Scraping, or strip mining, will pull out valuable ore that will float off the asteroid. The most likely method would be to scrape desired material off the asteroid, and tunnel into veins of specific substances. Miners on asteroids would use techniques similar to those used on Earth.This would reduce the amount of supplies, like food, required for a manned mission. Some experts, including Lewis, have favored using robotic equipment to limit the personnel needed to carry out the mining project.The equipment will also have to be lightweight to transport it to the asteroid.The machinery will likely be solar powered, to reduce the need for fuel that would have to be hauled to the asteroid by spacecraft.But what will it take to land on an asteroid, find these valuable materials, extract them and process them? In the next section, you will find out how asteroid mining operations might supply the Earth and its colonies on other planets with a plenitude of materials. The platinum alone would have a value of more than $150 billion!Īsteroids have amazing potential for industry. One of these asteroids, according to Lewis, would contain 30 million tons of nickel, 1.5 million tons of metal cobalt and 7,500 tons of platinum. There are perhaps one million asteroids of this size in the solar system. Lewis, author of the space mining book Mining the Sky, has said that an asteroid with a diameter of one kilometer would have a mass of about two billion tons. One NASA report estimates that the mineral wealth of the asteroids in the asteroid belt might exceed $100 billion for each of the six billion people on Earth. The metal ore on the asteroids could be mined and used for building spacecraft and other structures for a space colony.Ĭorporations that might not be interested in exploring space for the adventure and science could be interested in the treasures that a space mining operation could send back to Earth. Water could also be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to form rocket engine propellant. Without water, there is really no way to move forward with human exploration of space. Water interests space explorers most because it could help keep a space colony alive. In addition to iron, nickel and magnesium, scientists think water, oxygen, gold and platinum also exist on some asteroids. Astronomers use telescopic spectroscopy, which analyzes light reflected from the asteroid's surface, to find out what might be there. M-type - A small number of asteroids are this type, and they contain nickel and iron.Įven without a manned mission to do a full-scale study of an asteroid, scientists know a lot about what asteroids contain.These contain deposits of nickel, iron and magnesium. S-type - About 17 percent of asteroids are this type.The composition of C-type asteroids is similar to that of the sun without the hydrogen, helium and other volatiles. ![]() C-type - More than 75 percent of known asteroids fit into this category.
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