Is space a solution to the problem of resource scarcity?

(NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of IC 4271)

Let's talk about the possibility of space exploration which is in the early stages of development i.e., Asteroid Mining.

Let us understand a few things about mining:

1. The mining sector is critical to India's economic and social well-being. Mining and quarrying sector contributes around 2.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

2. The effects can result in erosion, sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, or the contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface water by the chemicals emitted from mining processes. These processes also affect the atmosphere from the emissions of carbon which affect the quality of human health and biodiversity.

Mining as of now provides resources such as precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, etc.), other metals (Iron, Aluminum, etc.), and many other resources which we humans use in our day-to-day life.

But we all know the earth is a limited planet and the resources on earth too are finite & limited, along with that due to ever increasing human demands there has been an increase in mining of resources and hence the amount of resources available on earth is also reducing day by day.

But due to the dependency of humans on these resources and the trend in increase in demand, humans shall require more of these resources in future.

So, is there any solution to this problem?

Yes, Lookup in the sky, that is where the solution of unlimited resources lies. A place with untapped and infinite resources.

But how? as we know that there are if not more than then at least billions of asteroids floating aimlessly in the cosmos and space. These asteroids are rich in various resources that are very useful to humans such as Platinum group metals, Water, Structural material, Water for ration shielding, and much more.

And these observations have triggered a new wave in space exploration and that new wave is Asteroid mining, just like we are mining the core of earth for the resources we shall also be mining the surface of asteroids for resources.

Now how shall we do asteroid mining, this shall undertake various processes, let us begin?

1. Prospecting - Finding and defining the extent, location, and value of the ore body. That is finding the location of an asteroid using technology such as Radar data tracking to locate a particular moving asteroid.

2. Sampling: That is collecting samples from, a particular asteroid and testing the presence of useful material in it.

3. Excavation - Mining minerals from the ore body in different ways such as Pneumatic methods, Magnetic methods (iron-nickel dust, nano-phase iron), Auger, scoop, etc.

4. Processing - Comminution is a particle size reduction of materials. It is an extremely energy inefficient process and hence should be limited or eliminated altogether. Concentration is a process of increasing the concentration of the wanted minerals. This includes magnetic and electrostatic separation. Magnetic materials could be extracted using the magnetic concentration process. Only fines should be captured using for example a magnetic rake. The electrostatic separation will be able to capture fines only and leave out larger rocks.

5. Extraction – (1.) Minerals: Extraction of valuable metals from their ores through chemical or mechanical means. (2.) Alloyed Metals: If metals are present in alloy form (e.g., Nickel-Iron) they must be de-alloyed.

6. Storage - The refined resources are captured and stored within a protective enclosure for future use.

7. Transportation - These resources then shall be sent to earth b using Electrical Space vehicles, reusable rockets, or nuclear-powered rockets for their particular use.

Now the question arises where shall it be done?

Sending spacecraft to space and getting back these resources shall be a tedious, costly, and highly inefficient process.

Hence concept of Robotic Asteroid Prospector (RAP) is introduced.

Picture below shows what a RAP would look like.

{Robotic Asteroid Prospector (RAP)}

and the picture below represents the Hierarchy of Space Resource Extraction and Markets.

(Hierarchy of Space Resource Extraction and Markets.)

A Rap would be equipped with various AR Probes for collecting samples and multiple spider space vehicles to carry out the further process of Excavation, Processing, and Extraction, there shall be space allotted inside RAP for the storage of the resources collected from the asteroids, as this also means that there is no need to send rockets every now and then to carry out small tasks such as storage, excavation, extraction, etc.

Now coming to the possibility of this happening, Just like a few decades ago having a conversation with someone present on the other side of the world was a far fetched reality and seemed impossible so is the case with asteroid mining as it seems quite impossible because of the limitation in the technology of current times, not just about efficient space travel but also about the development of various robots which shall carry out these tasks in space.

Now addressing the most difficult problem when it comes to asteroid mining,

To conduct asteroid mining successfully, the particular asteroid is to be brought inside the earth's orbit (to avoid more space travel) and this, in turn, increases the risk of fluctuation in the earth's cycle of revolution around the sun due to sheer gravity of the asteroid and also the to rotation cycle of the earth around its own axis. Hence immense care is to be taken as all life on earth is at at stake (just like in Sci-Fi movies). And as of now human technology does not have any possible solution to deal with this.

And hence asteroid mining right now is a very difficult process.

Hence a lot of things are to be considered inorder to move further and to make asteroid mining come true as a reality. As it can solve many problems of resources that humans shall face in the coming future. But also possesses challenges of its own

So that’s it for today, if you liked the blog so share it with your friends, family, and also the people whom you think shall be interested in such topics.

And please don’t forget to like the blog, comment on it and also let me know of any topic you want me to cover in future blogs.

[REFERENCE]

[1] Environmental effects of mining

[2] Asteroid Mining by Kris Zacny, Jack Craft, Marc Mitchell Cohen, Phil Chu

[3] How the asteroid mining bubble burst – Atossa Araxia Abrahamian