Some asteroids naturally pass close to Earth. Resources: Helium-3, gold, platinum group metals, rare earth metals, water Near-Earth asteroids
The Moon’s gravity is only a sixth of ours but it’s enough to create a stable operations base close to Earth. Many refining and manufacturing techniques in metal processing rely on gravity. This year, the Colorado School of Mining began running the world’s first space resources university course, the graduates of which will join the likes of Hunter-Scullion and Lewicki and head out into space to make their fortune. “We can now start to make extremely specialised vehicles that go from the edge of space to somewhere further out.” “We have reusable space vehicles that are very good at getting to low-Earth orbit,” Lewicki says. Eventually, Planetary Resources aim to bake the water out of these rocks, turning them into Space Age petrol stations. In 2020, the company will send out spacecraft to survey near-Earth asteroids for water. “It’s uniquely useful in space because you can take the water molecule and split that into hydrogen and oxygen, which is rocket fuel,” says Chris Lewicki CEO of Planetary Resources. You can even find the most vital resource to human spaceflight – water. Building giant spacecraft on the ground and then launching them is hugely inefficient, especially when there is an almost unlimited source of iron and titanium already in space. Space mining will play a critical role in allowing humanity to venture away from the planet on a regular basis. “But it is a highly limited resource, so if we can bring more onto the planet then we can run more environmentally friendly cars and combat one of the major sources of climate change.” “As well as being worth $26,000 per kilo, platinum is one of the main ingredients of catalytic converters that allow hydrogen cars to work, and normal cars to run cleaner,” says Hunter-Scullion. Solar panels, electric cars and energy- saving light bulbs all rely on elements that are increasingly rare on Earth, such as platinum.
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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.