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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as always, his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland, Hey,
Speaker 1: there to to um So that was that was a hint.
Speaker 1: Actually it would be more like rutten coward. We're talking
Speaker 1: today about asteroids. We did an episode about, you know,
Speaker 1: figuring out how to deflect an asteroid if it were
Speaker 1: coming towards the Earth in a in a threatening manner.
Speaker 1: Like it said, it's a nice play. You got here,
Speaker 1: be a shame of someone I don't know flattened it,
Speaker 1: um So, apart from dealing with asteroids trying to extort
Speaker 1: your planet for for various resources, we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about extorting asteroids for resources. I'm a little frightened right now.
Speaker 1: I'm a little goofy right now. Bonus points if you
Speaker 1: get the reference to the video game in which you
Speaker 1: do mind asteroids. Yes, so we're talking about asteroid mining
Speaker 1: and why would we do it? What how would we
Speaker 1: do it, and what's going on with that whole idea. Anyway, now,
Speaker 1: before we get started, I should mention we do on
Speaker 1: how stuff words dot com have an article about how
Speaker 1: asteroid mining will work. The will there is important because
Speaker 1: as of this moment, we are not mining asteroids. We
Speaker 1: have um ideas about how we would do this, and
Speaker 1: there is in fact a company that exists right now
Speaker 1: that plans on mining asteroids, but that even that plan
Speaker 1: is about a decade out from fruition, assuming everything goes well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just just for the record, I want to say that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm coming up with my own company to pan
Speaker 1: for asteroids. Yeah, I'm not certain exactly how we'll do it,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna make an effort. I claim that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of them on the ground of the
Speaker 1: Georgia Renaissance Festival, which is you know, most people would
Speaker 1: just call it gravel, but I maintain it's actually asteroids,
Speaker 1: and that um they are they're they're intruding upon my property.
Speaker 1: Claim them because well, we'll get into the complications of
Speaker 1: the legal system and mining for asteroids, and a little
Speaker 1: bit because well we're treading new ground in space. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's true. Actually, some of the people involved with
Speaker 1: this company are are very interested in space anyway. I
Speaker 1: mean they have been sort of citizens supporters of the
Speaker 1: space effort, you might say, people like Larry Page and
Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt yes, Googlers yes yes. And James Cameron yes,
Speaker 1: who has m has made a movie or two involving
Speaker 1: space exploration, um documentaries, I should say, right, he's done
Speaker 1: some documentaries about ocean stuff as well as space stuff. Yes,
Speaker 1: game over man. So, uh so we're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: bit about let's talk a bit about in general about
Speaker 1: mining asteroids and why you would want to Well, here's why.
Speaker 1: If we ever want to get to a point where
Speaker 1: we're getting off this rock to move to some other rock,
Speaker 1: one of the big problems that faces us is where
Speaker 1: do we get our raw materials in order to make
Speaker 1: the kind of infrastructure we will require in order to say,
Speaker 1: survive somewhere else. It's not like you can go and
Speaker 1: take it all with you, not easily anyway, because well
Speaker 1: and right now there really is no way because the
Speaker 1: last cargo carrying uh ships that we use, the Space Shuttle,
Speaker 1: are retired. So now we have to build specific vehicles
Speaker 1: to launch stuff out there into space because the vehicles
Speaker 1: we would have used are no longer in service. But um,
Speaker 1: and there's no at least in the United States, there's
Speaker 1: no plan to replace them anytime soon. So not by
Speaker 1: the government privately could be a different issue. In fact,
Speaker 1: privately is really where all this is is falling upon.
Speaker 1: But if we were to try and create a colony,
Speaker 1: say upon the Moon's surface or on Mars, we would
Speaker 1: need to be able to get materials to that place
Speaker 1: in order to create the right environment for to sustain life.
Speaker 1: Because I don't know if you realize this, but they
Speaker 1: are both rather hostile environments when it comes to human survivability.
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, if you've if you've seen the documentary Total Recall,
Speaker 1: you know that if you were to take your mask
Speaker 1: off in Mars, your eyes would pop out of your
Speaker 1: head and uh, you would turn in Donald Schwarzenegger. Um
Speaker 1: little and in fact okay, for in reality, we could
Speaker 1: not survive in either place without life support systems. Right,
Speaker 1: how do we get the stuff we need to the plants,
Speaker 1: including things like water and oxygen? That's part of it. Actually,
Speaker 1: we would we would likely ship stuff in various kinds
Speaker 1: of of of vessels, but when you absolutely positively need
Speaker 1: it there in three months, it would be so much
Speaker 1: better if we could get that material either from wherever
Speaker 1: it is we land or nearby asteroids. And as it
Speaker 1: turns out, a lot of asteroids have materials in them
Speaker 1: that would be very useful in either life support features
Speaker 1: or in building out an infrastructure itself. And uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: in our article we talk about three basic categories of asteroids.
