The Prospect of Space Prospecting

Isaac Asimov's sci-fi story "Catch That Rabbit," published in 1944, is set in an asteroid mine and portrays what might happen if formerly obedient robots decided to rebel.  These days, Asimov's dream of space mining is a lot closer to reality, with several firms making definite plans to launch exploratory vehicles around 2020 and have full-scale mining up and running later in the decade.  But as an article in October's Scientific American points out, the legal status of space mining is by no means clear. 

It still costs a lot to put anything into space, or to bring it back, for that matter.  So instead of being enticed by visions of extraterrestrial gold and diamonds, space-mining companies have their eyes on more prosaic materials that could be extracted from asteroids:  water for either human consumption or conversion into convenient rocket fuels such as hydrogen and oxygen, iron and refractory materials for construction, and other useful but bulky and heavy stuff that becomes very expensive to lug into space from Earth.  The idea is to extract enough materials from an asteroid to allow space-based operations that are supplied by space resources, rather than having to bring everything along with you.  Such space-based resupply stations will be necessary for any space exploration much beyond what we've attempted so far. 

That is well and good, but there's a little thing called the 1967 Outer Space Treaty standing in the way.  Almost 100 states (including the U. S., Russia, and China) have signed this agreement, which forbids colonization or use of space for military operations.  The key phrase in the treaty bans "national appropriation" of celestial bodies such as asteroids.  That means, for instance, you couldn't just hitch an asteroid to your spacecraft and drag it back home behind you.  Russia, for examples, interprets this phrase as prohibiting space mining.

On the other hand, U. S. companies argue that the international laws of the sea prohibit appropriation of international waters, but allow certain kinds of exploitation such as fishing and offshore drilling, although there's only an analogy between space law and sea law.  The real problem is that the 1967 agreement didn't address space mining in any detail.  Clearly, a new agreement would be nice to negotiate, but something called the Moon Agreement ran into opposition a few years ago and remains mostly unratified.  So countries aren't in the mood to sign away any rights to asteroids right now. 

It's rather disquieting to compare the current situation to, say, the way things were in Europe in the 1400s when expeditions to the New World were just beginning.  Right now, it's hard to imagine that anything going on at an asteroid or two would have significant consequences for the history of the Earth.  But few people were expecting that the voyages of an eccentric guy named Columbus would amount to much either. 

If one imagines a scenario in which space travel becomes highly valued for some reason, then space mining would suddenly take on a new and vital aspect.  There is already among some space-minded people an attitude that says our days on Earth are numbered, not only individually but collectively.  That is to say, just as America served as a place to make a new start for many who found Europe not to their liking for various reasons, the idea of space colonization (the Outer Space Treaty notwithstanding) serves as a kind of secular Paradise for people who have given up on the hope that we can agree to live here on Earth peacably and without trashing it beyond repair. 

So suppose a kind of abandon-ship mentality spreads among the elite and wealthy of many nations, and a keen competition arises to see who can manage to leave the sinking vessel the fastest.  Unless somebody invents a Star-Trek-type warp drive soon, space mining will be a necessary part of any large-scale space travel.  And one can easily imagine the powerful of different nations coming to blows over who gets to mine which asteroid.  After all, it's not that easy to sneak around in space, so covert operations are out.  Everybody would know what everybody else is doing, and things could get really ugly.

Not that they're real attractive right now.  I admit that in the present shape of world politics and affairs, a little thing like space mining is way down the priority list.  But there is still time now to examine the question dispassionately before vested interests get into the act and try to hijack the discussion in their favor.  Presently there are no significant vested interests out in space—no mines, no rockets heading out to do space mining, and only plans to do so yet.  I am generally no fan of the United Nations, but it seems like that would be a good forum in which to breach the subject of space mining and how plans could be coordinated so that if humankind does eventually decide to move into space in a major way, we could at least agree on the means and resources to make it possible and how to share them. 

But achieving a united vision of such prospects requires a type of diplomacy and leadership that is currently in short supply.  It may be that there will be a better time in the future to hash out an international agreement about space mining than now.  But as private space companies make more technical progress, the legal situation will either have to keep up with them or deal with the technology as it happens.  That won't be the first time—I don't think Columbus got a nicely notarized clear title to land he claimed for Spain, at least not from the folks whose land he was claiming.  And if you're thinking of investing in a space-mining company soon, be aware that there might be a few legal problems ahead.

Sources:  "Space Prospecting" by Jesse Dunietz appeared on pp. 14-16 of the October 2017 issue of Scientific American.  I also referred to an article in LiveScience at https://www.livescience.com/19862-asteroid-mining-fiction-present.html that refers to Asimov's story, and to the New World Encyclopedia's article on the Spanish Empire at http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Spanish_Empire.

