Space Mining

Swirling through the cosmos, within striking distance of Earth, are thousands of extraordinarily valuable rocks. At least, that’s the theory: Asteroids, known to science since 1801, have of late become the object of a minor boom in speculative investment. At least two companies plan to mine near-earth asteroids for precious metals, and many scientists think their resources could be instrumental in future spacefaring. Yet who would rightfully own this celestial abundance isn’t a settled question under international law. And plenty of skeptics think the whole pursuit is daft.

In August 2015, the number of near-earth asteroids identified topped 13,000, with an average of three more being confirmed every day. The month before, a spacecraft built by Planetary Resources took off from the International Space Station on a mission to test the instruments and software needed for a robotic mining expedition. Many asteroids are rich in water and precious metals, notably platinum, a prime ingredient in everything from catalytic converters to cell phones. NASA is planning its own mission in 2016 to visit an asteroid and bring some of its surface material back home. The U.S. Congress is mulling legislation that would confer property rights on companies that extract extraterrestrial resources. And the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates some private space activity, has been quietly encouraging aerospace companies that want to commercialize the cosmos. Peter Diamandis, a co-founder of Planetary Resources, estimates that a single asteroid 30 meters in diameter could yield $50 billion of platinum, and there are thousands that are larger. In 10 years, the company — which counts Eric Schmidt and Larry Page of Google among its financial backers — hopes to have produced its first liter of extraterrestrial water. Deep Space Industries, a competitor, says it plans to use 3-D printing to build a zero-gravity manufacturing plant. In space, as in Silicon Valley, hyperbole is not unknown.