Asteroid Gold Rush

Is there really gold in them there asteroids? Yes, and one private space company already has a three-step plan to suck them dry. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Julie explore the near and long-term future of asteroid mining.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I am
Julie Douglas. You know, the universe is out there, just
waiting for us to explore it. And as we explore it,
of course we're going to ravage it for resources when appropriate,

(00:24):
when we need it, because we're gonna need stuff out there.
We're gonna need to build things, We're gonna need to
drink things, to eat, things, live on things. So it's
a form, you know, we need to get out there
and really start to get some real estate out there.
As far as we know, there are no extraterrestrials. There's
no one to dispute our claim, so it's all ours.
You think, you think? Yeah, I mean, actually we are

(00:46):
going to talk about something that has been in the
news quite a bit, asteroid mining. And just recently NASA
announced that starting next month, the six astronauts are headed
to the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operation, the underwater habitat
off the Florida coast that will serve as a simulator
for the long duration mission to an asteroid. Yeah, this

(01:09):
is pretty amazing. Stuff. Just to give a quick rundown
of our history exploring asteroids, I should point out that
the first spacecraft to take close up images of asteroids
was NASA's Galileo in ninety one. Is also discovered the
first moon orban an asteroid in n In two thousand one.
After NASA's Near spacecraft intensely studied the near Earth asteroid

(01:29):
Eros for more than a year from orbit, mission, astroders
decided to trying to land a spacecraft on it, although
it wasn't designed for landing, near successfully touchdown, setting the
record of the first craft to successfully land an asteroid.
Two thousand six, Japan'shyabusa became the first spacecraft to land
on and take off from an asteroid. And then NASA's
Don mentioned launched in two thousand seven, began exploring Vesta

(01:52):
the asteroid in two thousand eleven, and that brings us
pretty much up to modern times. Yeah, and Japan saw
high of USA also took sample from the asteroid to
which we're going to talk about, also managed to salute
it a little bit. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Now,
what is an asteroid? Right? An asteroid is a small, airless,
rocky world revolving around the Sun. They're too small to

(02:12):
be called planets. Some of them are also called planetoids
or minor planets, and in total, all of them combined,
their mass is less than that of Earth's moon. It's true,
it's true. And they are found between Mars and Jupiter.
And the idea is that when Jupiter was a new world,
we have the formation, so there's just about four point
six billion years ago, Jupiter prevented any planetary bodies from

(02:33):
forming between that gap of Mars and Jupiter, and that
created this asteroid belt, the bit of debris of the
leftover material. It's kind of like when you're making a
cake or something, or making some bread, They're always going
to be a little leftovers, right, Yeah, and we all
know that sometimes the leftovers are actually more delicious than
the finished baked good itself, which means your finger wants

(02:56):
to dock those leftovers and bring it to your mouth
to taste it, and they tatically. That is what we're
talking about. Yeah, there's some there's some wonderful stuff and
these leftovers that could certainly be of use to us.
For instance, there's platinum, yes, which I have the data
here on how much that would work. Oh yeah, it's
only worthy. And when we don't have the exact math
on it, you're talking about trillions of dollars from the

(03:17):
plotential to mind, trillions of dollars of platinum from these asteroids.
Then you have gold, which we all love, of course,
and is also useful in the circuitry and other methods
that beyond mere jewelry. And then they're rare earth minerals.
There's water, which doesn't sound all that amazing at first
because you're thinking, well, we have water here, but if
we are planning to eventually move out into space and

(03:39):
to explore the cosmos, we're gonna need more water, and
we're gonna need water from sources that are closer at
hand than the home world, so we can conceivably harvest
it from these rocky planetoids. And then we could also
use the hydrogen an oxygen from that water to produce
fuel for our space crafts. Right right, So basically, you
would have all these materials available to you in space,

(04:00):
right even have to hike them from Earth to yeah,
because especially if you're bringing from the planet surface, you're
talking about the cost of traveling. You need a heavy
lift vehicle for that and then you're gonna have to
transport it the rest of the way to wherever you are.
It's a classic example of the supply chain. Far better
to obtain goods and water and foods or whatever along

(04:21):
the way than to ship it all the way to you.
I read somewhere that one leader of water is basically
worth in space. So you know that availability of that
specific water there. Okay. So there are a lot of
people who are trying to round up these asteroids or
thinking about, I should say, and one of the big
players is a company called Planetary Resources. Co founders of

(04:45):
Planetary Resources are Peter Diamondus might diming this. He created
the really successful ex Prize Foundation that gives awards to
accomplishments in technology, particularly space, and Eric Anderson ex Prize
board member and chairman of the board of Space Flight Federation.
And then several x NASA engineers and astronauts, some planetary scientists,

(05:07):
and then just like a little gaggle of billionaires, UM
filmmaker James Cameron, Google executive Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, so
on and so forth. Ross pro Jr. On one hand,
we have people with more money than they know what
to do with. People with a lot of money, who
are dreamers. I mean, certainly James Cameron is a great
example of somebody with lots of money and in some

