Mining Asteroids:Promise, Prospects and Pitfalls
Ben W. McGee
WMA
June 16, 2016
6/30/2016 2
Overview
• Introduction
• Primer on asteroids
• Asteroid materials in history
• Why mine asteroids?
• Current players/tech
• Legal landscape
• Historical parallels - Epilogue
What? / Where?
Why?
How?
Who?
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Introduction
• A little about my background (academics):
– B.S. Geology, U. Wyo (Planetary Sci emphasis)
– M.S. Space Studies, UND (almost – end of 2016)
• Asteroid weathering – space geomorphology
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Introduction
• A little about my background (practical):
– Senior hydrogeologist w/ S. Nevada Water Authority
– Formerly space radiation passive/active shielding
specialist at Bigelow Aerospace (and other roles)
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Introduction
• A little about my background (practical):
– Currently Senior Scientist at Nevada National Security
Site, space science consultant w/ Astrowright
– Recurring TV host and science SME (outreach)
• Nat Geo, Weather Chan, Travel Chan, History Chan.
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Primer: What are Asteroids?
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What are Asteroids?
• Leftovers from the early Solar System
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What are Asteroids?
• Geochemically sourced from at least
80 differentiated proto-worlds(!).
[Images credit: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History]
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What are Asteroids?
• Type 1: “Stony” asteroid
– (a.k.a. fragment of planetary crust; ~basalts)
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What are Asteroids?
• Type 2: “Stony-Iron” asteroid
– (a.k.a. fragment of core-mantle boundary)
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What are Asteroids?
• Type 3: “Iron” asteroid
– (a.k.a. fragment of planetary core)
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Primer: Where are Asteroids?
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Where are Asteroids?
• Key location:
Main Belt
– Roughly 5%
the mass of
Earth’s Moon
located here
– 3.6x1021 kg
(3,600 billion
billion kilos)
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Where are Asteroids?
• Key location:
Near Earth
– Near-Earth
Asteroids
(NEAs) possess
Earth-crossing
orbits; fewer, but
potential targets
for capture.
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Why care?
Historical Asteroid Material Value
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Why care?
• By mass, anything from space is the
rarest material on Earth…
– Current estimates avg 100 tons of
meteors/meteoritic dust fall to Earth per
day.
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Asteroid materials in history
• Divine material!
– Associated with meteorite finds
– Implies initially larger meteoroid
– Hailed by light, sound from above (“gods”)
• Mostly iron meteorites
– Other types broken apart on force of
reentry
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Asteroid materials in history
• Forged into many unique cultural items
– Crosses geography and eras
– Recently found as dagger in King Tut’s tomb!
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Asteroid materials in history
• Altered the course of history?
– Turns out, Iron meteorites are special.
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Asteroid materials in history
• Nickel-Iron alloy cannot be recreated.
– Interfingered kamacite and taenite requires
cooling rates > human timescales!
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Asteroid materials in history
• Nickel-Iron alloy cannot be recreated.
– “Widmanstätten pattern”:
– (Only by planet core cooling off in space)
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Asteroid materials in history
• Historical “magic” blades extraterrestrial?
– Meteoritic blades go through bronze ‘like butter
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Asteroid materials in history
• Modern Japanese artist replicated impulse:
– “The Sword of Heaven” (tentetsutou)
• Forged from solid slab of Gibeon iron meteorite…
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Why Mine Asteroids?
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Space Ideology case:
– We should mine asteroids to support
humanity further expansion into space.
– Extremely inefficient, expensive to launch
material from Earth ($10k/lb), so market for
raw asteroid material is driven by launch
cost premiums.
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Space Ideology case (colonization/future):
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Environmental case:
– We should mine asteroids to reduce the
resource burden (Earth ecosystem disruption)
• Earth has limited surface area.
• Home to the only biosphere in known universe.
• Functions as humanity life support system.
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Environmental case (conservation):
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Survival case:
– We should mine asteroids to economically
develop technological know-how to deflect
asteroid threat.
• Regular impacts threaten civilization
• Chelyabinsk explosion in 2013 = 0.5MT blast,
Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact in ‘94 on Jupiter would
have destroyed all life on Earth.
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Survival case:
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Survival case (NASA Asteroid Redirect):
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Waystation case (opportunity based):
– We should mine asteroids to take advantage
of raw material to fill physical needs in space.
• Acknowledged premium value of controlled
material in space (against launch premium)
• e.g., sell collected boulders for radiation shielding.
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Waystation case (opportunity based):
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Classic Mining case (profit based):
– We should mine asteroids to take advantage
of abundant available (unclaimed!) material
as mineral resources for profit.
• “Dumb” calculation suggests single asteroid
possesses >$100B worth of materials.
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Classic Mining case (profit based):
$
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Target minerals/elements include:
– Water (rocket fuel depot, life support)
– Hydrocarbons (rocket fuel depot)
– Structural metals (space manufacturing)
– Platinum group metals (back to Earth)
– Siliceous matrix minerals (rad shielding)
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Why Mine Asteroids?
