Space minerals. The new extraction.

Traveling to space to exploit asteroids in order to extract minerals from them is a project that is closer and closer to becoming reality and less of science fiction. Space mining has become in recent years the great topic of conversation and debate among space experts.

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For those not versed in the field of space mining, the main thing is to know what is intended and what exactly means. You tell all the details, below.

Space mining is an incipient industry that aims to extract minerals from asteroids that orbit in the vicinity of our planet. The minerals and volatile compounds of an asteroid, or of a comet, can be extracted to provide materials, for example, iron, nickel, titanium and extract water and oxygen to sustain the astronauts' life in space, as well as the hydrogen and oxygen for use as rocket fuel.

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Based on known land reserves and growing consumption in developing countries, it is speculated that the key elements needed for modern industry, including antimony, zinc, tin, silver, lead, indium, gold and copper, could be depleted within 50 to 60 years. In response, it has been suggested that such elements, present in asteroids, can be extracted and sent to Earth for use, just as water, extracted from ice, could also be used to feed the propellants of solar energy tanks and the habitats of space.

"Using the resources found in space is the only way to ensure sustainable spatial development." David Gump, director of Deep Space Industries.

What a few years ago was only science fiction, is already close to the reality of a not so distant future: asteroid mining will be so productive and the space structure so sophisticated that they could be as effective as additional resources to complement terrestrial needs.

• Space fuel.

But it does not end in the commercial question all the interest that the asteroids awaken. Apart from the extraction of minerals and precious metals, it is considered that those rock fragments whose resistance, very similar to that of concrete, has allowed them to exist for billions of years, could serve as logistical support to future human settlements on Mars contributing water, oxygen and other elements that could be used to produce fuel and vital backup systems in space at a much lower cost than carrying them from Earth. The asteroids will help us reach the red planet because the use of captured resources to propel space probes and keep astronauts alive from substances that are not found on Earth is the only way to allow permanent spatial development. A trip to Mars would be much cheaper and more efficient if you could get some of the fuel along the way. And that is where the asteroids and the Moon intervene, which will be essential to colonize as a preliminary test to the human presence in the Martian soil.

• The asteroids and the Moon, immediate objective.

Regarding the Moon, our satellite also raises this interest to provide the future energy required on Earth. It is the great reserve of raw materials in the process of running out on the planet. With natural resources decreasing due to the high demand of the world industry and the exponential growth of the population, the Moon presents an abundance of the Helium-3 isotope, a very scarce gas on the planet, which could become the ideal non-polluting fuel for a new generation of controlled fusion nuclear plants. Not to mention the richness of the lunar soil in titanium, iron, and aluminum.

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• Machines for works.

This leads us to consider the excavation of the land and consider the appropriate machines for it. It does not stop having its discreet charm sink into cabals about how will be the future of the machinery of public works, construction, and mining in this third millennium. It is possible that the future is marked by innovations rather than by the improvement of what has already been achieved, but you never know ... When we talk about the future, we can not stop the imagination from firing. And with imagination, we will try to see what the world of machinery will look like in the future and what awaits us with the colonization of space.

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To summarize the development that machines have had during the last century, from the point of view of their evolution, is a formidable task, although no less fascinating. Great has been the effort that many pioneers, scientists, technicians, and businessmen with talent and vision of the future have made in this sector, outside and within our borders.

• Excavation of the soil.

As if all this were not enough, we will have to add the issues related to the future operators of the machines. The biggest obstacle in manned trips to space is the effects that weightlessness has on the human body: cardiovascular problems and fluid displacement, muscular atrophy, loss of bone calcium or anemia are still to be resolved; This is not to mention the psychic and emotional caused by the isolation and lack of social contact.

As the first aspect in which the space missions will work will be the exploitation of the resources of the soil that are stepping to obtain the raw material necessary to survive and move forward, it is inevitable to start by drilling the ground and excavation with a simple equipment of start-up and loading, to continue with the transport towards the processes of treatment of minerals and their transformation.

• Companies in the fight for a business of many zeros.

So things, companies such as Planetary Resources or Deep Space Industries are, at the moment, fine-tuning their ambitious space mining plans. Plans that do not only focus on the direct exploitation of resources but also to obtain juicy supply contracts and logistical support (water, fuel, etc ...) for future lunar or Martian colonies. Only the supply of water, which the asteroids possess in abundance, could become, according to Planetary Resources, a trillion dollar business.

• Who owns the space?

When Neil Armstrong planted the American flag in the Sea of Tranquility he was not claiming the Moon. It was a propaganda act, a symbol, but outer space does not belong or belong to anyone. This is at least what the Soviet Union, the United States , and the United Kingdom agreed in 1967, during the cold war, by signing the so-called Treaty on Outer Space, the legal basis of the international law that regulates national claims for planets, satellites, asteroids, comets and other bodies. In 2005, a total of 105 countries had signed, ratified or both, without any absence among the great powers. The hypothetical exploitation of resources by private companies remained in limbo. Nobody thought that a situation like the present one could be reached, with several American companies interested in the exploitation of space resources.

However, in November 2015, without international consultations, the United States Congress approved - and Barack Obama ratified it the following month - a controversial law that allows the future exploitation of asteroids and "other space resources" for both people and to companies that have the necessary technology to reach them. Among other aspects, the last chapter of the law asks the government not to interpose in the space mining and makes clear that whoever is capable of recovering resources from an asteroid has the right to own, transport, use and sell it.

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Contemplating the future is looking forward with your feet in the present and thinking in the past. Science, which is ultimately the one who has solved the serious problems posed to humanity during the course of its history, will be the one that takes us from the planet and leads us to the conquest of the cosmos, among other reasons because it will be necessary to use the energy and mineral resources of space to sustain the future life on Earth.

Nobody can predict with certainty that future. It is difficult to make predictions, especially when it comes to the future, but I am convinced that we are at the beginning of our appointment with space. Although sometimes the reality is slower than our desires, in the next half century we will inhabit the Moon and Mars, we will be prowling other planets of the Solar system and we will extract with normality the minerals of the asteroids.