Investors launch plan to mine in outer space

During the closing Keynote address of SME and CIM’s joint Safety and Reliability in Mining Resources conference in October 2011, Greg Baiden of Laurentian University and Penguin ASI spoke about robotics and automation and how it will apply to mining in the future. Among the applications he discussed was the ability to mine the Moon or other surfaces not on the Earth.

Now it seems there is a group of investors who are willing to take a chance on just such a future.

At a press conference at the Seattle Museum of Flight, investors including Titanic director James Cameron, Google’s Larry Page, Ross Perot Jr. and Intentional Software co-founder Charles Simonyi announced plans for what they hope will be the first “space rush,” opening a new frontier for mining.

The mega-million dollar plan is to use commercially built robotic ships to squeeze rocket fuel and valuable minerals like platinum and gold out of the asteroids that routinely whiz by Earth. One of the company founders predicts they could have their version of a space-based gas station up and running by 2020, the Associated Press reported.

The inaugural step, to be achieved in the next 18 to 24 months, would be launching the first in a series of private telescopes that would search for rich asteroid targets.

Several scientists not involved in the project said they were simultaneously thrilled and skeptical, calling the plan daring, difficult — and highly expensive. They struggle to see how it could be cost-effective, even with platinum and gold worth nearly $1,600/oz. An upcoming NASA mission to return just 60 g (2 oz) of an asteroid to Earth will cost about $1 billion, according the Associated Press.

Yet investors and advisers to the new company, Planetary Resources Inc. of Seattle, WA said they plan to move forward. The mining, fuel processing and later refueling would all be done without humans, Anderson said.

The idea that asteroids could be mined for resources has been around for years. Asteroids are the leftovers of a failed attempt to form a planet billions of years ago. Most of the remnants became the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but some pieces were pushed out to roam the solar system.

Asteroids are made mostly of rock and metal and range from a couple of dozen feet wide to nearly 10 miles long. The new venture targets the free-flying asteroids.

Water can be broken down in space to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel. Water is very expensive to get off the ground so the plan is to take it from an asteroid to a spot in space where it can be converted into fuel. From there, it can easily and cheaply be shipped to Earth orbit for refueling commercial satellites or spaceships from NASA and other countries.

In the past couple of years, NASA and other space agencies have shifted their attention from the moon and other planets toward asteroids. Because asteroids don’t have any substantial gravity, targeting them costs less fuel and money than going to the moon, Anderson said in a phone interview.

There are probably 1,500 asteroids that pass near Earth that would be good initial targets. They are at least 50 m (160 ft) wide, and Anderson figures 10 percent of them have water and other valuable minerals.