Is Asteroid Mining The Next Gold Rush Or Just Science Fiction?

In the realm of science fiction, the concept of mining asteroids is a classic trope. The idea of humans prospecting for precious metals and other resources on low-gravity rocks floating in the solar system is compelling, inspiring a sense of excitement and adventure.

You’ll find it in cult-TV shows like The Expanse or For All Mankind , and in sci-fi tales dating back more than a century.
But Josep Trigo-Rodriguez, group leader of the Asteroids, Comets, and Meteorites Division at ICE-CSIC and the Catalan Institute for Space Studies (IEEC), is unwilling to set a specific date for when we might realistically harvest the bounty of the many asteroids, comets, and other natural satellites in our Solar System.
“It might be economically realistic in a few decades or centuries from now,” Trigo-Rodriguez told Discover . “That timescale depends on humans realizing that the future lies in promoting international cooperation, and common goals for peace and prosperity.”
Thanks to careful and ongoing analysis of these objects, as well as the study of space debris that has conveniently landed on Earth as meteorites, we know that many asteroids could contain not just gold but also other precious substances, including what we call rare-earth elements.
These materials are important for everything from industrial processes to the making of smartphones, computers, and medical devices that keep modern society functioning.

They’re called “rare” because they are seldom found in easily extractable quantities here at home. But the idea behind mining in space is that these highly valuable materials could one day be harvested in abundance from asteroids and would be rare no longer.
Like the original gold rush of the 1800s, some of the companies seeking to mine asteroids or other satellites in our Solar System have gone bust before ever starting the search for a motherlode.

But some persist, and new players are entering the market, fueled by the promise of untold riches if they could just develop the technology (and funding) to begin operations and pick targets that would be most beneficial to exploit for their resources.

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