In 2017, it became the "first European country to pass a
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
conferring to companies the ownership of any resources they extract from space", and remained active in advancing space resource
public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...
in 2018. In 2017,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
,
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, and the UAE entered into cooperation agreements with Luxembourg for mining operations in celestial bodies. In 2018, the
Luxembourg Space Agency The Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA) is the national space agency of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It was founded on September 12, 2018, by Luxembourg's Economy Minister Étienne Schneider. Goal The goal of the Luxembourg Space Agency is to use ...
was created. It provides private companies and organizations working on asteroid mining with financial support.


United States

Some nations are beginning to promulgate legal regimes for extraterrestrial resource extraction. For example, the United States "
SPACE Act of 2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...
"—facilitating private development of space resources consistent with US international treaty obligations—passed the
US House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
in July 2015. In November 2015 it passed the
United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...
. On 25 November US-President Barack Obama signed the ''H.R.2262 – U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act'' into law. The law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens to own space resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids. According to the article § 51303 of the law: On 6 April 2020 US-President Donald Trump signed the Executive Order on Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources. According to the Order: * Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space * the US does not view space as a "global commons" * the US opposes the Moon Agreement


Environmental impact

A positive impact of asteroid mining has been conjectured as being an enabler of transferring industrial activities into space, such as energy generation. A quantitative analysis of the potential environmental benefits of water and platinum mining in space has been developed, where potentially large benefits could materialize, depending on the ratio of material mined in space and mass launched into space.


Research missions to asteroids and comets


Ongoing and planned

* Hayabusa2 – ongoing JAXA asteroid sample return mission (arrived at the target in 2018, returned sample in 2020) *
OSIRIS-REx OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission. The mission's primary goal is to obtain a sample of at least from 101955 Bennu, a carbona ...
– ongoing NASA asteroid sample return mission (launched in September 2016, arrived at target 2020, expected return 2023) *
DART Dart or DART may refer to: * Dart, the equipment in the game of darts Arts, entertainment and media * Dart (comics), an Image Comics superhero * Dart, a character from ''G.I. Joe'' * Dart, a ''Thomas & Friends'' railway engine character * Dar ...
– ongoing NASA asteroid redirection test, launched 2021 * Fobos-Grunt 2 – proposed Roskosmos sample return mission to Phobos (launch in 2024) * VIPER rover – planned NASA mission to prospect for
lunar resources The Moon bears substantial natural resources which could be exploited in the future. Potential lunar resources may encompass processable materials such as volatiles and minerals, along with geologic structures such as lava tubes that together, ...
in 2023


Completed

First successful missions by country:


In fiction

The first mention of asteroid mining in science fiction apparently came in Garrett P. Serviss' story ''
Edison's Conquest of Mars ''Edison's Conquest of Mars'' is an 1898 science fiction novel by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss. It was written as a sequel to ''Fighters from Mars'', an unauthorized and heavily altered version of H. G. Wells's 1897 story '' ...
'', published in the ''New York Evening Journal'' in 1898.Garrett P. Serviss, ''Edison's Conquest of Mars'' a
Project Gutenberg
Several science-fiction
video games Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...
include asteroid mining.


Gallery

File:Asteroid capture.jpg, Illustration of proposed asteroid capture by Keck Institute for Space Studies made for
Asteroid Redirect Mission The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), also known as the Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization (ARU) mission and the Asteroid Initiative, was a space mission proposed by NASA in 2013; the mission was later cancelled. The Asteroid Retrieval Robotic ...
File:Solar power satellite from an asteroid.jpg, Artist's concept from the 1970s of asteroid mining File:Asteroid mining vehicule.png, Artist's concept of an asteroid mining vehicle as seen in 1984 File:Tethered asteroid.png, Artist's concept of an asteroid moved by a space tether


See also

*
Asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...
*
Asteroid capture Asteroid capture is an orbital insertion of an asteroid around a larger planetary body. When asteroids, small rocky bodies in space, are captured, they become natural satellites. All asteroids entering Earth's orbit or atmosphere so far have been n ...
*
Asteroid Redirect Mission The Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), also known as the Asteroid Retrieval and Utilization (ARU) mission and the Asteroid Initiative, was a space mission proposed by NASA in 2013; the mission was later cancelled. The Asteroid Retrieval Robotic ...
*
Deep Space Industries Deep Space Industries, or DSI, was an American private ly-held company operating in the space technology and space exploration sectors. It was acquired on January 1, 2019 by Bradford Space. The company is developing and building spacecraft tech ...
*
In situ resource utilization In space exploration, in situ resource utilization (ISRU) is the practice of collection, processing, storing and use of materials found or manufactured on other astronomical objects (the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc.) that replace materials that ...
*
Lunar resources The Moon bears substantial natural resources which could be exploited in the future. Potential lunar resources may encompass processable materials such as volatiles and minerals, along with geologic structures such as lava tubes that together, ...
*
Mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...
* '' Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets'' *
Near Earth Asteroid Prospector Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects. Notable asteroid mining challenges include the high cost of spaceflight, unreliable identification of asteroids ...
* Planetary Resources Inc. * TransAstra Corporation *
Sample-return mission A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as lo ...
*
Space manufacturing Space manufacturing is the production of tangible goods beyond Earth. Since most production capabilities are limited to low Earth orbit, the term in-orbit manufacturing is also frequently used. There are several rationales supporting in-space ...
*
Space-based economy Space-based economy is economic activity in outer space, including asteroid mining, space manufacturing, space trade, construction performed in space such as the building of space stations, space burial, and space advertising. Space-based indus ...
*
SpaceDev SpaceDev, a part of the "Space Systems Business" of Sierra Nevada Corporation, is prominent for its spaceflight and microsatellite work. It designed and built components for the hybrid rocket motors for Paul Allen's Tier One suborbital SpaceS ...
* World Is Not Enough (spacecraft propulsion)


Notes


References


Publications

* ''Space Enterprise: Beyond NASA'' / David Gump (1990) . * ''Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets'' / John S. Lewis (1998) * * Viorel Badescu: ''Asteroids – prospective energy and material resources.'' Springer, Berlin 2013, . * Ram Jakhu, et al.: ''Space Mining and Its Regulation.'' Springer, Cham 2016, . * Annette Froehlich: ''Space Resource Utilization: A View from an Emerging Space Faring Nation.'' Springer, Cham 2018, .


External links


Text


The Technical and Economic Feasibility of Mining the Near-Earth Asteroids
M. J. Sonter. * Michael Booth

(December 21, 1995)
The Plan to Bring an Asteroid to Earth

How Asteroids can save mankind

Luxembourg aims to be big player in possible asteroid mining
The Guardian, February 2016. *


Video

* Vide
Beyond Earth – NEO Destinations
NewSpace Conference of the
Space Frontier Foundation The Space Frontier Foundation is an American space advocacy nonprofit corporation organized to promote the interests of increased involvement of the private sector, in collaboration with government, in the exploration and development of space. I ...
, Aug 7, 2011 * Vide
Moon, Mars, Asteroids – Where to Go First for Resources?
Space manufacturing Conference of the
Space Studies Institute Space Studies Institute is a not-for-profit organization that was founded in 1977 by Princeton University Professor Gerard K. O'Neill. In 2009 SSI moved its operations from its long-term base in Princeton, New Jersey, to Mojave, Californi ...
, October 2010 * Vide
Moving An Asteroid
California Institute of Technology, Workshop Public Lecture Panel, September 2011 * Vide
Asteroid Mining – The Market Problem and Radical Solution
November 2013 {{DEFAULTSORT:Asteroid Mining Mining in space Mining techniques Natural resources Space law in the United States