The legend of space El Dorado. A New Hope for Asteroid Mining
The success of two asteroid missions currently under way - Japan's Hayabusa 2 and America's OSIRIS-REx - could revive fading hopes for mining in space. The goal of both projects is to take samples of space rocks and deliver them back to Earth, which was planned as the extraction of space resources.
Then Hayabusa 2 walks around spins around asteroidy 162173 Ryugu since June 2018. The first sampling operation was carried out on the night of February 21-22 this year. It ended in success. In April, Hayabusa 2 bombed Ryuga. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said at a press conference that as part of Operation Small Carry-on Impactor (SCI), it descended over its surface and then fired a rocket containing explosives that hit Ryuga.
As a result, a large crater was formed, the material from which will soon be investigated (1). However, you will have to wait a long time to avoid collisions with an object that has become detached from the object, which has a very weak gravity.
1. Visualization of the Hayabusa-2 probe taking a sample from the Ryugu crater.
In turn, the spacecraft sent by NASA OSIRIS-REX arrived in orbit asteroidy Bennu a few months ago, but not everything went according to plan. The rock was much rougher than they expected.
The surface of Bennu is completely filled. This challenges the team to decide exactly where to collect the samples. Using a laser tool built into the probe, NASA gained insight into how Osiris' hostile environment struck. The choice of landing site will ultimately help determine whether the mission's most dangerous maneuver, which is to close in and collect research material, succeeds. However, NASA still has plenty of time to make a decision as the spacecraft is expected to remain around Bennu for this year. Only after that the agency will proceed to the most risky stage.
Both missions are scientific in nature. It is about collecting data that will help us better understand the origin and development of the solar system. However, especially if the projects are successful, there may be economic consequences.
According to Asterank, a database that estimates the economic potential at around 600 people. asteroids, it is assumed that Bennu contains raw materials worth nearly $670 billionand the meaning of Ryugu is nearly 83 billion.
Is it really worth it?
After the sensational statements and declarations of even major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, according to which it will be the engine of industrial growth on asteroids in the XNUMXth century, as well as after the investments of the Duchy of Luxembourg and loud statements about "space mining companies" such as Planetary Resources or Deep Space Industries (DSI) - the speculative bubble around space mining has already burst. Not much publicity. More like a quiet screech.
At the turn of 2018 and 2019, in just two months, both DSI and Planetary Resources, which had been fighting for years to attract investors willing to spend the billions needed to implement ambitious projects, were taken over by other companies. Their plans for the development of space wealth are postponed indefinitely.
Experts have pointed out from the very beginning that there is no technology yet that would allow a space expedition, mining and transporting the riches of asteroids to Earth, and at a reasonable cost. Even if it turned out to be technically feasible, the whole business model remains, in the opinion of many, highly questionable.
A recent analysis by Andreas Hein of the French Polytechnic University Centrale Supélec shows that mining platinum from asteroids will never be economically viable, if only because the market for this metal, which is already on Earth, will respond to a large supply of platinum. On the one hand, imported platinum will be extremely expensive, because its extraction and importation is more expensive than mining on Earth. On the other hand, a larger supply will reduce the price of this metal on the market, which means that profitability will also fall. The situation is becoming extremely complex from a business point of view.
Moreover there are no specific and reliable data on the abundance of asteroids. These objects can be classified as being made of carbon, silicon, or metal. Mining companies are particularly interested in metallic asteroids, but their composition is still not well known..
We have scattered information about "platinum asteroids" such as 2011 UW158 (2), which regularly approaches only 2,4 million km, but not a single geologist has gone to it and investigated exactly how much precious ore it contains and whether it can be extracted. Let's remember that the research being done on asteroids is mostly focused on identifying their potential threats to our planet, not their riches.
2. Radar image of the platinum asteroid 2011 UW158.
Quoted in the February issue of New Scientist, JL Galash of Aten Engineering, says we should not rely on finding what we need in the asteroid supply.
“Rare earths are probably just as rare on asteroids,” Galash says.
In his opinion, it can be assumed that space rocks are full of iron, silicon, and also water. These are also important and valuable resources, but they are not enough to deliver them to Earth, where they are in abundance, especially since transporting them into space is difficult and very expensive.
Asteroid mining may be important in the future, not so much for the market for raw materials, but for space exploration by space colonists. And when we get to the basic resources we need there, who knows? Perhaps they will allow you to build remote mines for these rarer resources.
Difficult tasks
To date, about a million asteroids have been identified. The vast majority can be immediately ruled out for the targets discussed in this article because they are in the main belt, in orbit between them, and too far away to be potential mining targets. You should focus on objects flying near the Earth, which limits the search to about 17 thousand. "Goals".
A few years ago, a group of astronomers from the British University of Strathclyde, led by Daniel Garcia Jarnoz, among about 9 bodies of this type orbiting near the Earth, she chose those that could theoretically be forced to change course, and reduced their speed below 500 m / s.
Twelve potentially "tangible" and commercially viable properties were then selected. It is important to place them in an accessible orbit, near the so-called Langrange pointswhere the gravitational influences of the Earth and the Sun balance each other. These points are located about a million kilometers from our planet.
3. Vision for future asteroid research
According to scientists, at least one of these asteroids is a fragment several meters long, marked as 2006 RH120 - it could, for example, be placed near L2 (the second Lagrange point) using a single pulse from a rocket engine. However, this example already shows that manipulating asteroids is not as easy and fast as space miners think. Nothing in this "theoretical case" (3) is easy, although the possible successful return of Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REx gives some hope. And, as you know, she dies last.