Speaker 1: All right, there's the C type asteroid, which is the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the types that we would find in
Speaker 1: our Solar system. And by the way, we mainly think
Speaker 1: that asteroids are sort of remnants of the formation of
Speaker 1: the Solar system. Yeah, so in some cases leftovers. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's from perhaps a collision, an interstellar collision, but mostly
Speaker 1: it's just leftovers from the Solar system itself forming. So
Speaker 1: it's sort of like you know when you take apart
Speaker 1: piece of electronic equipment or car's engine and you reassemble it.
Speaker 1: And then there's the there's pieces. I think of it
Speaker 1: as any time I buy anything from Ikea, and I think, oh,
Speaker 1: there's some pieces here that should have been used in
Speaker 1: the formation of this cabinet, and yet here they are
Speaker 1: in my hand, and I don't see any place to
Speaker 1: put them in Three years later, all my dishes break.
Speaker 1: The two are the two I maintain are not connected.
Speaker 1: No one tell my wife anyway. So the yeah, the asteroids.
Speaker 1: You would expect to find many of the same elements
Speaker 1: within asteroids as you would find within the various planets
Speaker 1: and other bodies in our Solar System, and as it
Speaker 1: turns out, that is exactly the case. So in the
Speaker 1: C type of asteroid, which comprises about of the asteroids
Speaker 1: in our Solar system, they have uh a lot of
Speaker 1: the same elements that you would find in our in
Speaker 1: the Sun, apart from hydrogen and helium and other volatile elements,
Speaker 1: because they would have boiled off into space, which is
Speaker 1: really too bad because helium mining for helium would be
Speaker 1: great because, as it turns out, we're running out on Earth,
Speaker 1: and you know, the main culprit of why we're running
Speaker 1: out of helium on Earth, that's right, it's crazy to
Speaker 1: think about, but those party balloons that we enjoy oh
Speaker 1: so very much, are actually a problem in scientific research
Speaker 1: because helium is very useful for doing things like using
Speaker 1: it as a cooling agent. You know, the large hadron
Speaker 1: collider uses liquid helium to get the super conductors as
Speaker 1: cold as possible to reduce electrical resistance. But meanwhile, little
Speaker 1: Timmy who's speaking long the has been brittied than in
Speaker 1: a balloon all day long. Has just set scientific research
Speaker 1: back four decades. Thanks Timmy, happy freaking birthday. You can
Speaker 1: switch to hydrogen. I can't see a problem with that.
Speaker 1: And look, of course the balloons get too near the
Speaker 1: birthday can right, So yeah, so hydrogen combustible, don't put
Speaker 1: it near the birthday candles unless you know you don't
Speaker 1: like Timmy anyway. Moving on, so let's see type of asteroid.
Speaker 1: Then we've also got the S type of asteroid. This
Speaker 1: is about se of the asteroids we would find in
Speaker 1: our Solar system, and they contain magnesium, nickel, and iron.
Speaker 1: These are very useful elements. Uh. The M type asteroid
Speaker 1: not an M type planet, as we learned in Star Trek,
Speaker 1: which by the way, no scientific basis there. They just
Speaker 1: decided to call it M type planet to mean any
Speaker 1: sort of earth like planet that human being could survive upon.
Speaker 1: No M is for my planet. So the M type
Speaker 1: asteroids have UH, nickel and iron, and so once we
Speaker 1: see these asteroids out there, and we you know, most
Speaker 1: of them exist between Mars and Jubiter and a belt
Speaker 1: and asteroid belt. You may remember famous explorations of asteroid belts,
Speaker 1: like in the documentary UH, Empires Strikes Back, which was
Speaker 1: had a very expirited exploration of an asteroid belt. What, yes,
Speaker 1: they have giant animals on them? They do not? That
Speaker 1: is that's me being silly again. But no, the asteroid
Speaker 1: belt between Mars and Jubiter, that's where the majority of
Speaker 1: the asteroids in our Solar system reside. But sometimes they
Speaker 1: break free from that belt and they float around in space.
Speaker 1: Occasionally they come near the Earth. Near being a relative term.
Speaker 1: We're talking in thousands and thousands and thousands of miles,
Speaker 1: but that's still relatively close when you think space is enormous.
Speaker 1: So uh, we would probably be targeting the asteroids that
Speaker 1: break free first because may be the easiest to get to.
Speaker 1: Getting to the asteroids beyond Mars would take so much
Speaker 1: time that perhaps by the and they would get back
Speaker 1: with whatever resources you were trying to mind, you might
Speaker 1: not have anything to build anymore. So, uh, the asteroids
Speaker 1: that break free, we can actually determine what type of asteroid.
Speaker 1: They are based upon the way they reflect light. And
Speaker 1: that's because different materials reflect light in different ways, and
Speaker 1: you will get a different spectrum if you were to,
Speaker 1: uh to measure that light, and based upon the the
Speaker 1: composition of the light that you are looking at. Based
Speaker 1: upon that, you can determine what kind of elements are
Speaker 1: in that asteroid, and you could figure out, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is a perfect candidate for us to go and mind.
