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Space mining: Realizing a future gold rush in the last frontier

Space mining will save the environment and create completely new jobs off-world.

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Quantumrun Foresight
March 26, 2022

Insight summary

The dream of mining space for its vast resources is taking shape, with plans for bases on Mars and the Moon, and proposals to intercept asteroids for valuable minerals. This new frontier in mining could help combat global warming by providing essential metals for batteries without harming Earth's environment, and also offers geopolitical advantages by reducing dependence on resource imports. The decrease in launch costs, coupled with advances in technology, is making space mining increasingly viable, opening up opportunities for new jobs, studies, and collaborations, but also raising concerns about space regulations and ethics.

Space mining context

Humans will one-day mine space for its untold riches. The initial steps to reach this future are already underway; for example, SpaceX targets a base on Mars by 2028; Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin promises “a sustained human presence on the Moon,” NASA aims to have its permanent orbital station, Lunar Gateway, in operation by the end of the 2020s, along with China’s moon base set for operations by the late 2030s. Establishing an extraterrestrial mining industry over the coming decades will be enormously expensive, but the eventual returns are estimated to be beyond imagination.

The solar system has a wide selection of planets, moons, and asteroids, altogether containing near-limitless resources that humans can mine for industrial use on Earth. These resources have been discovered by astronomers who have used telescopic spectroscopy to establish that select asteroids orbiting our system contain vast deposits of iron, nickel, and magnesium. Some also contain water, gold, platinum, and various other valuable resources.

Future mining companies have proposed sending rockets or probes to intercept these asteroids and divert their orbits in the direction of the Earth or the moon. Additional rockets would intercept these asteroids and guide them into stable orbits around the Earth or the moon so that space-based autonomous robots could then start mining for minerals that would then be shuttled back to Earth by cargo rockets. Alternatively, corporations and government agencies are also looking at establishing mining bases on the moon where its microgravity would make mining its surface for minerals relatively low cost. Such mining activities would both benefit Earth-based industries, as well as support future colonies on the moon and Mars.

Disruptive impact

Another motivation for pursuing spacing mining is to combat global warming. The eventual transition to a net-zero carbon economy can be achieved (in part) through electric vehicles and renewables backed by utility-scale batteries. But to replace all gasoline vehicles and carbon-intensive power plants, society would require batteries of all forms in vast quantities, thereby necessitating equally vast quantities of metals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, and other rare-earth elements. Instead of further damaging the environment with increasingly invasive mining efforts to source these metals and minerals on Earth, the mining industry can instead explore a new frontier in mining: space.

There are also geopolitical motivations for investing in space mining, as it can provide governments with more control over the supply chains for their key industries instead of depending on the resource imports from hostile or competitor nations. Similarly, first-mover private corporations that find success mining off-world resources and successfully transporting said resources to Earth will likely become future trillion-dollar companies.

Overall, space mining is being made increasingly viable by the monumental drop in launch costs due to recent advances in rocketry, robotics, and artificial intelligence. In fact, launch costs have fallen from USD $85,000 per kilogram to less than USD USD $1,000 per kilogram in 2021. NASA aims to get it down to less than USD $100 per kilogram by the 2030s.

Implications of space mining

Wider implications of space mining may include:

One day providing the Earth with the necessary resources for its industrial needs at a fraction of the environmental impact of traditional, terrestrial mining practices.
Shifting some operations of the heavy industries off-world onto space mining sites.
New jobs for astronauts, space flight pilots, and mining professionals of all kinds within the context of space.
New areas of study for young people interested in making a career in space-related professions.
New working and living conditions for people working in space. Many space workers will spend months to years in space stations, on the moon, and other celestial bodies.
The increase of space junk as companies race to commercialize space mining, leading to stricter space regulations.
Global collaborations to ensure ethical and equitable space mining operations.