Space-mining may be only a decade away
Goldman estimates that a football field-size asteroid could contain up to $50b of platinum
Is water the new oil of space? It may be to Middle Eastern states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are looking at space as a way to diversify out of fossil fuel.
“Middle East oil states are investing in satellite technology and trying to transform their domestic economies into digital economies and knowledgebased economies,” said Tom James of Navitas Resources, an energy consultant based in London and Singapore.
Interest has picked up among oil states and others in how to power space settlements using water and minerals mined from space. Oil-producing states are investing in companies and infrastructure that could one day mine minerals and water found on the moon and in asteroids.
“They are investing in it in order to attract business to the Middle East,” James said. Many oil producing states in the Middle East have large, empty spaces, relatively small populations and are located near the equator. The UAE has launched a multipronged effort to establish a space industry in which it has invested more than $5 billion (Dh18.3 billion), and that includes four satellites already in space and another due to launch in 2018.
“The Middle East is ideal for launching rockets and spaceships,” James said. “It’s the long-term solution. Oil and gas may not run forever. So they are looking to invest and be part of the new, future economy.”
Industrialisation
Goldman Sachs wrote a recent research note explaining that “space mining could be more realistic than perceived”. The bank in the same report said the storage of water as a fuel could be a “game changer” by creating orbital gas stations.
Goldman Sachs was quoted in a 2012 interview with Planetary Resources that estimated that a football field-size asteroid could contain up to $50 billion worth of platinum.
The technology already exists. Nasa launched a billiondollar mission in September to vacuum materials from an 2,000-foot-wide asteroid called Bennu. The spacecraft is scheduled to sidle up to the asteroid in 2018, extend its arm and pull in its cargo. The ship will return to Earth a couple of years later.
In addition to the UAE’s space industry, Bloomberg News reports that the Saudis signed a pact with Russia in 2015 for cooperation on space exploration. Abu Dhabi is an investor in Richard Branson’s space tourism venture, Virgin Galactic.
Several private companies, including Deep Space Industries, Planetary Resources and Shackleton Energy, are trying to crack the mining potential.
“If you have any significant human activity in space, then you are going to need resources,” said Peter Stibrany, chief strategist and business developer for Deep Space Industries.
He said mining space resources faces what he calls a “four-dimensional problem.”
The first two are technological and regulatory, which are being addressed.
“While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower,” according to the Goldman Sachs report. “Prospecting probes can likely be built for tens of millions of dollars each, and Caltech has suggested an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft could cost $2.6 billion.”
The third concern is the lack of a current market in asteroid resources. That should resolve itself when the space population hits critical mass, demanding infrastructure.
Then a business will follow if investors see that a reasonable return is likely over a reasonable amount of time with appropriate risks. That is the fourth hurdle.
“The end game,” Stibrany said, “is that if you have 1,000 or 10,000 people living and working in space, there is no practical way that is going to work without using in-space resources.”