Should We Mine Asteroids?
by: Resource World Magazine
Eros is a small asteroid - one small rock in the middle of thousands and thousands other like it. Discovered in 1898 by Gustav Witt, the asteroid is the second largest near-Earth asteroid found to date. Spinning on its axis once every five hours, 16 minutes, the potato-shaped rock is only 33 by 13 by 13 km in size encompassing about 2,900 cubic km of rock. The orbit of Eros, named after the Greek god of love, has an orbit that crosses the path of Mars, but does not intersect the orbit of Earth. Considering all the metal the asteroid is known to contain, mining of asteroids appears to be promising. Mining of asteroids is an old cliché of science fiction. But the idea of exploiting space minerals is far from being a ridiculous idea. When the space probe named NEAR and asteroid Eros met in December 1998, its makeup was evaluated. Eros exhibits a heavily cratered surface with one side dominated by a huge, scallop-rimmed gouge, and the opposite side characterized by a sharp raised rimmed crater. There is no evidence of air or water. Observations from NEAR demonstrated that the composition of Eros is the same as the meteoroids falling on earth, meaning the asteroid contains about 3% metals that would include gold, platinum, aluminum and other rare metals used in electronics. The percentage of 3% may seem low, but considering the weight of Eros, this would represent more precious and rare metals than we have extracted on earth since the beginning of mining. A mining operation on Eros could revolutionize metals markets. With gold at about US $415/oz., the value of gold in Eros would total some $2,000 billion. The total for all metals on Eros could be as much as $30,000 billion! While at the present time we don’t have the technology to mine the asteroid, it could be possible in the not-so-distant future. However, miners may not like the heat – the surface temperature is about 212º F – boiling point on Earth. But it sure would be fun to play baseball – a ball thrown or hit from the surface of Eros at 22 miles per hour would escape into space making for the universe’s longest home run.
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