MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 32: After Some “WILDLY HOPEFUL CLAIMS”, Asteroid Mining Companies Start Being “Real”

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me. Reality hit the first wave of asteroid mining startups square between the eyes…

““Asteroid Mining May be a Reality by 2025,” published by us (Space.com) in August 2015. Back then, “Planetary Resources had deployed its first spacecraft and Deep Space Industries was showing pretty pictures of its spacecraft, with the companies more than happy to tell everyone that they were in pole position to turn far away rocks into earthly profit…

“A decade later, both companies are gone”. TODAY, the Asteroid Mining Corporation (AMC), AstroForge, Karman+, and TransAstra are among the start-ups that want to be a part of the second wave of space mining, but one company clearly seems to be ahead of the pack.”

And instead of lots of talk, “AstroForge launched its first mission in April 2023 to demonstrate its refinery technology operating in space. It failed, but its second mission is on deck for launch sometime this year with the Odin spacecraft expected to be the first to collect images of an M-type (or M-class) asteroid (that is, “metallic-type) a spectral class of asteroids which appear to contain higher concentrations of metal.”

“More importantly, AstroForge has cash, is being transparent in how its first mission failed and what it needs to accomplish to fly Odin ( new probe), and has a path charted out for a third mission, Vestri, which will revisit the M-type asteroid and attempt to land…”

“TransAstra, which currently has products to track and spot objects in space, giving it the ability to bring in space domain awareness (SDA) revenue while it works on capture bags for ‘snagging and bagging’ satellites and recycling orbital debris into resources. This technology R&D leads to its Honey Bee asteroid mining vehicle, which would capture an asteroid and optically mine (here’s the definition of “optically mining…using concentrated sunlight to heat and vaporize volatile materials (like water ice) from asteroids, which are then collected and processed [to analyze it] for resources such as water and metals.”

Wasn’t sure what “optically mine” an asteroid was – sounded like they take pictures and then send them to the highest bidder. That doesn’t seem wise at the moment, as the highest bidder will likely be one of their main competitors…but who am I but an old science fiction writer? Turns out they’ll use an onboard laser to zap rock samples, and check them for wealth.

Seems there are OTHER players that are nowhere near as far along as AF and TA: “Karman+ has raised $20 million towards building an asteroid water mining mission, with a target launch window in 2027…”

“AMC is building autonomous ruggedized (???) six-legged robots that could be used on Earth in hazardous environments as well as in space with the ability to coordinate operations in swarms for inspection and other duties. AMC expects to conduct an on-orbit demonstration of its SCAR-E (Space Cargo and Reconnaissance – Explorer) robot in 2026 with deployments onboard the International Space Station and the lunar surface in the 2026-2027 timeframe.”

OK – so the quest continues with lots of companies spending money to see if mining the asteroids is REALISTIC and will (above all else) MAKE THEM MONEY.

These last contenders seem to have drifted farther and farther from reality and more into the fantasy that devoured PR and DSI. Also clear is that mining in space will be FAR more difficult than mining on Earth is…

Or is it? The website EARTH SYSTEMS points out, “…it seems the majority of the news we hear about mining is negative. However, it is important to remember how important mining is to our civilization and standard of living. It’s interesting to reflect on how we reached our current perception of mining because, during most of our history, mining has had priority over most other activities.” They point out that “…mining started as a search for the stone tools. Objects we’ve unearthed that are clearly primitive tools “are approximately 2.6 million years old, predating even Homo Sapiens.”

So humans and humanoids have been mining for a long, long time. Eventually, humans started digging iron out of rocks that had fallen from the skies: aka meteorites. “Dated to around 1400 BC, several iron axes from Shang dynasty China were confirmed to be meteoritic in origin; from around the same time, an iron dagger, bracelet and headrest from the tomb of Tutankhamun were confirmed to be meteoritic in origin”.

One could almost say that mining the asteroids is the destiny of modern Humanity.

Admittedly, it’s not HERE AND NOW, but I don’t think, based on what I’m reading now, that it’s all that far away. Of course, starting to mine the asteroids may very well lead to some bumps and bruises for the Human race in the future…

NEXT TIME: A bit of history of mining ON EARTH...was it REALLY as easy as we pretend it is?

Today’s Source: https://www.spacecomexpo.com/spacecom-column/space-mining-time-now ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-type_asteroid ; https://www.earthsystems.com/history-mining/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron
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

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 31: “SAVE the Asteroids! Environmental Activism Against the Exploitation of Solar Asteroids!”

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

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 

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 30: “Mining” of a DIFFERENT Type!

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it's become FASCINATING…

Imagine my AMAZEMENT when I met someone who has done real research on asteroid, 4179 Toutatis! It may very well be one of the defining moments of my life!

I met a scientist who works for the SETI Institute!!!!!!!

Why is that significant? Do I think there are aliens traveling on Toutatis?

No, of course not! You think I’m crazy or something???? ‘cause I’m not! My mom said so! (My wife, kids, spouses, siblings, in-laws, and outlaws) think I’m a little weird, but that’s not the same as CRAZY!) No…the reason it’s so crazy is that:

1) A scientist who works for SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute will be coming to speak to a class I teach called Alien Worlds!

2) I used the asteroid 4179 Toutatis as the piece of space rock that NASA and several other world space agencies transformed into the Solar System Survey Ship, SOLAR EXPLORER in my 2024 YA/MS novel EMERALD OF EARTH!

So…I met the SETI Institute scientist at the recently completed MiniCon; and while I reported on the convention, I didn’t specifically mention meeting him.

When I did break away from my “sales table” to go see him, he was really nice AND totally normal! He sent me a link to the paper and I read it, understanding some of it, but not all of it. I DID read enough to know that it is NOT one of the asteroid that we’ll be mining any time soon.