(05:27):
very heartfelt ideas about where we are in the world
and where we could go from here. So so there's that,
and then you have the X Prize individuals and the
X Prize mindset of let's stir up commercial interest in space,
let's get this going, let's get people interesting, let's get
these projects moving, because that is the future of space travel.
It's like the X Men of asteroid mining. I guess

(05:50):
you could say, right, um, in a way, I mean
what you have is you've got the vision, you've got
the money, and you've got to know how. That's why
we wanted to mention all these different names and the
people who are involved in their just to give you
guys an impa of how very serious this actually is.
That this will be happening, probably very soon, and they
have a game plan three phases. The first phase is

(06:10):
Acrid one hundred, that's the spacecraft series, Accord one hundred series,
and they're planning to launch this in twenty four months.
This is how a series of crafts would be. Basically
a space telescope based system aimed at identifying possible targets
for exploration. So Phase one Accord one hundred is all
about let's because some telescopes up there so that we
can figure out where we want to target, where we

(06:32):
want to go. Yeah, they're cutting metal on that right now,
so that's happening. And then the next phase is the
two hundred series, and that is about propulsion. That's about
getting these crafts, these various spacecrafts to those asteroids that
we picked out in phase one. And then finally there
comes the three hundred series. And in the three hundred
series we consist of swarms of robotic spacecraft that complete

(06:55):
the prospecting and begin to extract the water or platinum
or gold or what have you from these asteroids and
bringing them back home. So Phase one find them, phase
to travel to them, Phase three prospect and bring it
back right. These are a series of calculated, smaller missions
which are going to build up to that ideal, which

(07:15):
is that swarm of robotic craft and pitching a ride
on all of this. They're not developing a spacecraft. The
idea from the get go is let's hit your ride
on NASA spacecraft or whatever is available. We're not having
to develop as much technology on our own. We're bringing
in technology from this company, from this company, and we're
building something. We're building something, getting it out there and

(07:35):
completing these phases. And they're not going to mine it
right away. They want to tap it for volatiles, materials
with low bowling points such as water, oxygen, nitrogen, and
so on, which again critical supplies and space. And then again,
as you say, the last step then is to get
those precious minerals from the asteroids and bring them to Earth.
One way would be to launch equipment to a distant

(07:56):
asteroid already explored previously by a souped up based telescope.
Another might be to use a small spacecraft to bring
a smallish asteroid near the Earth, and a rock could
be brought into orbit around the Moon where it could
then be mined, or it could be both. A small
operation could start work while the asteroid is being towed
to Earth, getting a few years head start. It sounds

(08:18):
like a great plan there, because why I waste that
time that it's in transit and it could be harvesting
in along the way. All Right, we're gonna take a
quick break and then we're gonna get back to all this,
So hanging there for one second and we're back. A
lot of really great information on this came from a
blog called bat Astronomy by Discover magazine, So if you
guys want to check out a little bit more about this,

(08:39):
I believe there are several articles on this. But one
of the really interesting things that came out of bat
Astronomy is why exactly they're doing this? Because I thought, well,
obviously they're looking for some money here, right, that is
the first thing. But here's the deal. This could be
big money, right Trillian's, but this is not money that
they'll probably see these investors, as we'll see in their lifetime.

(09:02):
Is very possible because this is going to take a while,
and this really is much more about sustainable space exploration,
which I think is the coolest part about this. Yeah,
I mean there's some critics have pointed out that there
is a certain level of ego trip to this as well. Oh, absolutely,
it's very much involved. This is like Richard Branson. You
can take your suborbitall fight and put it in your

(09:25):
pipe and smoke it, because we are going to go
mine and asteroid, you know, in terms of like the
Branson does have the ice cube shaped like his own head,
and that's yeah, they're going to have to top that.
But one of the things I thought was amazing about
this is that they already have positive cash flow, or
so they claim. They're just working on getting Phase one
up and going, but they already have relationship with NASA,

(09:46):
they have money coming in. It is a functional company
at this point. Well, I mean the idea is that
it could be a win win for NASA too, because
they could then have access to materials and information. They
could sell some things back to NASA. It's really cool stuff.
The way that it's being planned out, obviously, it's very
like baby steps, and it's very careful in the way.
I mean, they realize this is a very difficult thing

(10:08):
to do. You just don't last an asteroid. Well, but
their argument is it's difficult, but it's not impossible. And
if you look at these pros and the cons are
kind of summed up in this as well. You have
these three steps. Step one finding asteroids very doable. We've
done it. It can be done, no doubt about it.
Step two, travel to an asteroid. It can be done.
We already mentioned we've done it before. That's that's definitely doable.