Speaker 1: And there are other elements that could also be on
Speaker 1: on an asteroid, including oxygen, uh, platinum, gold, both of
Speaker 1: both gold and platinum are very useful in electronics, and uh,
Speaker 1: perhaps even water, so you might be able to find
Speaker 1: frozen water on an asteroid, which could be obviously very
Speaker 1: important to human survival. So if you find a few
Speaker 1: asteroids with frozen water on it and you mind them,
Speaker 1: you get the water off of that, you bring it
Speaker 1: to whatever space colony you have, then you can have
Speaker 1: not just water, but also oxygen. And I understand too
Speaker 1: that it's possible that rare earth metals might be on
Speaker 1: some of these asters and gold and platinum kind of
Speaker 1: fall into that category, but but others as well, others,
Speaker 1: and and these are very important like I said, in electronics.
Speaker 1: You know, platinum, as it turns out, is very useful
Speaker 1: in electronics, but is also very rare on Earth. So again,
Speaker 1: one of those things where we would be able to
Speaker 1: to exploit a an asteroid without having to do the
Speaker 1: same thing on the surface of the planet. You know,
Speaker 1: clearly mining on Earth can be a very disruptive process.
Speaker 1: It can be ecologically disastrous depending on how you're mining
Speaker 1: and what it is you're mining. Um, So if we
Speaker 1: were able to offload that literally lee to an asteroid,
Speaker 1: then that would be beneficial, not just from a resources standpoint,
Speaker 1: but an ecological standpoint, because I mean, really, who cares
Speaker 1: if your asteroid is falling apart, right, I mean there's
Speaker 1: there's no one there. Um. So using telescopes we look
Speaker 1: at these asteroids, we determine what is what those asteroids
Speaker 1: are made of based on the light that's coming back,
Speaker 1: and then that would allow us to say which ones
Speaker 1: are good candidates for mining. Now, how would we actually
Speaker 1: mind the asteroids? Okay, Um, that's a good question, I'll admit. Uh.
Speaker 1: Turns out, um, no one has the answer right now
Speaker 1: because because we're just not there yet. Even the company
Speaker 1: that we were talking about, which is called planetary resources.
Speaker 1: Planetary resources, they come out and admit, like, um, we
Speaker 1: don't know how we're going to mind these asteroids because
Speaker 1: that's a decade out at best. What we're gonna do
Speaker 1: is we're gonna build the machines that can identify asteroids,
Speaker 1: detect asteroids, travel to asteroids, and by the time we
Speaker 1: get to that point, hopefully we figured out what the
Speaker 1: best way of mining these asteroids would be. Now, from
Speaker 1: what I've understood so far in my study of this
Speaker 1: comprehensive study of asteroid mining, Uh, they're hoping that they
Speaker 1: can do a lot of work with robots, which makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense. You want to have and you want to
Speaker 1: have these robotic devices to mine and asteroid because, uh,
Speaker 1: mining mining on its own is dangerous, right, and then
Speaker 1: you add in the dangers of space travel, which are
Speaker 1: numerous and certainly deadly. You do not want to put
Speaker 1: human lives at risk if you don't have to. So
Speaker 1: a robotic force makes a lot of sense. I mean it.
Speaker 1: It certainly takes away from great documentaries like Armageddon, where
Speaker 1: you know, because I doubt that the robots would all
Speaker 1: get together and sing leaving on a jet plane but
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it means that those lives would
Speaker 1: be relatively safe. Yeah, you think about this and and
Speaker 1: in the way that you might actually tackle the problem yourself,
Speaker 1: and you realize that there are several significant challenges. Let's
Speaker 1: say money is no object. Even getting there challenge is
Speaker 1: a challenge. Landing on the asteroids safely is going to
Speaker 1: be a challenge. Mining the asteroids resources another challenge, and
Speaker 1: then getting back right loading them into your vehicle, which
Speaker 1: would have to be designed so that not only could
Speaker 1: it travel to the asteroid, but it could bring a
Speaker 1: payload back from the asteroid to Earth. Now, granted, when
Speaker 1: you're not dealing with gravity out in space, that is
Speaker 1: a little easier to do in the sense that you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about escaping gravity in order to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the payload is not gonna affect you in
Speaker 1: that sense. But there are other issues as well, like
Speaker 1: how will the mining activity change the behavior of the asteroid? So,
Speaker 1: if the asteroid, for example, is an orbit of round Earth,
Speaker 1: if you start mining the asteroid, is that going to
Speaker 1: alter the orbit of the asteroid? Is it going to
Speaker 1: possibly either push it to a point where it's going
Speaker 1: away from Earth? Which means that you're going to have