I DO know that its orbit around the Sun takes it into the vicinity of Earth every four years or so, as well as approaching “fairly close” to Jupiter It also has a reasonable velocity and THAT is why I chose it. Below, you'll find a bit from my 2024 YA/MS novel, EMERALD OF EARTH

“…first glimpse of SOLAREX.”

“What is it?”

“Now it’s Humanity’s Last Greatest Adventure,” Rashida said as Emerald echoed word-for-word.

“I mean, what is it? A silver rocket ship?”

“It’s a hollowed out asteroid.”

“A what?” They passed through a garden filled with dark green bushes and plants that all had white blossoms in half-a-dozen shapes and sizes. The air was redolent. Even Rashida fell silent until they were through it.

“At one time, the asteroid was called 4179 Toutatis. We captured it, hollowed it out, and then turned around and smelted the metals from the rock into structural elements. Now it’s ready.”

“How does it move?”

Rashida smiled, leaned forward, and whispered, “It’s a secret, but I hear it has something to do with a subatomic black hole and a long fall.”

“What?”

 (photo of my daughter's interpretation of SOLAREX!)

The upshot of this is that Toutatis isn’t an asteroid we’ll ever mine. In fact, it’s been described as a “rubble pile”, that is, it’s a whole bunch of rocks that crashed into each other and stuck. It’s NOT a goldmine (or a palladium or silver or any other precious metal mine. Toutatis is a dump truck of rocks…which suits its use as an exploratory craft up for a remodel. It’s ALSO, however, not going to be terribly difficult to create a honeycomb of caves, hallways, and meeting places. Asteroids like Toutatis aren’t “soft” the way we think of soft…but they ARE soft in relation to say, an iron ore mine on the Cuyuna, or Mesabi, or the Vermillion Range.

My wife and I LOVE remodeling shows on various minor TV platforms. Maybe that’s why I love the idea of making Toutatis into a solar exploration ship – SOLAREX, in other words! So, this one isn’t about mining the asteroids for riches…so much as it’s about mining the asteroids – particular ones; of which Toutatis might be one; to carry us around the Solar System with relatively little effort. Which may be, in the long run, valuable in and of itself.

Today’s Source: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/146/4/95/pdf; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis#/media/File:Animation_of_4179_Toutatis's_orbit_around_Sun.gif ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4179_Toutatis ; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103512004113#:~:text=Surface%20composition%20of%20near%2DEarth,content%20and%20a%20differentiated%20body.
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

Image: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Josep-Trigo-Rodriguez/publication/261287332/figure/fig4/AS:296933672407047@1447805912917/El-asteroide-4179-Toutatis-nos-muestra-que-se-encuentra-formado-por-dos-objetos-de-4-y.png

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 29: NOT the "Final Frontier", the Wild, Wild Higher Frontier!

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me...

“‘If the idea of mining asteroid seems outlandish,’ Vescovo argues, ‘many technological breakthroughs – the Wright brothers' first manned flight, for example – have likewise carried the same burden. Until, that is, they actually happen. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has said that the first trillionaire will come through asteroid mining.’” Victor Vescovo (One of AstroForge’s main investors and the explorer who built a submersible that in 2019 made him the first person to visit the bottom of all five oceans.)

So, I think there’s a reasonable chance mining asteroids will one day be a reality. We’re completely unamazed today, of incredibly wealthy people taking short trips to the “bottom ledge” of space – even actors who’ve PRETENDED to live and work in space, (“No, I'm from Iowa, I only work in space.”), have actually ridden on top of a rocket.

“By April 5, 2025, a total of 13 private visitors, known as spaceflight participants, from seven countries have visited the International Space Station, according to NASA. International Space Station Visitors: 283 individuals from 23 countries have visited.”

“As of March 2025, 682 people have reached the altitude of space according to the FAI definition of the boundary of space, and 721 people have reached the altitude of space according to the USAF definition.” (https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/space-station-visitors-by-country/)

While the number of people who’ve gone into space is hardly staggering, the KINDS of people who have gone has increased – there’s even a way to go into space as a “tourist”!

How long has it taken for this number to climb from one (Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968), First person in space. — Soviet Union Vostok 1, 1961) to Humans having a space station that has been occupied continually for 25 years, and hosted 721 people who have BEEN TO SPACE?

That’s at TINY number of years. If I wanted to, I could probably calculate the actual Rate of Growth of Space Occupation/Visitation Over Time…but I that’s pretty much beyond my capabilities in math (calculus????) or whatever.

But GIVEN that, let’s see what the rate of growth and in particular, mining of the “new” world that Europeans started mining:

USA is 250 years old in 2025 AD.
Earliest known metalworking: 5000 years before the Roman calendar.
“The earliest known metalworking in North America began some 7,000 years ago, when Native Americans mined copper in hand-dug pits on an isolated peninsula in the Midwest. Remains of this massive deposit and the booming industry that grew around it are now part of a national historical park.”
The European invasion started in 1000 CE, the Vikings being the first perpetrato
“The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Ngwenya Mine in Eswatini (Swaziland), which radiocarbon dating shows to be about 43,000 years old… The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Ngwenya Mine in Eswatini (Swaziland), which radiocarbon dating shows to be about 43,000 years old. At this site Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre. Mines of a similar age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools.” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining)

The Dawn of Mining to the Asteroid Age was about 40,000 years (for the ease of calculations). Some 1600 generations; let’s say 1000 (a generation in prehistoric southern Africa was substantially SHORTER than a generation of 21st Century (48th Century China; 21st Century in India (though it’s 2082); Reiwa 7 in Japan)…so, let’s give us (ONLY for the sake of argument!) from the establishment of the OLDEST known Earth Human mine it took 1000 generations.

