Asteroid Mining: How to mine in space instead of on earth

Asteroid mining might sound crazy, but it could actually become a more sustainable alternative to mining on earth. Precious metals like gold and platinum are crucial for green technologies, yet extracting them destroys the environment. But what if we could prevent that by mining in space?

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#PlanetA #Meteorites #SpaceMining

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Author, Camera & Video Editor: Chris Caurla
Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörrer

[NovaCynthia]

Never thought i'd stayed to watch an ad about space

[hananehammouch]

Brilliant video ! Thank you for the interesting content ❤️

[arundalastronauticsltd]

Interesting video - space mining certainly raises many questions and have had recent discussions on this topic!

[AbdulRaheem-fkru]

Best ad on YouTube I’ve stayed to watch

[kapilhooda]

I guess this is one of those ideas which can pose a great threat to the pockets of the big guns.

[NiffirgkcaJ]

I just got this as an ad and I stayed for the scientific content~

[Hikayuhuy]

Why do people keep using the same old argument about price scarcity? The mining operation doesn’t become unprofitable because you magically pop out 5 trillion tons of platinum. You still have cost attached to acquiring said asteroid and the mining operation itself. The price won’t be set by earth mined mineral anymore, and that’s the goal. Whatever the cost to mine the asteroid and bring it back has to be competitive with earth mined mineral; that part doesn’t change whether you’re getting it from space or opening up a new mine. Once you’ve have a mining operation up and running, the profit comes from the difference between operating cost and the price people are willing to pay for said mineral. The reason is why it’s not economically viable is because the cost and technology requirement is too high. Not because scarcity induced price drop. Aluminum used to be the most expensive metal on earth until people found mines and processes to make it economically affordable. No one betted against acquiring aluminum because it would cause a price drop. The only industry that would affect because of the drop in scarcity is jewelry since people desire scarcity. I’m sure they’ll move on to other exotic material/processes, and obviously I’m less inclined to care about what makes them money.

[mastercaft-x]

Im probably the only kid sitting on my couch drawing an asteroid mining machine blueprint.

[gusheidgerken]

Absolutely love this video, very easy to understand yet informative! Great work!

[AndrejMejac]

If one brings enough metal to make prices drop, it will kill competition. Then just set price low enough to prevent anyone to start and enjoy your monopoly until next asteroid miner drops a cargo.

[federicavaccari]

Video molto interessante e anche molto simpatico!

[shirolee]

Where do I apply for asteroid mining employment? I want my assignment to be in outer space please.

[tomkelly]

So once the metals are melted by the mirror array, where does the liquid metal flow to? Up? Down? How is it captured? Purified? Returned?
The value of a rock is nonsense when you do not consider the cost to work with it. What is the net profit?

[MemesnShet]

At least that way a big part of the mining on Earth will become obsolete, that'll be great for nature

[supernova]

But what happens to the pebbles ? Pebbles would be everywhere.. causing more space junk. Wouldn't that be dangerous for space station, It be like a bullet in space.

[alldowhoareiz]

I think the solution with mining is to have the asteroid of our choice orbit around the sun, close enough to melt. Maybe a series of close detonation can help the asteroid make its way toward the sun, hopefully we can measure what speed and what angle it should approach the sun, in order to get it close enough to melt it thoroughly, if timed right we can have it get close enough to earth to orbit earth.

[tomwatson]

This is a really great video, very well made

[christianemmanuelf.domingo]

+ u can pump all the excessive co2 u want out there cuz its outerspace anyway

[xDarkomantis]

Asteroid mining can be easily sought after and is achievable within less than a decade or just a few years. How do we do so? By building a space elevator:


The orbital ring only requires tethers about 300 kilometers long which is technically feasible with common material like steel, but ridiculously straightforward with better and already available material like kevlar.

There are some important questions. First, how much would it cost to do something like this?


We also need to include the cost of materials. A space elevator is about 98% steel (though you can use kevlar for the steel) and aluminum, 1% kevlar, and 1% other such as superconducting magnets. Most of the mass (98%) cost around $1/kg, with an average cost per kilogram of no more than about $10 per kilogram.

Summing the above up, we get about $430 billion in launch costs plus another $1-2 billion in material costs.

In other words, we can have a space elevator for less than $450 billion - significantly less than one year worth of DoD spending, one bank bailout, many times less than a variety of pointless wars, etc. This is well within our reach financially in other words. We'd have immediate access to viable asteroid mining industry. Because the cost of delivering payloads to LEO drops to about $1/kilogram, we can now retrieve asteroids with trillions of dollars worth of minerals for mere tens millions of dollars in addition to having an easy viable way of returning those resources back to the surface.

[yangzhang]

I just remember when Seeley brought it up on Bones