Speaker 1: to take the end to consideration. When you're flying back,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to make sure you have enough fuel
Speaker 1: to make it back to Earth um or that you
Speaker 1: know you've got enough whatever you need, you know, enough
Speaker 1: power there to get back, or if it brings it
Speaker 1: closer to Earth, then you have the consideration of could
Speaker 1: this potentially create an impact arc where the asteroid could
Speaker 1: hit Earth? And in some cases, you know, maybe the
Speaker 1: asteroids of a size that it wouldn't necessarily hold together
Speaker 1: and perhaps it wouldn't be as big an impact. But
Speaker 1: anytime you're talking about impact at that speed, I mean
Speaker 1: forces mass times acceleration, right, so even if your mass
Speaker 1: isn't very big, if your acceleration is really high, that's
Speaker 1: that's a lot of force. So even a relatively small asteroid,
Speaker 1: if it's not going to burn up, would be pretty
Speaker 1: the disastrous thing if it hit the Earth, especially depending
Speaker 1: on where I mean, even in the ocean. Then you're
Speaker 1: talking about tsunamis things like that. So yeah, there there's
Speaker 1: that element as well. And when you're mining it, how
Speaker 1: do you collect what you're mining? That's that's an interesting
Speaker 1: problem too, because if you're if you're talking about an
Speaker 1: area where there's no gravity, and let's say you're breaking
Speaker 1: apart the surface of the asteroid in order to get
Speaker 1: at some resources underneath, then you have to have some
Speaker 1: way of catching that stuff as it's floating away. So
Speaker 1: there's talk about perhaps there'd be some sort of canopy
Speaker 1: system so that you would have essentially like a net
Speaker 1: that would catch stuff as it flew off the asteroid,
Speaker 1: so that you didn't lose the resources you're trying to mind, uh,
Speaker 1: Frankie Avalon. And then there's also the case of you know,
Speaker 1: what is the specific method of mining? Are you using
Speaker 1: lasers to try and weaken and break apart material, are
Speaker 1: you using other forms of heat? Are you using chemicals? Um?
Speaker 1: Are you using physical force? You know that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of considerations to make, and frankly, no one
Speaker 1: has come up with the right approach yet because we
Speaker 1: still haven't tried it. You know, it may very well
Speaker 1: be that the first dozen times we try to mine
Speaker 1: asteroids we realize there's got to be a better way
Speaker 1: because this method is not efficient enough. If the process
Speaker 1: takes more money, time and effort, then you would uh,
Speaker 1: then you would have if you tried to get those
Speaker 1: resources some other way, then clearly that's not the right
Speaker 1: answer because all you're doing is storing money away. So
Speaker 1: there are a lot of questions to answer at this point.
Speaker 1: But let's let's talk a little bit about Planetary Resources. Now.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned it a couple of times, and we talked
Speaker 1: about how people like James Cameron and Eric Schmidt and
Speaker 1: Larry Page are interested in supporting this company. And you
Speaker 1: might think, well, why why would we worry about why
Speaker 1: would we want to support a company that has admitted
Speaker 1: that the earliest they expect to be able to actually
Speaker 1: mine an asteroid would be ten years from now. And
Speaker 1: part of it is that actually what I've al right, well, uh,
Speaker 1: I was reading an article from Forbes and and in
Speaker 1: the article they did an interview with some executives from
Speaker 1: Planetary Resources, and they talked about why company this company
Speaker 1: is an interesting company and why it may be viable
Speaker 1: and it's already making money now right now, it's making
Speaker 1: money through investment, but it's also going to it's got
Speaker 1: revenue generation plans for each step in the journey to
Speaker 1: having a mining asteroid operation or ask remining operation. I'm
Speaker 1: having some issues with some word order anyway, order word.
Speaker 1: The first stage is talking about creating a space faring
Speaker 1: telescope called the OAR Kid one hundred and they're expecting
Speaker 1: to be able to do this within the next two years.
Speaker 1: And this is UH telescopes with remote sensing technology. And
Speaker 1: the idea is to launch around six or so of
Speaker 1: these telescopes into low Earth orbit and each one would
Speaker 1: be part of a second It would be a secondary payload.
Speaker 1: So in other words, you would not send a spacecraft
Speaker 1: up loaded down with these telescopes, and that's it. Um. Instead,
Speaker 1: what would happen is, let's say some communications company wants
Speaker 1: to launch a new communication satellite and enters into a
Speaker 1: contract with a private company that is going to launch
Speaker 1: the satellite. Then Planetary Resources could say, hey, you've got
Speaker 1: this much cargo space left over in the vehicle. Can
Speaker 1: we put one of our telescopes in there with your
Speaker 1: communication satellite and have it deployed in that same mission.
