Deep Space Industries announced the start of their three-phase plan to start mining asteroids in space for raw materials such as precious metals and gasses that could be turned into rocket fuel. They are planning to start this operation in 2015, hoping to be well into mining within ten years. Here at the Iron Warrior, we have a complete run-down of their procedures!
Phase One: Locating Materials
The first thing that Deep Space is doing in 2015 is launching their “Firefly”, a laptop-sized spacecraft designed to search for these precious materials. It would doing preliminary tests on some of the thousands of asteroids close to earth. The majority of these asteroids are believed to contain pockets of gasses such as methane and water, as well as metals like nickel. This robot is going to find out for sure!
Phase Two: Testing
Once the Firefly has located a suitable asteroid, they will launch the larger Dragonfly. Its main job is to head to these asteroids and collect samples. The difference between it and the Firefly is that these samples will then be brought back to earth to be examined and analyzed.
Phase Three: Mining
The final phase of the plan is to send a Harvester to the asteroids to mine it. The Harvester would be capable of bringing back tonnes of materials in a single trip. There is currently no planned date for the launch of a Harvester spacecraft.
Already, a mining expedition into space can be seen as a very profitable excursion, however there are also many more benefits and plans that Deep Space has for their cosmic adventure. The location of semi-precious metals like nickel could be the start of expanding colonization into space because it is much more cost efficient to simply use the natural resources on asteroids than bringing them up from earth. Anything from solar plants, to communication arrays, to human colonies could be built on an asteroid once the right materials are found.
As well, there are plans for taking the gaseous pockets of methane and water found within the asteroids and converting them to rocket fuel. Planetary Resources, another company with similar interests in space, has already announced plans for an asteroid-side spaceship re-fueling station. This will allow spaceships on long journeys to Mars or other far-off destinations to stop half-way and refill their fuel tanks, without the need for all the fuel to be brought up from earth.
The exploration and colonization of space may not be as far away as it originally seems. Companies like Deep Space are motivated to work quickly on these projects because the first companies to succeed stand to make millions. The technology required for this already exists, so right now it’s just waiting to see who will win the race and how far it will take us.
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