Space Mining

Since the establishment of the first human colony some key elements have served as foundations of some extraordinary inventions, for example the invention of the wheel from stone, fire from wood or say invention of a bulb or the first electric motor and from that came the first engine. As you see these inventions are used by us till the present day but with proper knowledge we made them efficient, long lasting and cheap. If you look around, you will find yourself somehow dependent on them, almost everybody on this planet is! 

The basic and fundamental elements like Iron, Copper, Zinc, Lead, Aluminium, Nickel, Cobalt and many expensive metals like Gold, Platinum, Silver are also obtained from beneath the Earth surface. They are important because they are used almost in every component and are being extracted from Earth and are likely to be exhausted within 50 to 60 years. 

We need to find an alternative for these minerals or we need to find another source. With increase in use of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind energy and other renewable sources we reduce the usage of fossil fuel but this just created demand for elements. So the concept of Space Mining can be implemented to satisfy the increasing demand, it has its own advantages and disadvantages too.

Space mining includes extracting the desired minerals from asteroids and other celestial bodies. Our universe is full of millions of billions of tons of rocks which were not able to form planets after the Big Bang and as a result they randomly orbit around the Sun. These asteroids are categorised on the basis of their composition. In the beginning we will mainly need M- type(metallic) which according to scientists mainly contains iron and nickel and can be worth trillions of dollars. 

As they orbit the Sun we can approach with two methods, First we can launch a craft with a harpoon or extensible mechanical arms which will grab the asteroid. Asteroids might be rotating randomly so craft will have to slow it down and then bring the whole asteroid near the Earth and put it in an orbit so special space shuttles can carry the mining equipment to them. The craft cannot be equipped with conventional chemical fuel engines because to perform those maneuvers requires huge amounts of force, resulting in the need of fuel and those craft cannot be heavy. So in a nutshell spacecraft must be light and equipped with an engine which is powerful and efficient. We can use the concept ion thrusters or fusion rockets. 

This method seems simple but the asteroids are quite big and heavy so bringing them near to Earth can be very dangerous and expensive, also asteroids have random paths so to predict when and where the asteroid is going to be present is difficult.

We can use an alternate method in which instead of bringing an asteroid near to Earth we can send a spacecraft equipped with mining equipment which would drill on the surface and  store it in a capsule and send them back to Earth where the space shuttle would be ready to collect them and bring them back to Earth. This will reduce the hazard of big asteroids getting out of control and we can also use solar powered spacecraft to get unlimited power.

This method too comes with some hurdles like sending back the capsules to a particular location needs precision and of course these technologies can take hundreds of years to develop and we may have exhausted our resources by then. These asteroids have micro gravity i.e. they are binded by weak force of gravity so if we try to drill through it, can lead to complete disintegration of structure.

Financial feasibility of these missions is very important as both of these methods come at great cost. One mission can be of trillions of dollars so it’s like conducting a mission for almost nothing. Time is also a factor as above given technology can take decades. For these theories to be implemented in real life, many nations will have to come together. There are many other theories that are being worked upon to make it possible in upcoming time.

Once we establish a proper deep space industries we would have unlocked one of many doors to interplanetary colonization, we would have an unlimited source of rare and demanding minerals and from there a chain will be established which if you think of can solve our problem on Colonizing Mars but first we have to take a step overcoming our challenges whether they are financial, technical or political. 

“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.”

– Konstantin Tsiolkovsky