Speaker 1: And thus it will save money in that it's not
Speaker 1: having a dedicated flight just for the telescopes. That's the
Speaker 1: idea anyway, So these telescopes would be able to UH
Speaker 1: look out into space. With the idea that they're they're
Speaker 1: looking for asteroids, so it's asteroid location identification, uh, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. This could be useful for lots of
Speaker 1: other purposes though, and so the thought behind Planetary Resources
Speaker 1: is that they could even rent out time on these
Speaker 1: telescopes for other facilities so that they could do research on,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, some astronomical approach. And so these telescopes,
Speaker 1: which are you know, when you're floating in space, you've
Speaker 1: got some you can get some really nice pictures of
Speaker 1: stuff because you don't have to worry about atmospheric interference
Speaker 1: and um. And so you might be able to make
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money essentially leasing out these telescopes. Also,
Speaker 1: I like the idea that one of the other benefits
Speaker 1: to this approach is the possibility of being able to
Speaker 1: identify potentially problematic asteroids much earlier than otherwise we might
Speaker 1: be able to, because I mean, that is that's a
Speaker 1: legitimate concern as well. There are there are plenty of
Speaker 1: astronomers out there who say we need to be able
Speaker 1: to identify asteroids that could potentially become a problem um
Speaker 1: and then be able to come up with a solution
Speaker 1: to that problem. And we talked about that in our
Speaker 1: our podcast about as could an asteroid destroy the Earth
Speaker 1: and what could we do to stop that? As it
Speaker 1: turns out, blowing it up is the wrong answer, by
Speaker 1: the way, spoiler alert. UM, that's a great episode. You
Speaker 1: should listen to it. There's lots of other points we
Speaker 1: make in it besides don't blow it up. Um. One
Speaker 1: of the interesting things too about these telescopes is we're
Speaker 1: not talking about something the size of say that the
Speaker 1: Hubble telescope. These are actually very small and could be
Speaker 1: held in your hand, um, and the company expects to
Speaker 1: that it could cost less than uh ten million dollars,
Speaker 1: which you know, that's pretty small amount really when you
Speaker 1: start talking about space exploration. So it is an easy
Speaker 1: way for them to, if you'll pardon the pun, get
Speaker 1: off the ground with the effort and then their next
Speaker 1: phase so that our Kid one Phase one, Phase two
Speaker 1: is ARCID two hundred series. Now this is of course
Speaker 1: something you know, even though our Kid one is in
Speaker 1: the prototype stage or or the research and planning stage,
Speaker 1: our KID two hundred would be the next the next generation,
Speaker 1: and uh these would be equipped with additional stuff on
Speaker 1: it to help the telescope maintain a higher orbit. So
Speaker 1: the one series would be in a low Earth orbit,
Speaker 1: so essentially falling towards the Earth all the time. The
Speaker 1: two hundred would be in a higher orbit and would
Speaker 1: be equipped to track asteroids and also have propostional propulsion
Speaker 1: system is built into the telescope itself so that, uh,
Speaker 1: you could change their orientation and orbit path from the ground.
Speaker 1: So you might think, um, I we spotted this one asteroid,
Speaker 1: but we're not in an ideal position in order to
Speaker 1: really hone in on it. So we're going to move
Speaker 1: the telescope, uh, so that we can get a better look.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing. And then again they would be
Speaker 1: leasing this out as well. Then you have the three
Speaker 1: hundred series. That's that's the that's the final phase of
Speaker 1: the plan, and the three hundred series is the super
Speaker 1: Cool series. In my opinion, this would be a design then,
Speaker 1: not officially, I mean maybe internally. They have not communicated
Speaker 1: that to the press, but the super Cool phase involves
Speaker 1: the ARCID three hundreds, which would be robotic, so they
Speaker 1: are no longer being controlled from the ground necessarily. They
Speaker 1: would It would be a swarm of robotic devices that
Speaker 1: could work together in a network and communicate with each other.
Speaker 1: So let's say one spots and asteroid. Suddenly other ones
Speaker 1: can all hone in on that same asteroid, and all
Speaker 1: three could be gathering data simultaneously. One might be using
Speaker 1: spectography to figure out what is that asteroid made of.
Speaker 1: Others might be taking pictures are plotting the course of
Speaker 1: the asteroid. So you've got this sort of distributed computing
Speaker 1: model in space with robotic space probes slowly moving towards
Speaker 1: the singularity. And then these would be essentially the same
Speaker 1: sort of robots that would ultimately mine asteroids. They would
Speaker 1: work together to mind an asteroid. And how they would
Speaker 1: do that, well, we don't know, because, like I said,
Speaker 1: we haven't really determined what the best approaches, and even
Speaker 1: Planetary Resources says, we have no idea how we're going
Speaker 1: to mind the asteroids yet. We know that we're gonna
Speaker 1: work on that problem, but we've got these other benchmarks
Speaker 1: we have to meet first before that can even become
Speaker 1: a consideration. So we're going to focus on achieving these goals,
Speaker 1: with the ongoing goal being let's figure out what the
Speaker 1: best approaches to mind these things. Once we have tracked it.
