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Space Mining

Australia Will Lead The Way In Space Mining Because We’re Used To Operating In Isolated, Extreme Environments – by Cayla Dengate (Huffington Post Australia – February 22, 2016)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/

It’s hard to talk about space mining without thinking of Bruce Willis striding across an asteroid in Armageddon, and the scientists, engineers and lawyers at the forefront of space exploration know it.

University of NSW School of Mining Engineering research director Serkan Saydam said off-earth mining preparations were underway but Bruce and his hunky team of riggers were misleading.

“It’s definitely not going to happen like in the movie Armageddon and I can guarantee it’s not going to be done by the humans, it’s going to be done by the robots,” Saydam said.

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Why Canada risks losing out on minerals in space – by Michael Byers (Globe and Mail – February 20, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.

Three-quarters of the world’s mining companies are incorporated in Canada. But as the global industry prepares for its greatest leap since mechanization, Canada risks losing that leadership position – unless it takes sides in a debate over the private ownership of minerals found in space.

The United States has already shown an interest in asteroids, some of which pass quite close to Earth and might be exceedingly rich in heavy elements such as cobalt, gold, platinum, rhodium and tungsten. Later this year, NASA will launch a spacecraft, the Osiris-Rex, on a mission to retrieve a mineral sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

Canada is providing Osiris-Rex’s laser altimeter, which will map the surface of the 500-metre-diameter asteroid. This will enable scientists to determine the best site for the spacecraft to touch down, briefly, to collect the sample.

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Space Mining Is Going to Accelerate the Military Space Race – by John Knefel (Inverse.com – February 11, 2016)

https://www.inverse.com/

The U.S. military has tried for decades to put weapons in space. Russia and China are watching, and revving up.

Luxembourg made international news last week when the small European country announced its intentions to be a world leader in commercial asteroid mining. You know if Luxembourg is making big moves, the coming decades in outer space are going to be wild.

The expected boom in commercial space travel and resource extraction are going to be equal parts gold rush and space race, with all the potential for riches and conflict those entail.

For decades, the United States and Russia (including when it was part of the USSR) have tried to weaponize outer space. The Reagan-era “Star Wars” program to weaponize space became a symbol of a Pentagon completely untethered from reality or any meaningful budgetary constraints. But the first “space war” was Operation Desert Storm, when U.S. forces used GPS to rout Iraq’s army following the invasion of Kuwait.

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Space Mining Could Set Off a Star War – by Clive Thompson (Wired Magazine – January 14, 2016)

http://www.wired.com/

SPACE IS LOUSY with profits. Consider the asteroid Ryugu: It’s made of so many tons of nickel, iron, cobalt, and water, it’s worth an estimated $95 billion. Venture into deeper space and there’s even richer plunder—like Davida, an asteroid that the wanna-be space mining company Planetary Resources values at more than $100 trillion. That’s more than five times the GDP of the US.

These jaw-dropping payloads are why extraterrestrial mining is becoming an increasingly serious endeavor. Companies like Planetary Resources, backed by the likes of Googlers Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, are already launching satellites to scan for the most promising asteroids.

Space experts say some firm could be ready to launch a mission within 10 years. But are they allowed to? Of course, anyone can reach an asteroid—NASA already has. But can you own one?

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New Law Paves the Way for Asteroid Mining–But Will It Work? – by Jennifer Hackett (Scientific American – December 4, 2015)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/

Mining asteroids may sound like a concept ripped from science fiction, but a new law is aiming to make it a reality. On November 25 Pres. Barack Obama signed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, a bill intended to spur private space exploration by limiting governmental regulations until September 2023.

That time frame is meant to allow a learning period for private companies to develop the technology necessary for future goals such as space tourism, commercial spaceflight and space mining.

To that end the bill explicitly allows companies or individuals to claim ownership of any resources and minerals they are able to collect in space—a right that was previously murky under the law.

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U.S. bill ends legal quandary over mining rights in space – by Irene Klotz (Reuters U.K. – December 2, 2015)

http://uk.reuters.com/

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. – A new law clears U.S. companies to own what they mine from asteroids and other celestial bodies, ending a legal quandary that had overshadowed technical and financial issues facing the startups, industry officials said on Tuesday.

The Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, signed by President Barack Obama last week, includes provisions that authorize and promote exploration and recovery of space resources by U.S. citizens, although no one can claim ownership of a celestial body.

“It’s not unlike fishing vessels in international waters,” said Bob Richards, chief executive of Moon Express, a lunar transportation and mining company.

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US staking its rights in space – by Kip Keen (Mineweb.com – November 27, 2015)

http://www.mineweb.com/

President Obama signs law giving US citizens rights to resources in space.

US President Barack Obama signed off on a lofty law concerning private rights to resources in space this week. It’s ignited the aspirations of the space exploration crowd in the US – a few of which have designs on mining in space.

Indeed, Obama inspired some first class hyperbole. Planetary Resources, a would-be asteroid explorer, went so far as to peg the law as the “single greatest recognition of property rights in history”.

Well, well. It’s unfortunate the space exploration class chose such climatic words for a moment that is indeed quite interesting if not quite so sexy.

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Bill confirming property rights for asteroid miners passes the Senate – by Mark Whittington (Houston Space News Examiner – November 11, 2015)

http://www.examiner.com/

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee announced on Tuesday the passage of a bill H.R.2262 – SPACE Act of 2015 designed to facilitate commercial space. The bill has a number of provisions for that purpose, including extending the “learning period” during which the government would be restricted from imposing regulations on the commercial launch industry to September 2023.

The most interesting and potentially far-reaching provision concerned property rights for companies proposing to mine asteroids for their resources. In essence, the bill confirms that private companies own what they mine. The bill is a compromise between previous Senate and House versions.

The exact wording of the language reads, “Any asteroid resources obtained in outer space are the property of the entity that obtained them, which shall be entitled to all property rights to them, consistent with applicable federal law and existing international obligations.”

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At $27 Billion, Mining in Space Could Cost Less Than a Gas Plant – by David Stringer (Bloomberg News – November 5, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Getting a mine up and running on the moon or an asteroid would cost less than building the biggest gas terminals on Earth, according to research presented to a forum of company executives and NASA scientists.

A mission to Ceres, a dwarf planet 257 million miles from the Sun and the size of Texas, may cost about $27 billion. The expense includes 10 rocket launches to convey equipment, the extraction of metals and water, and the construction of an in-orbit facility to process the raw materials.

The costing comes from graduate business students at Australia’s University of New South Wales, which is also collaborating with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the economics of space mining. By comparison, Australia’s biggest single resources development — Chevron Corp.’s Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant — has an expected price tag of about $54 billion.

Still, getting investors to buy into the grand vision that mankind has a future in the stars is a high bar to clear.

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Asteroid Mining May Be a Reality by 2025 – by Mike Wall (Space.com – August 11, 2015)

http://www.space.com/

Asteroid mining could shift from sci-fi dream to world-changing reality a lot faster than you think.

Planetary Resources deployed its first spacecraft from the International Space Station last month, and the Washington-based asteroid-mining company aims to launch a series of increasingly ambitious and capable probes over the next few years.

The goal is to begin transforming asteroid water into rocket fuel within a decade, and eventually to harvest valuable and useful platinum-group metals from space rocks.

“We have every expectation that delivering water from asteroids and creating an in-space refueling economy is something that we’ll see in the next 10 years — even in the first half of the 2020s,” said Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources president and chief engineer Chris Lewicki.

“After that, I think it’s going to be how the market develops,” Lewicki told Space.com, referring to the timeline for going after asteroid metals.

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Mining Outer Space: Who Owns the Asteroids? – by Timothy G. Nelson (New York Law Journal – July 29, 2015)

http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/

Over the last two years, U.S. business and policy makers have focused afresh on the commercial possibilities of the asteroids—the solar system’s minor planetary objects. Most of these are located between Mars and Jupiter, while some are closer to Earth. Some have large deposits of precious metals and other potentially valuable substances.1

In the last few years, some private operators have announced plans to mine them commercially, a concept that, until now, has been exclusively the realm of science fiction.2

In apparent response to these initiatives, the House of Representatives recently passed the “Space Resource Exploration and Utilization Act of 2015,” H.R. 1508, part of a broader SPACE Act of 2015, H.R. 2262. The proposed legislation aims to assure private companies of title over “[a]ny asteroid resources obtained in outer space”3—assuming, of course, that they are eventually able to get there.