But THAT included the development of Human civilization from the invention of cloth and leather to expanding Human occupation of more and more hostile environments. THAT part of our history is past. Let’s take it from the inauguration of mechanized mining: “…Water wheels date to the Roman period and were used to grind grain and lift irrigation water. Water-powered bellows were in use on blast furnaces in China in 31 AD.[4] By the 13th century, water wheels powered sawmills[5] and trip hammers, to pull cloth and pound flax and later cotton rags into pulp for making paper. Trip hammers are shown crushing ore in De re Metallica (1555).” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanization)

So pulling it all together, it took some 2000 years to raise Human mining from pickaxes, water wheels, and charcoal fires, to automated, computerized digging, transporting, and processing, to a space-going civilization. Let’s take the “automated, transporting, and processing” as a given – BUT, add digging, transporting, and processing IN A VACUUM and add 1000 more years. That’s NOT to say that we can move FASTER than the civilization 2000 years ago; but let’s just say (1000-500 or 750 year) or somewhere between 2025 and 2775 as a full-blown space-occupying civilization. I’m NOT talking about Humans on Pluto or anything; but there will certainly be large habitats between Earth and Mars (where many ASTEROIDS are); probably islands of Humans between Earth and Venus – who KNOWS what’s on the surface there (well, WE do, but the days are brutal because the day is nearly as long a its year, and everything made on Earth pretty much disintegrates because of TRULY acid rain, no real sunlight, and perpetual cloudiness…

Likely there will be “islands” in space – asteroids mined out and abandoned, then gengineered plants cultivated on the interior under the light of self-replicating-and-repairing sunlamps…with the requisite adaptations to a new environment…leading (inevitably to revolution and a break from Earth and the birth of a “frontier society” akin to the American West, Russian Siberia, British Australia, and China’s Xinjiang province with its mosques, steppes, sand dunes, and majority population (47%) of Uighur, dubbed by “official Chinese”, as “a place which is luoho and luan, or “backward and chaotic” (sounds like the wild, wild West to me!).

Me? I’d lay my bets on SOONER than the 28th Century…

Today’s Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250320-how-close-are-we-really-to-mining-asteroids
Other data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nationality
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 

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 28: KARMAN+ This Is REAL NEWS and REALLY NOW!

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

So, today, the “internet was blowing up” with the news regarding a $20,000,000 investment in the asteroid mining company, KARMAN+ who have “raised $20 million in seed funding led by Plural and Hummingbird. The funding, which included participation from HCVC, Kevin Mahaffey (Lookout), co-founder Teun van den Dries and angel investors, will be used to develop its first technology demonstration mission and customer missions, expected in 2027.”

Aside from being a different company, why is this such a big deal? LAST month, AstroForge made a similar announcement, which I wrote about here: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2025/01/mining-asteroids-part-27-future-marches.html

Then there’s Open Asteroid Impact, whose plan is to send robots into space to mine the asteroids: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2024/04/mining-asteroids-part-21-startling.html

While this still smacks of Science Fiction. The generally recognized SF story detailing asteroid mining was “The first mention of asteroid mining in science fiction apparently came in Garrett P. Serviss' story Edison's Conquest of Mars, published in the New York Evening Journal in 1898. Several science-fiction video games include asteroid mining.”

Needless to say, this came out around the same time as the the works of Jules Verne started to appear.

“So what?” you say.

Well, Jules Verne might not have gotten a lot of the DETAILS spot on – FROM EARTH TO THE MOON; TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA; AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS; JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH…and others (though he DID hit one or two of the nails on the head in PARIS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.) However, Humans have landed on the Moon, dived 20,000 leagues under the sea; easily gone around the world in eighty days; though the whole “journey to the center of the Earth” thing doesn’t really work out as the planet isn’t hollow…

What’s to stop this 21st Century version of Humanity from seriously mining the asteroids? Hmmm?

Today’s Source: (Multiple reports!) https://techfundingnews.com/karman-plus-asteroid-mining-technology-funding/ ; https://www.karmanplus.com/techcrunch-karman-digs-up-20m-to-build-an-asteroid-mining-autonomous-spacecraft/; https://spaceinsider.tech/2025/02/21/karman-raises-20-million-to-mine-asteroids-to-supply-the-space-economy/; https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/asteroid-mining-startup-raises-20m-usd ; https://www.finsmes.com/2025/02/karman-raises-20m-in-seed-funding.html ; https://payloadspace.com/karman-raises-20m-for-asteroid-mining-demo/
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

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 27: The Future Marches ON!

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

Today’s Source: https://www.astroforge.com/updates/firing-on-all-cylinders-announcing-40m-and-mission-3
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)

From the AstroForge website noted above: “From the day we started AstroForge, our goal has been the same – to unlock a cost-effective and sustainable mining solution that replenishes resources and safeguards our planet's future.”

I confess that this sounds like a rosy picture and some drastically serious advances. But are there any NAYsayers? These were a few questions asked by a member of the famous Reddit website:

“Back; r/science fiction icon; Go to science fiction; r/science fiction; 1 yr. ago [deleted]
“How do you think asteroid mining would work?
“How would a mining company offset the price of fuel for operating the machinery and spacecraft necessary for transportation of materials from the asteroid belt to Earth? “How long would miners be away from home?
“Would they drink the water from asteroids?
How much would be done by robots?
“These are a few of the many questions I can think of, I’d love to hear your thoughts!”

Here’s a link to a whole BUNCH of people who think mining asteroids is ridiculous: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/17zs0z3/experts_and_entrepreneurs_explain_why_mining/

Yet Humanity has been mining for the 43,000 years: “The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Ngwenya Mine in Eswatini (Swaziland), which radiocarbon dating shows to be about 43,000 years old. At this site Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre. Mines of a similar age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining) That’s a few years. Granted, mining the ASTEROIDS is something we’ve never tried (though we have technically mined the Moon (small amounts, nevertheless, “bringing back Moon rocks” was technically the first space mining.) At the dawn of the mining age, MOVING rocks from one place to another was the initial first step of “mining” when “Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make…red pigment... Mines of a similar age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools.”