Speaker 1: UM launched a a an intercept path with these these
Speaker 1: robotic entities and then then we'll fix it out. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the uh, one of the goals though, that
Speaker 1: they're working on, is is actually eliminating one of the
Speaker 1: problems that Jonathan and I we're talking about a few
Speaker 1: moments ago, because rather than bringing things back to Earth necessarily,
Speaker 1: they're talking about the idea of creating well, basically an
Speaker 1: interplanetary gas station. They want to to create a station where, uh,
Speaker 1: once you launch from Earth, you could stop to refuel
Speaker 1: and get more supplies, and the supplies would be replenished
Speaker 1: from asteroid mining. So you know, you could stop, pick
Speaker 1: up some platinum, some water, some platinum, pick up a
Speaker 1: a big drink, maybe maybe a peak, and log stuckies
Speaker 1: in space. That's gonna make no sense to anyone who
Speaker 1: doesn't live in the Southeast. Yeah, that's all right. I'm
Speaker 1: okay with that Southwest United States, I should add, Yeah,
Speaker 1: good point. Um. So, yeah, I mean that's that's sort
Speaker 1: of the the uh the next step after that, the yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, I think every time glamorous, every time
Speaker 1: the robots deliver more material to this interstellar gas station,
Speaker 1: I think there should be an alert on Earth, like
Speaker 1: whatever computer is designed to indicate that there's been a
Speaker 1: new delivery. I think that the the verbal alert should
Speaker 1: be good news everyone, because I can't believe we've gone
Speaker 1: this far talking about planetary resources and asteroid mining and
Speaker 1: we haven't referenced Futurama yet, so which is an awesome show.
Speaker 1: But let's also talk about the legality of mining asteroids
Speaker 1: because this is this is this is kind of complicate
Speaker 1: because we're talking about stuff that no one's managed to
Speaker 1: do yet. So really we don't have a whole lot
Speaker 1: of laws about it because well it really wasn't pertinent.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no reason to make a law because
Speaker 1: who was gonna do it? Yeah, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: we talk about these kinds of things all the time,
Speaker 1: about uh, going undersea and salvaging a wreck, um, you
Speaker 1: know the ship that that sunk, you know, six years ago,
Speaker 1: and depending on whether or not it's an international waters
Speaker 1: it may fall into that wonderful category of finders keepers
Speaker 1: or or or you know, do you have the right
Speaker 1: to build a base in Antarctica? Yes? Um, you do, Yes,
Speaker 1: I do. I've got I've got a certificate on my wall. Hey,
Speaker 1: I have the right to do that. I haven't done
Speaker 1: it yet. I tried one in the Arctic, but then
Speaker 1: this thing crashed, and uh, I haven't heard from them
Speaker 1: in a while. So maybe I should check on that.
Speaker 1: There's a great carpenter up there too. I'm gonna check
Speaker 1: and see how how John the carpenter over there is doing. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of references. So so the question is
Speaker 1: if there is an asteroid in space, um, and three
Speaker 1: or four countries want to go mind it? Who'se asteroid
Speaker 1: is it? Too? So here's here's where we stand. Back
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, it or not, there was a
Speaker 1: document that was put into law called the Outer Space Treaty. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure any aliens that exist out there would object
Speaker 1: to not being included in the utter Space Treaty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and kados don't blame me anyway, joking aside, there was this,
Speaker 1: there's really is an outer Space Treaty that was signed
Speaker 1: in nineteen Article too specifically states outer space, including the
Speaker 1: Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national
Speaker 1: appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means or of use
Speaker 1: or occupation, or by any other means essentially saying you
Speaker 1: cannot fly up into space and say I claim this
Speaker 1: asked right for Spain. You can't do. Why you could,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't have any legality to it. I remember
Speaker 1: then if you have a flag at the izard Vans.
Speaker 1: Even if you have a flag, it does not help. Yep,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work the way it did in Duck Dodgers
Speaker 1: in the twenty four and a half century. Like I said,
Speaker 1: this plan is not big enough for the two of us,
Speaker 1: So off you go. Um, yeah, I've seen that cartoon
Speaker 1: probably I don't know a hundred times at least, but
Speaker 1: those of you who have seen the cartoon, I mean
Speaker 1: that's what they do. They plant the flag and they
Speaker 1: claim it in the name of the Earth. And now
Speaker 1: it doesn't. So according to this, no government agency could
Speaker 1: claim ownership of a celestial body. Uh. It does not
Speaker 1: cover private industry because that just really wasn't in anyone's
Speaker 1: mind back in nineteen sixty seven. This was during the
Speaker 1: space race between the United States and the USSR the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, and both were trying to get to the Moon.
Speaker 1: And the thing was they didn't want anybody to say,
Speaker 1: you know, the moon is we got there first, So
Speaker 1: it's ours. You know, we're gonna build military bases all
Speaker 1: over the Moon and you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: Ha han and Nanni booboo. So that was an issue.
