As with any new technology, once Humans move to exploit that tech, there WILL be effects. Newton’s Second Law is inescapable: “Newton’s third law simply states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, if object A acts a force upon object B, then object B will exert an opposite yet equal force upon object A.”
While Newton was talking about physical objects acting on each other, it’s fairly straightforward to apply the principle to something like mining the asteroids.
FIRST is the most obvious and is, in fact, a result of the physical aspect of NFL (not the National Football League, which is, as we all know, a Force unto itself…) – when we start blowing up asteroids, or even creating explosions inside of them, their motion will change. Will the targeted asteroids suddenly drop out of the sky? “Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) focussed on capturing and returning smaller asteroids to earth via unmanned spacecraft, rather than the longer term colonisation and extraction options (which are more heavily reliant on other factors, such as the availability of water). KISS’s “Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study” concentrates on identifying near-Earth asteroids that are not too small to be invisible but not too large that they can’t be practicably returned to Earth. They conclude that the optimum asteroid would be ~7m in diameter and weigh between ~500,000 kg. The study estimates that it would be possible to capture and return such an asteroid into a high lunar orbit by around 2025, although this is dependent on the development of a suitably powerful solar/electric propulsion system, instigation of a campaign to discover and characterise potential near-Earth asteroids, and the establishment of a human presence in cislunar space.” (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/impact-asteroid-mining-sam-moorhouse) (Published on June 21, 2017, this article was (shall we say) a TEENSY bit optimistic…)
OK…that target date is now provably unrealistic. We’ll have to play around with it as a thought experiment. It seems logical to me that as we have done with Earth mining, we are likely in danger of doing the same thing in near-Earth-orbit. Digging created waste material tailings or spoil tip or slimes or overburdens or culm or gob or chat bing or slag heap…or any other name that mining companies make up to hide the fact that they’re dumping useless crap after they’ve sucked all the money out of whatever they mine…
The pertinent fact here is that they just wanted it out of the way.
Asteroid mining will do exactly the same thing – I have absolutely NO DOUBT that it will happen this way. I have lived in the refuse of the state that stripped iron from the earth SO VORACIOUSLY that “…research suggests that more than 329 million tons of iron ore went from Minnesota to steel mills during [WWII]…”
“Peak production in 1943 and 1944, Minnesota mines produced nearly 70 million tons of iron ore per year…that high demand for iron ore during WWII led to the near depletion of Minnesota's natural, high-grade ore reserves…” followed by the collapse of the economy of the Iron Range. I have seen the people devastated by the mining companies summarily leaving the area for greener pastures (or “redder pit mines”] with ZERO thought put into what would result once they were gone. (https://www.timberjay.com/stories/historical-obsession,16064#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWhat%20would%20have%20happened%20to,sacrificed%20the%20iron%20ore%20here.%E2%80%9D)
My prediction? A brief stop here. According to Wikipedia, “…The most common commodities mined in the US include coal, copper, gold, iron ore, lithium, molybdenum, silver, uranium, and phosphate.”
How many of those ores have been virtually mined out in mines opened early in their history? Coal production (in North America; NOT in China, India, and other so-called “Third World Countries”.)
Asteroid mining will leave behind the same devastated Humans in their wake. Who will step in? Who will start the “environmental activism”? As it happened in Minnesota on the Iron Range which stopped producing iron, other mines in the US have decreased production of coal, copper-nickel, cobalt, rare-earths, and probably others, because it can be mined elsewhere more cheaply because environmental regulations here are among the strictest on Earth. The minerals are there; but we are being blocked from claiming them.
What will be the “environmental impact” of mining the asteroids? What do I suggest they do?
More on that next time…
Today’s Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/849994733672039/
https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2025/06/why-deep-seabed-mining-needs-a-moratorium, https://nautil.us/mining-in-space-could-lead-to-conflicts-on-earth-235900/ , https://www.livescience.com/65472-scientists-propose-solar-system-national-park.html , https://www.yep-academy.org/post/exploiting-stars-the-environmental-costs-of-space-mining , https://newspaceeconomy.ca/2023/10/26/environmental-impacts-of-space-mining-vs-terrestrial-mining/ , https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265964621000333
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Interesting Stuff The Might Apply To Mining Asteroids: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgej7gzg8l0o
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