Interstellar overdrive

It’s not everyday that a newspaper column makes you a trillionaire. So pay attention. There is a mile-wide piece of rock called Amun 3554. It’s practically a platinum mine waiting to be, well,  mined. By one estimate, the rock has $8 trillion worth of platinum, $8 trillion worth of iron and nickle, and $6 trillion worth of cobalt in it. The good news is, no one has rights over the rock, and practically any one can mine it. The bad news for the likes of you and me, is that Amun 3554 is an asteroid.

But it’s not bad news for Planetary Resources, a new start-up announced last week. Backed by some of the biggest names in technology, space and movies, like Google’s Larry Page and film director James Cameron, this company plans to mine asteroids using robots. In a press release on it’s launch at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, the company explains that it plans to mine Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) for raw materials, ranging from water to precious metals, by developing cost-effective exploration technologies. The company would start prospecting for promising asteroids in the next 18 to 24 months using telescopes, and once it zeroes in on suitable asteroids, will start mining them using remote-controlled robots. Talking about their plans, Peter H Diamandis, the co-founder of Planetary Resources said, “Many of the scarce metals and minerals on Earth are in near-infinite quantities in space. As access to these materials increases, not only will the cost of everything, from microelectronics to energy storage, be reduced, but also new applications for these abundant elements will result in important and novel applications.”

As exciting as it sounds, there is a more exciting prospect to this whole operation. That is of extracting water from water-rich NEAs. As Eric Anderson, another co-founder says, “Water is perhaps the most valuable resource in space. Accessing a water-rich asteroid will greatly enable the large-scale exploration of the solar system. In addition to supporting life, water will also be separated into oxygen and hydrogen for breathable air and rocket propellant”. In short, the exploration and mining of asteroids will act as the stepping stone to the next stage in human evolution, that of colonising space.

As shown by countless Hollywood movies, earth is becoming an increasingly risky home for the human species. Be it is global warming, increasing population and scarce resources, or collision with asteroids, Planet Earth is headed for complete destruction. To avoid extinction, humans have to find ways to get out of this planet, and one of the biggest obstructions is finding breathable air and rocket fuel in space. With plans for getting water out of asteroids, Planetary Resources is, in effect, trying to start a ‘network of gas stations up there’, which will help humans travel to the next frontier.

Another significant aspect of this mission is, it is a private enterprise. Today’s governments, American or Indian, are so cash-strapped and inefficient, that left to them, we wouldn’t even go back to the moon. With private companies like Planetary Resources and Space X pushing the boundaries into the great unknown, it won’t be long before we have affordable, comfortable, space travel, besides the colonisation of other planets. Only, hope that this happens in our lifetime. That would be better than becoming a trillionaire.

The author is a tech geek.

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