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Asteroid Mining For the Future

When Humanity Finally Drains the Earth Dry

By Shane TaylorPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Asteroid Mining For the Future
Photo by Chris Henry on Unsplash

What happens when the Earth's most precious resources finally begin to dwindle? When its gems are all but scraped from its surface and sold off? When its rarest elements are strained and used? When the last gallons of water are on the brink of being consumed? Or even more grim of a reality, when the last tree is chopped down and fresh air becomes a scarce commodity? What then?

Well, humanity will do what it does best when it falls into an existential crisis: turn to the heavens. Specifically, humanity will turn its consumerist attention to space. Even more specifically, humanity will aim to extract what it needs/wants from asteroids, the element-chocked debris that have floated and passed it by for eons, ignored and left alone to drift through the void of space.

Why would this be the next frontier of resource mining one might ask? Some would argue that the technology and techniques needed to make asteroid mining a viable solution are far underdeveloped, but when it slowly and then suddenly becomes the ONLY or one of very few solutions to preventing possible extinction level crises, the need to develop these tools and techniques will slowly and then suddenly become all the more necessary. For starters, most of the elements on Earth, if not all of them, can be found in the very asteroids that zip by and or traverse our solar system. These resources/necessities that we actively and inactively consume are finite in nature but are in heavy abundance in our universe but even more relative to humanity currently, they're highly abundant in our solar system.

The bare essentials like carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen are most abundant within the Earth's crust but with the growing threat of our atmosphere being constantly and irreparably damaged, those elements are likely to be limited in the distant if not near future. Of course, this comes as bad news out the gate because of the inevitable loss of life and the other catastrophes that are sure to follow, but the good news is, these resources can be found and salvaged for generations to come due to our growing curiosity/need to probe our galaxy; whether it be for the sake of finding new possible homes for our exponentially growing population, for the purpose of securing resources for the Earth's continued survival or to seize the profits of these extraterrestrial rocks as that seems to be a recurring theme within humanity when it comes to things or objects found in nature. (Why would the vastness of space be any different, right?)

So lets break this down since we're going into specific elements and the specific purposes of said elements.

Let's continue with some elementary elements, the common ones we think of when we think of the bare essentials to human life/the quality of human life as it stands, which are found often in the Earth's crust AND can also be found in the asteroids whizzing around within our solar system:

*GASSES/NON-METALS:

-Oxygen- the very air we breathe, when introduced to hydrogen, the production of water is possible

-Carbon- has its industrial applications but is also instrumental in the regulation of the Earth's temperature; a component in the compound known as CO2 (carbon dioxide), the byproduct of human respiration but more importantly, the food of plant life

-Hydrogen- also has industrial applications, specifically of the chemical nature; essential in the production of rocket fuel and the decomposition of metallic ores (key use in asteroid/meteorite mining); in conjunction with oxygen, the synthesis of water is possible

-Nitrogen- another key component in industrial works (mainly manufacturing electronics) but very much so a key element in the preservation of food

*METALS:

-Iron- historically vast industrial applications dating back approximately 5,000 years, from weapons to armor to tools; normally in modern days, iron is best applied when it's used in conjunction with other metals/additives to create alloys, for example, Cobalt, Nickel, Chromium, or Tungsten

-Silicon- instrumental in the construction of computer hardware, due to its capacity as a semiconductor, its greatly applied in the making of transistors and is a huge component in the production of solar cells used in solar modules which are becoming more frequently used by the public as the century progresses

The metals mentioned before with the addition of a few like Platinum, Iridium and Rubidium are commonly used in at least over a quarter of the electronics and manufactured items we use, ESPECIALLY cellphones and televisions.

To digress back to my conjecture as to what humanity's next step is in regards to self-preservation, with these elements/resources being so rapidly consumed generation by generation, it is not too far-fetched to believe that said resources are numbered and that their depletion is nigh. If this is to be even remotely a near accurate premonition of what fate has in store for us, wouldn't it be plausible that humanity would turn to the deep void of space to secure its future, especially if the means to do so is relatively within it's ambitious and often times greedy grasp? Satellite launching is the most common display of our capabilities to probe space for human benefits as ambitious companies like SpaceX have shown us for the last couple of years and is exponentially increasing in efficiency and frequency with exploration and observation being the next most common display of human probing in space. So it should come as no surprise that mining resources in space would follow close behind, not to mention that it could possibly rise in demand as the supply of essential resources decreases.

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About the Creator

Shane Taylor

I am an aspiring astrophysicist with the hopes of one day contributing to man-kinds progress to understanding the origin of the universe. I use my writing to spark curiosity in others as well as to keep my own ambitions alive and well.

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