The news headlines seemed more like the plot of Avatar rather than an actual business. Mining asteroids? Really? Are you absolutely sure? With some big name supporters like James Cameron and Richard Branson the projects seemed to have a lot credibility and definitely the financial backing (
The Economist March 2012).
Some new investigations have brought this idea crashing back down to reality. Research by Harvard physicist, Dr Martin Elvis, states that there are only 10 near earth asteroids that are actually economically viable to mine (
BBC News January 2014). The study focuses on estimating the concentrations needed to make asteroids viable to mine an then assessing how many fall into this category. Not nearly as many as we originally thought is his argument. However, there are a lot of uncertainness in the data. Possibly the most important uncertainties are the estimates of Platinum and Palladium, even small increases in the concentrations effect the concentration range from $800 million to $8.8 billion (
Elvis, 2013, Planetary and Space Science).
Eric Anderson, co-founder of
Planetary Resources, picks up on some issues he has with the paper. Firstly, the conservative estimates are partly because the paper only considers one type of asteroid (M-type). Elvis argues that we don't know enough about the other types to assess their economic resource potential. Secondly, we have only discovered 1% of the asteroids in the solar system (
BBC News January 2014). Again Elvis states that this doesn't matter because he is only considering near earth asteroids that are actually reachable.
I find the whole idea of mining in space very exciting and hope that the project does continue to go ahead. However, Elvis and Anderson do seem to agree on one aspect and that is the level of unknown variables that make it difficult to predict profitability. If it doesn't go so well, I'm sure this cheerful little group of actors would make a great alternative cast for a lower budget version of Avatar Two...
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