In my last few posts, I have been writing about asteroids in space and to be candid, I have been really impressed with the level of interactions on my posts. I can’t but say thank you to everyone that spends time going through my post and I hope to see more of you on my post.
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Today, I will be looking at the space industry business and what will be of the industry in few year from now with asteroid mining.
What is Asteroid Mining?
In other to give you this answer, first we need to understand what an asteroid is. Asteroids are rocks which can be regarded as smaller planets made up of oxygen, silicon, nickel, iridium, palladium, platinum, gold, magnesium, osmium, ruthenium, rhodium, water (H2o) and other precious metals and elements. Most of the asteroids were made almost the same year as earth. With this I think you might guess why asteroid mining is something that humans are interested in.
It is no doubt that we are using up so many of our resources on earth and with the level of depletion, very soon only a little number of resources will be available on the planet. With this, a lot of billionaire and space companies are looking into asteroid mining which is a quadrillion dollars industry. In simple logic, they are going to colonize a smaller planet which in some cases is just as big as a mountain, with technology to make money. I know you are wondering if asteroids are a big money and if it is worth our time and effort? Let me make a clear fact. There are over 16,000 asteroids in earth orbit and each of this asteroids can hold up to 2 trillion tons of water as well as surface resources. An asteroid named 2011 UW 158 is said to have up to 90 million tons of platinum in its core as well as other metals which gave it a worth of about $300 Billion to $5.4 Trillion. Now take a look at the total amount of asteroid in earth orbit and how much you think asteroid miners will be making.
Who is Already in the Business?
There are so many things in the space for us but we haven’t gotten them yet, but while people are still looking at mining on earth, a few companies are already looking into mining asteroids a few are Deep space industry and Planetary Resources.
How Will This Work?
Like we know that there different asteroids in space and not all contain resources needed by humans which means a few are useless. There are three types of asteroids which are the chondrite (type C) which contains clay and silicate rocks, Stony (Type S) which consists of silicate materials and nickel iron, and Metallic/ Nickel-iron (Type M) which consist of iron and nickel.
Asteroid surfaces are not easily accessible so near earth asteroids are being targeted for mining and in other to identify the type of asteroid to be mind, a remote sensing technology is used to see radar images of the asteroid and their resources characteristics.
Mining on asteroid will be automated since there are no gravitational field in an asteroid, there will be very little energy needed to enter into an asteroid as well as leave the asteroid and it will not be advisable to risk humans on it. Automated vehicles are being worked upon for asteroid mining where the vehicles mine resources in an asteroid and save them in a container after which the container returns back to earth. The first asteroid automated ship is going to be lunched this year (2020) but not with the aim to mine, rather with the aim to get data about the asteroids and the amount of resources available after which it would begin mining in 2022 if resources are confirmed to be present in targeted asteroids.
Limitation
Finding an asteroid rich in resources is something that takes time as asteroids are very small when viewing them and you can tell how difficult it can be with over 16,000 asteroid in earth orbit to choose from. One other challenge is the fact that asteroid aren’t stationary and unlike earth that is big and its rotation can be felt, asteroids are smaller and their movement will be visible which could make it difficult to land an automated vehicle on it.
Conclusion
Humans will find a way to mine as many asteroids as possible if they can mine one successfully which could be worth trillions of dollars. Also, with asteroids, it could be easy to get fuel for rockets due to the resources and could serve as a reserve or backup for earth if one day all we go out of resources.