Perhaps the steps AstroForge and others are taking are those initial primitive first steps.

Had those Paleolithic humans attempted to mine iron ore on the level of the great Iron Range Mines of Vermillion, Mesabi, and Cuyuna, they would have failed. By World War Two however: “…Minnesota's rich iron deposits were a vital component of America's war effort. About 70% of the iron ore that America devoted to the war came from Minnesota, amounting to more than 333 million tons, according to Pam Brunfelt, a retired Vermilion Community College faculty member and historian. ‘Without the Iron Range, we would not have won the war,’ said the Britt, Minn., native, who is writing a book about the phenomenon. ‘It was just the most astonishing accomplishment.’”

We haven’t really started mining the asteroids yet. Likely, we’re far from it. HOWEVER, as we deplete the ores easily available on the surface of the Earth and the environmental destruction caused by Earth-mining steadily mounts and the ridiculousness of the “environmentalists” who demand that we stop “raping the Earth” or “polluting the air” or destroying our future with “too much” CO2…all while DEMANDING that they have their cell phones, lithium-battery-powered cars (made at horrible Human cost by a mining procedure SO toxic is makes iron mining look like children playing in a sandbox), the COST of asteroid mining will seem paltry – IF you still want all of your electronic toys…

The skills that we’ve gained from decades in space, planetary landings, transporting (admittedly small) payloads of metal ore BACK to Earth for analysis, 26 years of constant occupation on the ISS (which STILL remains, despite immense odds!) an INTERNATIONAL Space Station; we continue to move toward mining asteroids.

Easy? Nope.

People gonna die? Yep (Today: “A cradle-to-gate attributional life-cycle assessment study…of a “gigafactory” for which “cobalt sulfate [from which “lithium-ion batteries” are “ produced in China, and the cobalt raw material is sourced from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Potential health impacts from both emissions and occupational accidents…lead to…fatality rates in the artisanal cobalt mining in the DRC are considered: a high scenario at 2000 fatalities/year and a low scenario at 65 fatalities/year. The current main use of cobalt is in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), which have become the dominant technology for rechargeable energy storage (OECD 2019).”
(https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-022-02084-3)

But do we need to do it? Yep.
Will we gain skills important to move Earth’s manufacturing OFF THE SURFACE TO SAVE THE SEA OTTERS? Yep.
We NEED to do it, so we WILL do it.

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
And Now Some NEW NEWS: https://payloadspace.com/astroforge-picks-up-first-commercial-deep-space-license/
AstroForge YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXvm_l29o-Q

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg
Interesting Stuff The Might Apply To Mining Asteroids: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgej7gzg8l0o

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 26: NEAR EARTH PASS Asteroids MIGHT TEMPT REALITY!

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

“Mining and returning platinum or gold from asteroids could make a person a trillionaire overnight, with the potential to flip our entire economy, trade, and market.”

While this sounds ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, how realistic is it? Well, according to this article, “…2024 PT5 is part of Arjuna, an asteroid belt consisting of space rocks that follow orbits around the Sun very similar to that of Earth. ‘And for that reason, sometimes they remain briefly trapped in our gravitational field,’ Dr. Cappelluti said.”

Never heard of this asteroid belt? Neither had I: “Arjunas are a group of asteroids that have a nearly circular orbit around the Sun. They also have orbital period of a year. Essentially, they are the Earth’s closest neighbors, sharing the same space around the sun.”

While it seems likely that the Arjunas are asteroids captured by the sun from the general space debris following both creation and collisions in the ancient Solar System, there’s a possibility that they are made of “stuff” that’s similar to Earth in more ways than one. Also, as they follow the same orbit we do, intercepting them would SEEM to be a matter of Earth first “dropping” a cluster of probes and satellites, then setting them in a “station-keeping” orbit to wait until the Arjunas asteroid “catches up to them”, then initiate an orbital insertion and landing on the surface.

Let’s say that the probe discovers deposits of primarily iron, with a few possible traces of the precious metals: gold, silver, palladium, and platinum. A crew of miners were prepared ahead of time and launch. They begin work, seeking the asteroid with robotic micro-miners, swarms of diggers who sniff out the metals. Several months later, they lift from the surface of the asteroid and set a station-keeping orbit with holds laden with iron and other valuable ore.

In THIS scenario, all they’re carrying is metal ore, unprocessed. This would carry two advantages: first of course is that holds full of “rocks” aren’t nearly as tempting to hijackers who would have a long, hard processing road ahead of them instead of flying away with ingots of gold and girders of iron.

Secondly, the crew of the asteroid mining team are descendants of old-Earth-based miners. Skills gained by corporations and individuals and trainers over centuries of Earthly mining, would perhaps be more easily adaptable to space.

The mining and processing equipment itself might not have to be invented from scratch, either, but maybe adapted, set upon by micro-made “builders” who begin with the original Earth-made smelter, then adapted by an AI and retooled from the original into a similar one that might process Arjuna asteroid ores.

While this isn’t exactly “exciting” in a story sense, it’s MORE exciting in a “Hey, this could possibly happen!” sense. There are still chances for story to take place here – for example, what if the “micro-made builders” get out of control? What if their sheer MASS give them sapience? Will environmentalists protest of the “ruining the pristine nature of space, knuckling under the conglomerate mentality of ‘USE EVERYTHING FOR HUMANITY!”?

What if some of the miners hack the AI run mining equipment (or more interestingly, join forces!) to build clandestine colonies on the asteroid and hijack it for themselves?