Speaker 1: It was a concern. It was a legitimate concern. I mean,
Speaker 1: who knew where the limits could go. I mean, back
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, we didn't know if we were
Speaker 1: going to just do a quick visit to the Moon
Speaker 1: or if we were going to have a lunar colony.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, at the time, we had no
Speaker 1: way of knowing we would only send a handful of
Speaker 1: missions to the Moon and that would be it. Well,
Speaker 1: we were in there. We were in a time of
Speaker 1: of scientific excitement, I would say, I mean, they're people
Speaker 1: all over the world were excited about the idea of
Speaker 1: going out in a space and going and landing on
Speaker 1: the Moon. And we were also in the middle of
Speaker 1: a the Cold War between the United States and the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, where people were concerned about the ideas of
Speaker 1: weaponizing space. Um and exactly and so uh, you know
Speaker 1: that this was a very real thing that the Outer
Speaker 1: Space Treaty was signed. Um. But now it's pertinent to
Speaker 1: asteroid mining as well. Yeah. So in general lawyers, who
Speaker 1: are really the only people we can consult on matters
Speaker 1: of this nature, have said that they think in general
Speaker 1: most lawyers anyway, so they think that a really appropriation
Speaker 1: means that you cannot lay claim to an entire celestial body,
Speaker 1: asteroids included. Like in other words, you could not land
Speaker 1: on an asteroid and say it was yours. However, you
Speaker 1: there is nothing in that treaty that would prevent you
Speaker 1: from landing on the celestial body and mining the heck
Speaker 1: out of it. So if you landed on an an
Speaker 1: asteroid and just started a mining operation, there's nothing in
Speaker 1: that treaty to say that that is illegal. However, you
Speaker 1: also could not um you couldn't interfere with someone else's
Speaker 1: mining operation. That would be a problem. So if someone
Speaker 1: has already set up a mining operation on an asteroid,
Speaker 1: you could not try and land your mining asteroid right
Speaker 1: next to it and take over. That would be a problem.
Speaker 1: What you could do is land on the other side
Speaker 1: of the asteroid and start mining it from there. There's
Speaker 1: nothing stopping you from doing that, at least nothing in
Speaker 1: law right now. So you could have multiple companies mining
Speaker 1: the same asteroid from different points and it become kind
Speaker 1: of like, well like the Old West. When you think
Speaker 1: of the gold rush in the Old Western, you have
Speaker 1: to think of all these different competing groups that we're
Speaker 1: trying to get pretty scarce resources, at least seemingly scarce resources. Uh.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, there were a lot of um,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of a lot of little disagreements
Speaker 1: that popped up as a as a result of that.
Speaker 1: You might have heard of some of them, because the
Speaker 1: Wild West was kind of built on that among other things. Besides,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just the gold rush, but that
Speaker 1: played a really large part. Well, we could see an
Speaker 1: equivalent asteroid rush. If someone, let's say Planetary Resources, identifies
Speaker 1: an asteroid that is particularly rich with something like platinum,
Speaker 1: something that is really scarce on Earth, there could be
Speaker 1: a real rush to try and mind that as much
Speaker 1: as possible because it could be extremely profitable. Uh. So
Speaker 1: you might have multiple companies all hitting that asteroid at
Speaker 1: the same time. As long as you're not interfering with
Speaker 1: the other people, it's all fair game according to the treaty.
Speaker 1: And then once you start at interfering there and there's problems.
Speaker 1: Now I would suspect that once we get closer to
Speaker 1: the reality of mining and asteroid we will see more
Speaker 1: laws put into place that clarify this because and again,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to make a law about something that
Speaker 1: we just can't do yet, and we we can start
Speaker 1: thinking about it, however, and I think that's the important
Speaker 1: thing is to start considering the various scenarios that could
Speaker 1: come out if asteroid mining becomes a reality and anticipating
Speaker 1: that so that we can make laws that makes sense
Speaker 1: and protect the parties involved without giving preferential treatment to anyone. Um.
Speaker 1: It will also be interesting to see what happens if
Speaker 1: let's say that you find an asteroid that is positively
Speaker 1: latent with an element that is incredibly rare on Earth,
Speaker 1: like platinum? Uh, what does that do to the price
Speaker 1: of platinum? Would that actually impact the price? Would it
Speaker 1: affect profitability? Yeah? Deep impact on the price of platinum?
Speaker 1: Would it would it possibly affect the price? Would it?