Tantalizing figures according to one group
of industry analysts…
•A single asteroid just ~100 yards in
diameter could possess:
– $65B in recoverable water (for processing
into rocket fuel)
– $130B in nickel, iron, and platinum group
metals
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Why Mine Asteroids?
• Opposing viewpoint claims:
– True value is value of metals minus cost of
collecting them.
– $195B valuation includes launch premiums.
– True value unknowable until more tech
developed, but could be incredibly lucrative for
early entrants (as well as later ones!)
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Current Players/Technology
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Current Players/Technology
• Planetary Resources
– Peter Diamandis, co-chairman/director
– Raised $21M in Series A funding
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Current Players/Technology
• Deep Space Industries
– Rick Tumlinson, chairman
– Received 2 NASA grants in 2014
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Current Players/Technology
• Luxembourg:
– Two weeks ago, announced a dedicated
national asteroid mining initiative(!).
– Last week Deputy Prime Minister and
Minster of Economy signed partnership
agreement w/ Planetary Resources…
– Legal and financial support for their
“…ambition to become a European hub for
the exploration and use of space resources”
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Current Players/Technology
• Asteroid prospecting tech – TRL 9
– Telescopes used to identify composition
– NASA/academia-proven
– Planetary Resources and DSI deploying
smallsat observation satellite networks…
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Current Players/Technology
• Asteroid interception tech – TRL 9-(ish?)
– NASA 2001 NEAR mission proved we could
orbit and control crash-land on an asteroid.
(433 Eros)
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Current Players/Technology
• Asteroid interception tech – TRL 9-(ish?)
– Japan 2010 Hayabusa mission proved
sample return possible. (25143 Itokawa)
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Current Players/Technology
• Asteroid interception tech – TRL 9-(ish?)
– ESA 2014 Rosetta mission proved controlled
landing possible. (Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko)
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Current Players/Technology
• Asteroid mineral processing/extraction
tech – TRL 5-6-ish
– Field is wide open.
– Closest is simple gravity sorting
experiments in microgravity.
– Asteroid additive manufacturing?
(Planetary Resources)
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Current Players/Technology
• Asteroid mineral processing/extraction
tech – TRL 5-6-ish
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Current Players/Technology
• Asteroid mineral processing/extraction
tech – Current problems:
– Mineral distribution is atypical of Earth
– Traditional ore-enrichment techniques
therefore will not work…
– Concentrations for target minerals can be
very low… High volume required.
– In-situ market does not yet exist...
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Legal Landscape
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Legal Landscape
• Rapidly Evolving:
– Outer Space Treaty (1967) prohibits
sovereign appropriation of celestial bodies
– February 2015, FAA announce support for
private lunar ventures.
– November 2015, U.S. Commercial Space
Launch Competitiveness Act becomes law
• Specifically assigns resource rights to entities
who recover them from asteroids(!)
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Legal Landscape
• Rapidly Evolving:
– Luxembourg stance in parallel with U.S.
– “Fishermen do not own the sea, but they
can cast nets and own any fish they
recover.”
– International outcry, but U.S. Standing
behind law as being in compliance w/ Outer
Space Treaty obligations.
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Historical Parallels
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Historical Parallels
• All very expensive frontier work!
– (Understatement.)
• Can history suggest how asteroid
market entry might work?
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Historical Parallels
• Yes… Research on Yukon Gold Rush
suggests unexpected (altruistic?)
partnerships and info-sharing on frontier.
– “Plenty to go around.”
– “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”
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Historical Parallels
• Better example w/ the “New World” :
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Historical Parallels
• Entering “New World” – what was the market?
– We (accidentally) went there (W. Indies) looking
for spice.
– The resource
we knew
about going in.
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Historical Parallels
• “New World” economy – market evolved!
• We went back (Mexico, S. America) looking
for gold.
– The flashy
resource of high
intrinsic value
(unsustainable?)
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Historical Parallels
• “New World” economy – evolving still!
• We stayed permanently to raise/harvest
lucrative tobacco.
– The profitable
commodity that
evolved w/ or
because of
exploration.
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Historical Parallels
Suggests a pattern:
1. Known resource gets us there; some
losses at first (long game)
2. Discovered, easily accessible resource
keeps us going back
3. Evolved market develops that ensures
sustained presence (market force)
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Parting Thoughts
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Asteroid Mining take-homes
• More real than it has ever been, but not
there yet (close!)
• Real money being spent, real hardware
being bent.
• High risk, high reward potential.
• Legal landscape clearing***!
• Market should be expected to evolve…
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Asteroid Mining take-homes
• Many sound reasons (ideological,
environmental, economic) to engage in
asteroid mining…
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Asteroid Mining take-homes
• So, the future of mining is here?
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Questions?
www.benwmcgee.com