These and more thoughts, and even thoughts leading to events unimaginable today, await as Humanity and AI leap from Earth and into space…

Today’s Source: https://www.sci.news/space/space-mining-13350.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjuna_asteroid; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjuna; https://www.news9live.com/science/arjuna-asteroid-2023-fy3-may-collide-with-earth-within-next-100-years-2408435;
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

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 25: “Rez Ex of the Drones vs the Brigands of Space” (currently under submission)

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

“…Rura Penthe was said to be an ‘asteroid archipelago’ in the script for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, though the same screenplay otherwise treated it as a single asteroid (with two references to things being ‘on Rura Penthe’) and dialogue in the film also established Rura Penthe as a single asteroid.”

George Zebrowski: “It is the twenty-first century. Convicts are sentenced to asteroids that move in ever-widening solar orbits, timed to return when their terms run out. But a few ambitious administrators discover that small ‘errors’ in velocity can rid them of selected groups altogether: the hardcore violent, the mentally defective, and especially the political dissidents. Enduring the black vise of interstellar space-time, these human rejects--men and women mixed together--create their own Darwinian societies, struggling to survive. Back on Earth, a handful of sympathetic and curious scientists have not forgotten these lost citizens. When a technological breakthrough makes it possible to overtake these scattered asteroids, a courageous team sets out to go where none has willingly gone before. What they discover in these ‘brute orbits’ is both provocative and moving--a startling vision of humanity you will never forget.

So, my idea for making prisons out of asteroids isn’t new; but then, in the Bible, it’s written in Ecclesiastes 1:9 “What has been, it is what will be, And what has been done, it is what will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.”

What am I bringing new to the concept in my short story, “Rez Ex of the Space Drones vs the Brigands of Space”?

Couple things: My prisoners are trained (one might say “brutally”) with the intent of creating a team who will not JUST serve their time, but create something of value for (supposedly “all of Humanity”, but in reality, some corporation that has invested in the infrastructure of an asteroid with the ability to house the prisoners, mine identified minerals, and make a profit – while offering anyone who survives and behaves themselves WHILE making money for the company, will receive a pardon, as well as the opportunity to work-for-pay for the company and leave behind a crowded Earth and become among the first citizens of Sol…)

Of COURSE not everything goes as planned – either with the prisoners OR the mining; and the possibilities of wealth for the plucking without having to WORK for it is too much for some.

Now – notice I called the villains of my story “brigands” rather than “pirates” – which seems to be a normal way of naming the individuals who plunder the loot from others who came by the valuables at LEAST in an approved, criminal-prisoners-sort-of-way…

But why the change? Because of the definitions:

Pirate:
1) “a person who attacks and robs ships at sea.”
2) “a person who appropriates or reproduces the work of another for profit without permission, usually in contravention of patent or copyright.”

3) “rob or plunder (a ship).”

Brigand:
1) “a member of a gang that ambushes and robs people in forests and mountains.”

While neither one of the definitions is really accurate, brigand is the one that fits most of the facts best: “a gang”, and “mountains”. As far as pirates, there is no “sea (implying liquid water)” in space, the second isn’t appropriate (usually and certainly not in this story) because intellectual property isn’t part of the story at all, and again, while they might technically be plundering a “ship”, ships are generally understood to be on liquid water somewhere (though the argument could be made that a vehicle carrying people and their equipment in space COULD be called a “ship”, though just as easily, it could be called a wagon train or a dump truck, or even a “mobile mine”…

I’ve decided to call my erstwhile and stereotypical “pirates”, BRIGANDS instead.

Of COURSE, to keep the story moving, my “bad guys” act like stereotypical “pirates” who lived and worked in the Caribbean. However, Wikipedia notes: “Brigandage is the life and practice of highway (the orbit of an asteroid could certainly correctly be described as being on a “highway” around the Sun) robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery. (my bad guys/gals are CERTAINLY a gang who are attempting to create a new job by pillaging and robbing orbiting asteroid mines).

“The word brigand entered English as brigant via French from Italian as early as 1400. Under the laws of war, soldiers acting on their own recognizance without operating in chain of command are brigands, liable to be tried under civilian laws as common criminals. However, on occasions brigands are not mere malefactors, but may be rebels against a state or union perceived as the enemy.”

I find that this is enough for today; but NOT all I have to say!

Today’s Source:
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 

Image: https://everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/Post-Launch-Reviews/CNSA/Long-March-2C_Xinhua-1200x800.jpeg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 24: REDUCING THE BURDEN OF LAND MINES…

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

I know EXACTLY what my title SOUNDS like; and while the “hope of all Humanity” is to remove the burden on the planet that mining the surface eight billion of us share, whilst conveniently ignoring the Ocean Floor, the FACT is that Humanity will mine the asteroids for one purpose, and ONE purpose only:

“Then both the partners laughed together—pleasantly and cheerfully, as men who are going to receive money, often do.”

Chapter XXV of THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB
Volume 2 of 2 by Charles Dickens

Actually the MAIN title of the article in the May 8, 2024 issue of the online magazine, UNDARK, is “In the Race for Space Metals, Companies Hope to Cash In”.

There’s been a lot of groundwork been laid by several countries regarding mining in outer space, most of it seems to depend from this statement:

“If fishing in international waters is legal, what about mining asteroids and the moon for water ice and precious metals? Turns out in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is lawful, as governed by the Outer Space Treaty and Artemis Accords, and embraced as advancing the cause of space exploration. Of interest to NASA and other civil space agencies around the globe, as well as a number of companies and academic organizations, ISRU actually offers lucrative opportunities for the rise of the world’s first trillionaire. So, what laws govern the pursuit of commercial space exploration, and what legal prohibitions or safeguards exist against disputes over resources?”