Asteroid Mines: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

If you happened to be in the Seattle Museum of Flight last Tuesday, Apr. 24, you might have been able to squeeze into a news conference called by an outfit terming itself Planetary Resources, Inc.  Planetary Resources’ main distinction so far is that it has a lot of resources of the monetary kind.  Backers reportedly include Google CEO Larry Page, who is in possession of some $16 billion personally.  What Planetary Resources’s co-founder Peter Diamandis wants to do is to mine asteroids within a decade, that is, by 2022 or so.  Already they are planning to launch small orbital telescopes, modern versions of the old mining engineer’s surveying transits, that they will use to search for likely prospects for a visit.  But as in earth-bound mining, you are never completely sure what you have got until you go there and start digging.

The idea of mining extraterrestrial objects is not new.  One writer at www.livescience.com traced the idea back to an 1898 short story endorsed by none other than Thomas Edison, whose single most costly failed project involved a Canadian iron-mine venture in 1902.  In 1944, Isaac Asimov used an asteroid mine of the future as a setting for one of his speculative pieces about whether robots could become sophisticated enough to foment rebellion.  But Diamandis and company are not fiction:  they have serious money and serious plans, and while I’m sure science fiction enthusiasms are in their backgrounds, their main motivation is to make more of what they have a lot of already, namely, money.  But they want to make it in a cool way.

There are actually two aspects to their plans. One is to use asteroids as a resource for the thing that currently makes space flight so expensive in the first place, namely, the fuel.  When you have to pack everything you need on a trip and can’t count on finding any gas stations, it severely limits your options as to what else you can take along.  But several researchers have shown that if it was possible to establish fueling stations in space, it would make the logistics and economics of space travel much friendlier than they are now.  So once you’re in space, never mind gold or platinum or anything like that:  fuel is the most precious resource.  And the idea of erecting a solar-powered hydrogen plant on an asteroid and making hydrogen from water (ideally) or rocks (in a pinch) would satisfy that need.  From a technical engineering standpoint, this aspect of the Planetary Resources plans makes a lot of sense.

What about the rest of it, namely, mining asteroids for profit by extracting rare materials such as platinum and so on?  I would urge Diamandis, Page and company to do a little reading in the history of 16th-century Spain.  It was Spain more than any other country which did on a small scale what Planetary Resources is trying to do on a large scale:  namely, exploited newly discovered mineral wealth on a near-monopoly basis for quite a while, from 1492 right up to the 1800s.  The worst aspect of Spanish colonization of the Americas was their barbarous treatment of the native Americans, who were forced into slavery and furnished most of the labor involved in operating the gold mines that gave rise to the wealth that produced Spain’s Golden Age of culture.  Fortunately, no asteroid appears to have even non-sentient life on it, so that particular problem will not arise.

Of course, if you import too much of a given scarce resource, its price can fall to the point where it’s not worth fooling with anymore.  But I am sure that the Planetary Resources people will look to the example of the DeBeers diamond monopoly as to how to control their prospective monopoly to extract the most value from it.  They are too smart to let greed get the best of them and flood the platinum market with tons of the stuff all at once.  But smart people have been outsmarted by markets before.

All the same, even if the technical hurdles are overcome, I anticipate that some legal and governmental issues may arise.  Somebody, somewhere, is going to want to tax all of this new economic activity.  Unless the U. S. manages to impose jurisdiction on an asteroid, there will be no way that the U. S. government can claim that the operation is domestic and subject to corporate tax.  This may be another attraction for the company:  asteroid mining is the ultimate offshore site.  Nobody has given a lot of thought to how all this will be dealt with from a legal and governmental angle.  And the current tight coupling between corporations and the U. S. government probably ensures that whatever regulations are imposed will generally be favorable to the corporations.

There are huge risks involved in this enterprise, even though the entire operation is supposed to use non-manned flight only.  If anybody can afford it, though, it is the backers of Planetary Resources, who together have multiple billions of dollars to spend.  And it may take every cent before they even get back a few grams of valuable stuff.  Mining has always been a business for gamblers, and space mining is no exception.  At the worst, even if it fails, it will furnish a lot of employment for heretofore unemployed aerospace engineers who can get to work on something that might actually make money.  And if it all works out, it could be the first step in the transformation of space travel from an exotic, rare, super-costly thing engaged in only by governments to something closer to what international flying is like today:  still sophisticated and relatively costly, but open to anyone with the money to pay for it.  And as I say about so many things I consider in this blog, time will tell.

Sources:  The Apr. 24 news conference was covered by many media outlets.  I referred to an article in USA Today at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2012-04-24/mining-asteroids/54507782/1.  A good overview of space mining in science fiction appeared at http://www.livescience.com/19862-asteroid-mining-fiction-present.html.  My attempts to access the Planetary Resources Inc. website at www.planetaryresources.com were unsuccessful.  I hope their rockets work better than their website.