Speaker 1: Would that affect the profitability of the venture? In other words,
Speaker 1: could you actually be making less money mining because you
Speaker 1: have just made a scarce resource less scarce? Now the
Speaker 1: planetary resources people said, look, we're going to be uh,
Speaker 1: we're going to be affected by the whole uh uh
Speaker 1: scarcity issue and the whole supply versus demand issue, just
Speaker 1: like anyone would be. However, we're seeing this less as
Speaker 1: a scarcity solution as it is an access solution, because
Speaker 1: we need access to these materials. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: are our business should be profitable because we're giving companies
Speaker 1: access to materials they otherwise would not have. It's not that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about scarcity versus versus uh, whether
Speaker 1: it's it's plentiful, it's just really you need this, We've
Speaker 1: got it, we'll get it to you. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of which is kind of just really just looking at
Speaker 1: the same issue from a slightly di from perspective. Now,
Speaker 1: whether or not that will hold true, or whether we'll
Speaker 1: see mining companies, you know, be initially incredibly successful and
Speaker 1: then end up falling into pieces because the stuff that
Speaker 1: they supply is so relatively plentiful that there's no longer
Speaker 1: demand for it that remains to be seen. I honestly
Speaker 1: don't think that that's something they're gonna have to worry
Speaker 1: about for probably two decades, you know, that first decade
Speaker 1: just getting to the point where they can mind an
Speaker 1: asteroid in the second decade worrying about how that's gonna
Speaker 1: fall out as far as supply versus demand, because it's
Speaker 1: just fall out. It's just not going to be uh.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna be an issue, at least
Speaker 1: not in the short term. But it's fascinating to think about. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: and my favorite thing is just thinking about mining asteroids
Speaker 1: for water. I mean, that could be a huge benefit
Speaker 1: and and something that's truly necessary if we want to
Speaker 1: do a lot of interplanetary travel and and set up
Speaker 1: a colony somewhere else, because otherwise, the idea of having
Speaker 1: to send regular, uh regular missions filled with water so
Speaker 1: that whoever is living wherever can continue to survive, that's
Speaker 1: that's hard. Yeah, well it's a it's expensive to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, basically launched water into space. It's heavy. And
Speaker 1: also I can imagine that there's an ethical problem too,
Speaker 1: because you have so many people on the planet right
Speaker 1: now who do not have access to clean drinking water.
Speaker 1: That to suggest shooting clean drinking water into space for
Speaker 1: someone else, there's an ethical question that you there's not
Speaker 1: easy to answer. I agree. Now, if there's a way
Speaker 1: of bringing that water from asteroids back to Earth, so
Speaker 1: that there's more clean water, then that's that's not so bad. However,
Speaker 1: really clean water again, just like just like the other issues,
Speaker 1: it's not really a scarcity problem, it's an access problem. Right.
Speaker 1: So we've got enough clean water right now to to
Speaker 1: help out everybody, but not everyone has access to it.
Speaker 1: So that's a perfect example of what I was talking
Speaker 1: about before, about scarcity versus access. But there there's more
Speaker 1: to it than just drinking water for astronauts, because they're
Speaker 1: talking about the possibility of breaking water down into its hydrogen, oxygen,
Speaker 1: and hydrogen for fuel. You can use that in fuel cells.
Speaker 1: Also oxygen you can use I don't know if you
Speaker 1: know this, but you can use it for breathing. What. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not just helium. Are you serious? Yeah, that's I've
Speaker 1: been doing it for years. I highly recommend it. I
Speaker 1: tried cutting it off after a while, but that did
Speaker 1: not go well. Yeah, I heard it. You were kind
Speaker 1: of blue after that. Yeah, No, I was. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was. There's there's just a time in
Speaker 1: my life where I was just feeling a little suffocated,
Speaker 1: you know. So anyway, enough of that weird, we're being silly. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fun topic to talk about and definitely
Speaker 1: but it has spawned a lot of jokes and references.
Speaker 1: But I'm interested to see how how far they can
Speaker 1: take it that I'd like to see them actually succeed
Speaker 1: in it just yet. And it's going to be expensive though,
Speaker 1: And honestly, we do have to come up with something
Speaker 1: along the lines of asteroid mining if we want to
Speaker 1: really make interplanetary travel a reality, because uh, it's just
Speaker 1: not feasible to to do everything from Earth and and
Speaker 1: rely upon that. Now, granted, we may also get to
Speaker 1: a point where we land on another celestial body that
Speaker 1: has its own natural resources that we can exploit. So planet, yes,
Speaker 1: so Mars may not be that planet. There might not
Speaker 1: be a whole lot on Mars that we could use,
Speaker 1: but there might be a moon, a moon somewhere that
Speaker 1: would be you know, that might have some resources that
Speaker 1: we could exploit. Um, so there's always that possibility as well.
Speaker 1: But that's definitely something that we have to develop in
Speaker 1: order for interplanetary travel to become a reality. So it
Speaker 1: is in the future if we want this to happen.
Speaker 1: And uh, I am really curious to see. I would
Speaker 1: love to be able to revisit this in ten years
Speaker 1: and see how planetary resources went. Um, so I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna mark it down my calendar. So May the fourth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, all right, all right, So on Star
Speaker 1: Wars Day and two, we will we will reconvene. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I expect all of you listeners to be listening
Speaker 1: still at that time. Clearly I I don't have any plans.
Speaker 1: So you guys, if you have any topics you would
Speaker 1: like us to tackle in future episodes, please do not
Speaker 1: hesitate to contact us, and we won't make fun of
Speaker 1: it on an episode in the near future. You can
Speaker 1: let us know on Facebook or Twitter are handled. There
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Speaker 1: now that addresses tech stuff at Discovery dot com and
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