China, Russia, the US, Japan, Luxemburg, and India have made serious strides in creating a framework for endeavors on the Moon – Outer Space Treaty (see Wikipedia article below).

That’s all fine and good; and like the UN before it, the foundation of and intent of the laws and treaties framed, hammered out and signed are all fine and good. BUT, as of January 4, 2021 (https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/un-peacekeeping-70-years-of-service-sacrifice#:~:text=The%20first%20UN%20peacekeeping%20mission,Israel%20and%20its%20Arab%20neighbours.), the UN’s efforts at keeping the peace have been spotty at the VERY best.

When trillions of dollars/yuan/pounds/yen/euros/francs are at stake, then the politeness of the countries whose currency the world trades on (the notable lack is the Russian rouble. It’s current worth is extremely problematic: 1 rouble = .o1 US dollar…you can do the other computations), then space mining will eventually be worth quintillions of currency units.

The UN has no authority, budget, or strength to control the immense piles – or “rocks” of currency (which equals power). According to Space Law, the asteroids are as “free” as the Old West was for invading Europeans – English, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and lets not forget Russia!

WHO will NOT be able to control this one (they’ve done SUCH a good job with controlling disease, conflict that enables disease, and providing protection to its own people…).

So who will do the job? It had BETTER be an agency all of the nations respect. It had better be an agency that has a budget to draw on to create methods and policy to not ONLY threaten possible belligerents with, but actually CONTROL belligerents. There is NO ONE AROUND TO CONTROL THE EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH…nor is there anyone around to make sure one of the companies doesn’t ram or drop a used up asteroid on their base of operations.

There’s also no one to make sure mining companies clean up their orbiting mess of debris…or even to adjudicate differences. In fact, what’s to stop the new asteroid mining turning into an Old West of asteroid lawlessness?

Hmmm…Space Jesse James, here we come!

And WHERE'S the future Sheriff Pat Garrett? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Garrett)

Today’s Source: In the Race for Space Metals, Companies Hope to Cash In (undark.org) https://undark.org/2024/05/08/asteroid-mining-space-metals/, the current state of Space Law is covered extensively here: https://www.law.uw.edu/news-events/discovery/season-6/the-laws-of-space-mining , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law#:~:text=Several%20nations%20have%20enacted%20or,Bill%20was%20introduced%20in%202017.
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
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 23: Who Will Be "The Boss" Of...Everyone?

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

I think the title of the essay makes perfect sense to me! Some world-wide body needs to have control over something so HUGE as asteroid mining, because, let’s face it, letting space develop along the line of the free-wheeling Lawless West would have SERIOUS world-destroying consequences.

Certainly SOME people have considered this possibility because there ARE documents in place, signed by space-faring nations. On October 13, 202o, the nations who signed the ARTEMIS ACCORDS have their flags illustrated on the last page of the document. Notable signatures missing: Russia, China, North Korea…I hate to say it, but “naturally”. A few other of note who are included: Nigeria, Rwanda, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and several others I didn’t even know had space programs!

This is obviously good. Of interest to me: “The ability to extract and utilize resources on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids will be critical to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development. The Artemis Accords reinforce that space resource extraction and utilization can and will be conducted under the auspices of the Outer Space Treaty, with specific emphasis on Articles II, VI, and XI.”

Those articles as expanded in the original Outer Space Treaty Entered into force October 10, 1967 are as follows (Note that THIS document was signed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (aka USSR), The Peoples Republic of China (signed December 1983), The Holy See, Cuba (in June of 1977), Iran, Iraq, Pakistan…It seems more countries were interested in peaceful coexistence in space than there are today interested in peaceful coexistence on the ground…

The following are the three Articles mentioned above:

Article II “Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

Article VI “Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. When activities are carried on in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, by an international organization, responsibility for compliance with this Treaty shall be borne both by the international organization and by the States Parties to the Treaty participating in such organization.”

Article XI “In order to promote international co-operation in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, States Parties to the Treaty conducting activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, agree to inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations as well as the public and the international scientific community, to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, of the nature, conduct, locations and results of such activities. On receiving the said information, the Secretary-General of the United Nations should be prepared to disseminate it immediately and effectively.”

There’s FAR too much here to explore in a single post. Consider this a “shot across the bow” of the rapidly steaming nation-states plans for the Moon, asteroids, and anything else that will feed a rapidly weakening Earth: “…it remains uncertain whether China or Russia will comply, given the current geopolitical circumstances and the fact that Beijing has submitted its own proposal to the U.N. Moreover, considering the existing lack of a clear global regulatory framework for space property, exploitation and ownership rights, individual nations like the U.S., Japan, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates have established their own unique space legislation and policies, which increases the risk of inconsistent and conflicting regulations.”

Ah yes, it appears that Humanity is on the cusp of exporting national and racial tensions to the innocent space bodies of the Solar System. We shall see...

Today’s Sources: https://spacenews.com/the-un-needs-form-parliament-regulate-space-mining/, https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Artemis-Accords-signed-13Oct2020.pdf?emrc=653a00; Original Space Treaty @1967) https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/isn/5181.htm#treaty
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
Image: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/iss037e028227-orig-sq.jpg?resize=2000,2000

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 22: The Dream Is Growing Bigger and Bigger Wings (or is it rocket engines?)

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

“Previous companies have rocketed toward similar goals before but went bust about a half decade ago. In the years since that first cohort left the stage, though, “the field has exploded in interest,” said Angel Abbud-Madrid, director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines.”

The number of players in the field of asteroid mining is rapidly expanding as is international interest, “Another company, called TransAstra, is selling a telescope and software designed to detect objects like asteroids moving through the sky; Chinese corporation Origin Space has an asteroid-observing satellite in orbit around Earth, and is testing out its mining-relevant technology there. Meanwhile, Colorado company Karman+ plans to go straight to an asteroid in 2026 and test out excavation equipment.”

