Why asteroid mining is bad

But an asteroid-mining spacecraft can transport a significant multiple of its mass as water to cis-lunar orbit. This interesting work should help to focus minds on the environmental impacts of mining, which are rapidly increasing in profile.

But it is only a first step. There is significant uncertainty in the numbers here, so these will need to be better understood. Other factors will also eventually need to be taken into account.

The Earth-bound mining industry could become more environmentally friendly by using renewable energy rather than burning coal to generate power as it does in South Africa. Rocket launching could also become greener if more eco-friendly fuels are developed. Both these things would change the numbers. There are also emissions that this analysis does not take into account. For example, it does not include the emissions from mission control on Earth or from launch-pad construction.

Then there are the ongoing effects of rocket launches on the ozone layer, which also need to be considered. So there is more work to be done. But Hein and co have taken a significant first step toward realistic environmental life-cycle assessments for asteroid mining, a task that will surely become more pressing as this industry matures.

Ref: arxiv. A new simulation shows that when the DART mission hits the target asteroid, it could send it spinning and wobbling in a dramatic way. The Decadal Survey, expected at the end of September, sets the tone for a new era of space exploration.

One team of researchers wants the survey to use AI to forecast growing science fields. By Sarah Scoles. IF THE gold mine is too far from home, why not move it nearby? It sounds like a fantasy, but would-be miners are already dreaming up ways to drag resource-rich space rocks closer to home.

Trouble is, that could threaten the web of satellites around Earth. Asteroids are not only stepping stones for cosmic colonisation, but may contain metals like gold, platinum, iron and titanium, plus life-sustaining hydrogen and oxygen, and rocket-fuelling ammonia.

Space age forty-niners can either try to work an asteroid where it is, or tug it into a more convenient orbit. All the same, even if the technical hurdles are overcome, I anticipate that some legal and governmental issues may arise. Somebody, somewhere, is going to want to tax all of this new economic activity.

Unless the U. This may be another attraction for the company: asteroid mining is the ultimate offshore site. Nobody has given a lot of thought to how all this will be dealt with from a legal and governmental angle. And the current tight coupling between corporations and the U. There are huge risks involved in this enterprise, even though the entire operation is supposed to use non-manned flight only. If anybody can afford it, though, it is the backers of Planetary Resources, who together have multiple billions of dollars to spend.

And it may take every cent before they even get back a few grams of valuable stuff. Mining has always been a business for gamblers, and space mining is no exception.

At the worst, even if it fails, it will furnish a lot of employment for heretofore unemployed aerospace engineers who can get to work on something that might actually make money. And if it all works out, it could be the first step in the transformation of space travel from an exotic, rare, super-costly thing engaged in only by governments to something closer to what international flying is like today: still sophisticated and relatively costly, but open to anyone with the money to pay for it.