NASA has awarded a contract to Dr. Marc M. Cohen to study the feasibility of asteroid mining. The contract was granted under NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.
The study team
According to Universe Today, Dr. Cohen is a space architect based on Palo Alto, Calif. He will be joined in the study by Warren James, a trajectory expert, Kris Zacny, a roboticist at Honeybee Robotics and Brad Blair, a mineral economist.
Study objectives
According to NASA, the study will attempt to ascertain whether the technology exists to create a viable asteroid mining operation. The study will design a mission, using a robotic miner that would launch from one of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points (EMLP) and intercept a near Earth asteroid, mine its resources on site, and then return to the EMLP to eventually ship the mined materials to Earth. By designing a mission, the study will try to ascertain whether there is a business case for asteroid mining.
Study assumptions
The study starts with certain assumptions, according to NASA. The first assumption is that there is a telescope in orbit around Venus tasked with the goal of discovering and characterizing near Earth asteroids. The second assumption is that there is a commercial transportation infrastructure capable of transporting crew and cargo to and from the EMLPs. Finally the study assumes that there will be some kind of staging platform at an EMLP that can be refueled and serviced by the commercial transports. The robotic spacecraft sent to mine asteroids would eventually lead to human missions.
Types of asteroids
There are two types of asteroids that might be suitable for mining. They, according to Astronomy Source, are M type asteroids, which are rich in metals such as nickel and iron and C type asteroids that contain, among other materials, water.
Planetary Resources already planning asteroid mining operation
A company called Planetary Resources, formed earlier in 2012, has already announced that it intends to undertake asteroid mining operations. The company plans a step by step process that will lead to a viable asteroid mining operation. The first step involves launching a number of space telescopes to discover and characterize asteroid candidates. Next, robotic probes will be sent out to a number of asteroids to ascertain their mineral composition as well as other characteristics, such as shape, rotation, and density. Finally, mining robots would be sent to asteroids chosen for resource extraction. Planetary Resources plans to concentrate on mining water, which can be used for rocket fuel, as well as platinum, a valuable mineral used in a number of products on Earth.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly Standard.
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