(10:31):
Step three, swarms of robots mining asteroids not so much.
That's a point. We're getting into a level of technology
that we haven't perfected, we haven't tested, we haven't worked
out all the kinks. That doesn't mean it's not doable.
It's very doable, but that is more of a leap
in technology. Now. By the time we get they get
to sphase three, you could argue that, well, the technology
will be there or the companies aligned with them will

(10:52):
have developed it. But some critics have pointed out that
that is a potential flaw on the plan, and that
there is a fairly large gap between the two series
and the three right time, money and technology right, Those
are some of the cons. Another con is that this
is not for planetary resources per se, but similar operations
like mining the Moon, where that the idea is not
the mining the asteroid, but the Moon could deplete moons

(11:13):
materials or moons materials. So that's not something that people
are totally excited about. But still it's a different animal
here pros we should talk about this. The future of
space exploration is not dead, at least from the perspective.
Here in the US, where we've shuttered so much of
our space exploration, the expense is not footed by the
public but by private companies. So that's good. And then

(11:36):
again NASA has access to materials and information. There's also
this idea that we could learn so much more, not
just about space but specifically asteroids. I could give us
insight into how to effectively divert an earth bound asteroid. Okay,
so we've talked about this. It's not just the movie
armagedon Ben Affleck saving the Earth. We don't need Ben

(11:57):
Affleck anymore. It's very possible that by observing asteroids and
by actually successfully mining them and spending time on them,
that we could figure out a way to divert them
from becoming meteorites crashing into us. Because, as we know
or suspect sixty five million years ago, this could have
very well been the reason for dinosaurs becoming extempt but

(12:19):
there were no dinosaur entrepreneurs with the habit and the
know how to turn an incoming asteroid into profits. It's true,
if only they had started studying filmmaking and possibly filming
the Titanic. Yeah, I'm thinking of like specifically, I'm imagining
of branson Osaurus a gat not that he's said he's involved.
I imagine that's the t rex I have to say,

(12:40):
rather than like a diplodochist or something. But this really
is a big concern. I mean, we talked about Armagon.
That seems ridiculous that you know, the movie Armagon. But
dozens of asteroids have been classified as potentially hazardous. But
the scientists who tracked them some of them become pretty
close to Earth. And I think it wasn't it in
Siberia in the early two thousand there was one that
crashed well, and if you go further back than that,

(13:01):
of course encountered the Tunguska event. Oh yeah, they're luckily
it hit in the middle of nowhere, but the same
kind of strike had it occurred in Europe would have
been disastrous. Yeah. I think I've mentioned before when in
fiction and movies and comic books, someone saves the world.
Every day saves the world, and in reality, about the
only thing that we have, the only effort that we

(13:24):
can definitely say this may save the world one day
in a very tangible manner are our near Earth object
protection efforts. The idea of let's figure out how to
divert an incoming near Earth objects before it actually hits
the planet. That's one of those situations where you can
definitely point to that and say, yes, if we developed
this technology and we get refined, we're tracking everything, and
then we have the ability to actually alter the course

(13:46):
of one that's headed towards us, that could save the
planet in a very very real and very meaningful way.
But then, of course it's the problem of asteroid miners
like hanging out mining and possibly getting chunked in the
head with a bit of space chunk. Well, that's a
whole another let's twine. So there you go asteroid mining,
and we'll obviously have much more information about in the
coming year, but is very exciting stuff. And what's going

(14:08):
on with our robot over there? Oh yes, the robot.
It's coming over here with some of the listener mail.
Before I get into the mail, I do want to
point out we had a few people writing about our
planetary scale episodes, and I think we kind of trip
over our words there and messed up a little bit
on the size of Earth versus the size of Venus.
I just want to point out that Venus has a
diameter that is about of Earth, so Earth is bigger

(14:31):
than Venus. Yeah. I think that we definitely messed up
when we switched those around. And that's what happens when
you start comparing things to peppercorns. And I think we
were specifically talking about like black peppercorns, firsts red peppercorns.
Learn your lesson there, pantry items, planetary sizes be warned.
Here's a quick listener mail from our listener, Peter Peter

(14:52):
Wright Sin says, Hey, Julian Robert, I heard your podcast
on Lucid Dreams a couple of weeks ago, and I
was completely mind blown. The fun wasn't actually intended, at
least to Lee. Reason being that in the beginning you
named all the types of dreams than Eden studied, and
briefly talked about a dream I have once in a while.
I barely remember my dreams, but these are memorable. It's
a dream type number six, and they're just gonna prefer

(15:14):
out the second. This would be dream sensations in which
there are no visions, no images, no events, not even
a word or a name. But during a long time
of deep sleep, the mind is continually occupied with one person,
one place, one remarkable event or even one abstract thought.
So then Peter went on to ask for a little
more detail on it, and we sent him some links.
But I found that very interesting because that was one

(15:34):
of the dream types where I didn't have any personal
experience with dreams of that kind, and I was very
curious if any of our listeners had so appreciate hearing
about it. If you have any thoughts you would like
to share with us, If you've had interesting dreams and
you have some thoughts on a Lucid Dreams episode, by
all means write us. And if you have any thoughts
about the future of asteroid mining and how that might
play out, but let us know about that as well.
You can find us on Facebook, you can find us

(15:56):
on Twitter. On Facebook we are Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
and on Twitter we're blow the Mind. And you can
also drop us a line at blow the Mind at
Discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of
other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com