Other companies while their ULTIMATE goal is to mine asteroids, believe that they can practice here on Earth: “For now, though, SCAR-E will stay on Earth and inspect ship hulls. According to one market research platform, this is a nearly $13 billion dollar market globally — as compared to the asteroid-mining market, currently $0, as no one has yet mined an asteroid.”

Also, while it might seem like space is vast, the volume of our own Solar System is finite, and while we have plenty of experience stripping our planet (and are now dealing with the consequences of that), we have NO IDEA what kinds of problems we’ll actually run into.

Living in a state that provided most of the iron used in the steel for ships and tanks in World War II, it was a boom time of mining and spending money on frivolous things – follow the link for a high school built with Iron Range riches in northern Minnesota: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAI3sgEAk4k After that, follow the history of the Iron Range as the wealth vanished and the mining of high grade ore ceased…because it was gone. The subsequent collapse of the economy of the Range left (and I know of this personally as I worked on and lived on The Range for a while…) devastation in its wake.

So, we’re moving forward. Enough so that I’ve started to have ideas of the PERSONAL stories that might come out of the move to mine the asteroids. Others are noodling on the ramifications as well: “The legal situation surrounding space mining gets a bit murkier when you look outside the US, according to Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law. The nearly 40 nations who have signed on to the Artemis Accords agree with the US position, but other countries could take a different position.”

I can finally stop holding my breath and begin to explore the “who and what” of asteroid mining, because it appears that the “we need to explore space!” crowd is slowly being absorbed into the “how much money can we make in space mining” meme…

Today’s Source: https://undark.org/2024/05/08/asteroid-mining-space-metals/; https://payloadspace.com/solid-us-space-mining-regs-could-attract-investors-vc-predicts/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Accords ;
Noted Resources: Foundational Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining
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
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 21: The Startling Vision of Open Asteroid Impact

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

Published recently on April 1, 2024, the vision of a new company, Open Asteroid Impact is a stunning vision of what Earth might really BE once more of us capture the vision of the value of asteroids in the Solar System!

Pulling inspiration from Hillary Rodham Clinton, one-time presidential candidate, who said in a typical summation of existential wisdom, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Indeed the rigid logic of this statement is entirely inescapable.

OAI’s intent is to offer Humanity another way to mine the asteroids. Their mission is “to have as high an impact as possible. We are an asteroid mining company. When most people think about asteroid mining, they think of getting all the mining equipment to space and carefully mining and refining ore in space, before bringing the ore back down in a controlled landing. But humanity has zero experience in Zero-G mining in the vacuum of space. This is obviously very inefficient. Instead, it’s much more efficient to bring the asteroids down to Earth first, and mine it on the ground. Furthermore, we are first and foremost an asteroid mining *safety* company.”

In other words, instead of us going to the asteroid, having to invest incredible amounts of money to be able to send Humans into space, we instead invent robot slaves (OOPS! surrogates) to go to the asteroid and bend their efforts to our will! do the mining for us. The ROBOTS will be blasted with radiation, exposed to zero-air environments as well as experiencing air, water, gravity, and food shortages of likely difficult size.

OAI’s mission is clear: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from human-directed asteroids should be a global priority alongside other civilizational risks such as nuclear war and artificial general intelligence.”

However, I don’t understand why they feel it’s necessary to get rid of miners: “But before the point where most jobs are obsolete, some specific jobs (e.g. miners) may no longer exist. Entire mining towns may no longer be viable. We believe firmly in the value of education and retraining for upwards mobility. We are thus setting aside a $250,000 pot for scholarships for former underground miners to retrain in astrophysics, astrogeology, or rocket science, so that the miners of yesterday can become the astrogeologists of tomorrow.”

The thing is that, once the asteroid impacts the surface of the Earth, it will likely be buried, and after the surface solidifies, the ore that we have chosen to diligently pursue, will once again be underground. I believe they should be marketing their company as a “resource replacement provider”. Absolutely mineral ares are depleting – for example, in my own home state of Minnesota, “…while the Mesabi Range had single-handedly supplied the iron for steel during World War II, it essentially dug its own grave. The Range totaled output of over 188 million tons of ore during the course of the war, and exhausted itself of natural hematite until the process of making taconite into iron was discovered into the 50’s and 60’s…”

How MUCH iron is there on Earth? As far as I have been able to find, about 1.6 septillion tonnes. Anyway, there’s still a lot of iron on Earth, as well as the other minerals (even though iron is THE most common metal after aluminum…

So, mining the asteroids – all it involves is crashing an asteroid into Earth – though we don’t have the METHODOLGY down yet, and I’m pretty sure that there’s no Class Asteroid on a Minnesota license yet, so who’s going to guide it in for a nice soft landing? For a discussion about this question, see the Physics Stack Exchange link below; but the simple answer is…

“Nope.”

It would be impossible to soft-land an asteroid on Earth according to any direction the people on the website twist it.

So, aside from the fact that it’s impossible, and the fact that Open Asteroid Impact was posted on April 1, 2024 (notoriously known as April Fools Day in North America), you can safely bet that this was a joke.

HOWEVER…it seems a bit obnoxious as well, making fun of the serious possibility of mining the asteroids for minerals we need. Again, I live in the state on Earth that STILL produces 75% of the total US output of iron ore; but I know from personal experience, that iron is a finite resource. Even China, now the number one producer of iron on Earth…will run out someday – perhaps SOONER rather than later.

This humorous post on the OAI is great. We all need to be able to laugh at our foolishness! I know one of the strengths of our marriage is that my wife and I LAUGH A LOT.

