Tomorrowland by Steven Kotler

Author:Steven Kotler
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: New Harvest
Published: 2015-05-12T06:00:00+00:00

3.

So what will this concept look like in our lifetime? Already, Planetary Resources has raised over $1.5 million to help launch the ARKYD 100 space telescope, which is specifically designed to hunt for near-Earth asteroid mining prospects. There’s also President Obama’s announcement that he wants to land astronauts on an asteroid by 2025. Teams at Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena are hard at work on this goal, so a government-sponsored first step is not out of the question. Others believe that big energy companies — the same ones who built North Sea oil platforms — will have, by then, staked claims on near-Earth asteroids. Jeffrey Kargel compares the short-term future of asteroid exploitation to the early exploration of North America, starting with the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803. “That expedition was followed by decades of military expeditions, geologic surveys, and infrastructure development. Major exploitation of the West’s mineral riches began in 1848 and helped power American industrialization over the succeeding century. With asteroid mining we also may face a period of several decades where the world’s space agencies will support asteroid, lunar, and Martian resource exploration while key infrastructure is improved. Profitable commercial development of extraterrestrial resources may begin midcentury and fundamentally shape Earth’s economy before this century is out.”

The reason asteroid mining will reshape the global economy comes down to the numbers. In his Manreza lecture, Brother Guy examined the value of a typical S-class asteroid (S for stony, thus only 10 percent metal). By his calculations, an S-class asteroid contains about one billion metric tons of iron, or as much as is currently mined on Earth each year. The total value of this haul sits in the high, high trillions. And that’s only one type of asteroid. There are also M-class asteroids, with M standing for mostly metallic.

While iron is the most abundant metal found in asteroids, they also contain nickel, gold, cobalt, and perhaps the biggest find: all of the platinum-group metals. “In human history,” says Eric Anderson, “all the platinum that’s been mined on Earth would fit in a tractor trailer. But platinum has excellent technological properties. It’s a great conductor. But at two thousand dollars an ounce, we really can’t build new industries around it.”

Getting the necessary platinum for the creation of new industries is a tantalizing possibility, but more practical concerns will likely drive early mining missions. Fuel cells are a necessity if we’re going to fight global warming, but we need platinum to run them. If all five hundred million vehicles on the road today suddenly had fuel cells, then our entire supply of platinum would be exhausted in fifteen years. Meanwhile, iridium, used for LCDs and flat-screen TVs, and tantalum, used in cell phones, are both abundant in space but in short supply on Earth. The same holds for phosphorus — needed for fertilizer — and gallium, hafnium, and zinc — all needed for electronics. “The Earth,” says Diamandis, “is a tiny crumb in a supermarket of resources.

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