Although this initiative only began in the late part of the last congressional session, with relatively brief hearings, it was sponsored by key members of the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology.4 The bill now goes to the Senate (where it already has at least two potential adherents, including presidential candidate and Senator Marco Rubio).5 If enacted, this will be a bold, if controversial, development in U.S. space policy.

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Lifton on asteroid mining rare earths and Molycorp’s Mountain Pass – by Jack Lifton (Investor Intel – July 20, 2015)

http://investorintel.com/

Some rules don’t change. But that doesn’t mean that our poorly educated journalists have to know of them or even have to understand them, when they are described or applied. One rule, frequently swept under the rug by junior mining promoters eager to take advantage of journalistic ignorance can be stated as:

“In order for any deposit to be developed into a profitable mine the infrastructure to access it must already exist, or, if not, then its costs must be included in the feasibility study.”

Trivially this means for example no commercial mining until I can get to the deposit and either process the material to a commercial form at the site or move it to a processing site without logistics’ costs destroying the project economics.

A corollary of the above “rule” is that the cost of infrastructure must be quantified and covered before the project enters development. Now, the above rules of economics having been stated let’s get to what I am talking about today.

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The [United States] House just passed a bill about space mining. The future is here. – by Brian Fung (Washington Post – May 22, 2015)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

For as long as we’ve existed, humans have looked up at the stars — and wondered. What is up there? Who is out there?

Now, to that list of questions we can add: And CAN I HAVE IT?

The United States has already shown its penchant for claiming ownership of space-based things. There are not one, not two, but six U.S. flags on the moon, in case any of you other nations start getting ideas. (Never mind that the flags have all faded to a stateless white by now.)

So it only makes sense that American lawmakers would seek to guarantee property rights for U.S. space corporations. Under the SPACE Act, which just passed the House, businesses that do asteroid mining will be able to keep whatever they dig up:

“Any asteroid resources obtained in outer space are the property of the entity that obtained such resources, which shall be entitled to all property rights thereto, consistent with applicable provisions of Federal law.”

This is how we know commercial space exploration is serious. The opportunity here is so vast that businesses are demanding federal protections for huge, floating objects they haven’t even surveyed yet.

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Space mining decades away: NASA scientist – by Peter Rakobowchuk (Canadian Press – May 12, 2015)

http://metronews.ca/

MONTREAL – Prospecting on the moon or on asteroids is probably a couple of decades away, a NASA scientist told a symposium on planetary and terrestrial mining Tuesday.

The event, part of the Canadian Institute of Mining’s annual convention, heard that issues like ownership and management of resources in outer space still have to be worked out.

One of the main problems is that no country owns anything in space. One Canadian geologist suggests a regulatory system is needed for any future mining in space.

Joe Hinzer said the mining industry on Earth is regulated by an international committee under a United Nations umbrella that sets standards in different countries.

“I think that’s the kind of approach that might work for extraterrestrial stuff as well,” he said. Hinzer also cited Europe as an example, noting it has developed its own parliament and legal system and operates in a manner similar to that of the United Nations.

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Asteroid Mining Could Be The Next Frontier For Resource Mining – by Anne Lu (International Business Times – April 21 2015)

http://au.ibtimes.com/

Minerals are one of the Earth’s finite resources, so there is bound to come a time when miners would start to look elsewhere for mineral sources, including outer space. Mining company Planetary Resources has recently made headlines when it launched the first of two technology demonstration aircrafts that aim to prospect for valuable resources on asteroids.

The launch of the Arkyd 3 Reflight, or A3R, is just one of the steps that Planetary Resources is undertaking in order to achieve its ultimate goal of having asteroid prospecting missions in the future. Once the two aircrafts are launched, it has the possibility of jumpstarting a trillion-dollar market for oxygen, hydrogen and metal mining from asteroids.

There are basically three main types of asteroids that can be used for mining. The first one is C-type asteroids, which are the most common type but also the furthest from the sun. They contain around 22 percent water, which can be used as fuel for manned missions. S-type asteroids are closest to the sun, and these are made up of stony material, nickel, iron and precious metals like platinum, gold and rhodium.

Finally, M-type asteroids are the least common among the three and are found in the middle region of the asteroid belt.

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