In the following article, “The clean energy transition away from fossil fuels…will require significant increases in mining of critical materials for clean energy technology…demand for key minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and rare-earth metals will balloon significantly according a 2021 report by the International Energy Agency: The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions…There is insufficient mining capability in the world today to meet this [new] demand, and if capacity were ramped up to these levels, there would be serious environmental and economic consequences. If we ignore other promising alternatives such as ramping up licensing of new nuclear fission power plants and funding development of fusion energy or space solar power, what can be done?”

There IS hope on the horizon. “One of the companies on this frontier is UK based Asteroid Mining Corporation which has the goal of becoming the first profitable space resources business. The startup is working on an autonomous robotic platform call Space Capable Asteroid Robot Explorer with a roadmap that plans for revenue payout at each milestone with eventual return of asteroid resources in the mid-2030s.”

So far, however, all they have is a nice website, and one POSSIBLE actual photograph of the SCAR-E walking into a tunnel on Earth:

Whereas Astroforge (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2023/05/mining-asteroids-part-13-new-kid-in.html) ACTUALLY has a probe in space on a secret mission that DID hitchhike with the ship that brought the failed Psyche LANDER to the Moon (the one that tipped over after landing…)

I eagerly await the results of THAT mission. So…we shall see who actually makes it into space!

New Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tBy4RvCzhYyrrMFj3/introducing-open-asteroid-impact , https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/a-sci-fi-concept-that-should-become-reality, https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/a-sci-fi-concept-that-should-become-reality , https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/244606/could-an-asteroid-land-slowly-on-earths-surface ; https://spacesettlementprogress.com/2024/01/
Foundational Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining) , A Sci-Fi Concept That Should Become Reality: Asteroid Mining Is Essential for the Future of U.S. National Security | Center for a New American Security (en-US) (cnas.org)
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

Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 20: The DAWN of Asteroid Mining May Be THIS Year! (And a few random thoughts)

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…

That DAWN may be starting with a secret destination…

Can you say “California Gold Rush”?

Cloaked in secrecy, asteroid mining forerunner, AstroForge, won’t be doing anything flashy to get to its secret destination. In fact and in order to save money, it “will hitch a ride alongside the Nova-C IM-2 lunar landing mission by Intuitive Machines. The Odin mission (previously Brokkr-2)”…will ride a ways with the IM-1, then depart for Asteroids Unknown.

In fact, IM-1 launched successfully yesterday (February 15, 2024)! Has the era of asteroid mining now begun? Maybe!

OK – I need to take a deep breath. Odin WON’T be landing on any asteroid, but will be doing flybys of not ONLY Secret Asteroid #1, but perhaps others along the way.

At any rate, while I’d love to think that Humanity is looking to the planets again out of the sheer joy of exploring our Solar System, the thrust is also being driven by some of my least favorite philosophical activists – the Climate Change lobby is slowly getting behind the idea of mining moving off of the rock that has a breathable atmosphere that’s already been polluted and trashed by a few hundred years of Human abuse.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt that our activities have had an impact on the planet’s atmosphere. BUT I also don’t think that our tiny scratches on the surface have somehow magically DESTROYED the ecosphere. Just the air on Earth weighs some “5.5 quadrillion tons, or roughly one millionth of Earth's mass.” Humanity as a whole “390 million metric tons, which is slightly less than the weight of domesticated cattle at 420 million metric tons.” So…COWS weigh more than we all do.

I think it’s an adventure in hubris to claim that stuff that is two orders of magnitude LESS has an Earth-DESTROYING force. But if it makes people feel better and more powerful, then that’s fine with me.

But, our Green Friends may have some power in driving the mining of asteroids – in fact, now that I think of it, maybe their time would be better spent going door-to-door to collect money for asteroid mining companies like AstroForge rather than spraying the glass boxes that protect priceless works of art and documents like the US Constitution (the documents the right they have to spray the document with damaging red dust in a really vain attempt to stop Anthropogenic Global Warming…which they contributed to by driving to the exhibit in order to spray it) with red dust… ( https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/15/watch-climate-punks-dump-on-the-constitution-national-archives-rotunda-in-dc-evacuated-after-climate-activists-dump-pink-powder-on-case-holding-us-constitution/ ) 

I dunno. I’m wondering if the Climate Folks and the Asteroid Mining Folks shouldn’t get together and coordinate their efforts and get mining off Earth faster? At any rate, AstroForge – and other companies – are actually making the move to change science fiction into not only science fact, but FINANCIAL fact. They’ve initiated exactly what the first gold miners had to do in order to stake a claim – they had to do a SURVEY of the land. And isn’t that what AstroForge is ON THE WAY TO DOING?

Next time - “Should Private Companies Reveal Their Space Activities? What Does Space Law Say?”

New Source: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/astroforge-space-mining-company-headed-for-asteroid-but-wont-say-which-one#:~:text=AstroForge%20is%20a%20private%20asteroid,aren't%20telling%20which%20one. ; https://www.mining.com/asteroid-mining-startup-to-launch-mission-in-early-2024/ ; https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/01/06/wyoming-could-be-a-space-pioneer-when-not-if-we-start-mining-asteroids/ ; https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/mining-in-space-is-coming ;
IM-1 Mission Nova-C Lunar Lander Successfully Enroute to the Moon Following SpaceX Launch, https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-1 Surveying for Gold: https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/05/homestead-and-mining-claims-in-19th-century-america/
Fundamental Resource: (A general Wikipedia post detailing what the authors currently know about asteroid mining: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)
Noted Resources:
https://www.britannica.com/story/how-much-does-earths-atmosphere-weigh#:~:text=While%20mass%20and%20weight%20are,one%20millionth%20of%20Earth's%20mass. ; 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 Image: https://everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/Post-Launch-Reviews/CNSA/Long-March-2C_Xinhua-1200x800.jpeg