WASHINGTON – Mention the word "asteroid" to most people and thoughts of Armageddon and doomsday come to mind.
But to entrepreneur Jim Benson, these space rocks are this millennium’s Holy Grail.
Benson is chief executive of SpaceDev, a Poway, California-based commercial space exploration and development company that plans to one day launch a robot craft, or a Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), to an asteroid. Once there, it would land instruments to take photographs and scientific readings to detect the presence of such precious commodities as platinum, gold, cobalt and water.
"The wealth out there is beyond imagination," Benson said.
In fact, the total amount of resources available in the heart of the Asteroid belt -- which exists between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter -- is staggering. There are enough raw materials to maintain a human population of the hundreds of trillions, or 1 million times the maximum capacity that can fit on Earth, says John Lewis, professor of the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and co-director of the Space Engineering Research Center.
Another example of wealth can be found on an asteroid called Amun, the smallest metallic asteroid of several dozen known. According to Lewis, Amun contains roughly 30 times as much metal as the entire amount of metals mined and processed over the history of humanity.
Surprisingly enough, one of the most desirable resources is water.
"What we need most in space is concentrated, portable energy," Benson says. The design of hydrogen- and oxygen-powered spacecraft that refuel themselves with water from asteroids would allow them to operate in deep space indefinitely.
But how much will it cost to get there, land and eventually mine these heavenly bodies?
Benson said the cost would be under $50 million, about $200 million less than an asteroid mission designed and launched by NASA.
University of Arizona’s Lewis adds that many of these asteroids are relatively inexpensive to reach because they have orbits that are remarkably accessible from Earth. And, because they have such low-gravity, leaving them to come back home is much easier than the more gravity-heavy moon.
But the near-zero-gravity surface of these asteroids does have its challenges.
A typical asteroid would probably be crumbly, resulting in a lot of dust swirling around as the surface is scraped away. Also, the scraping, or mining method, would require the securing of the cutting edge against the surface with a type of anchor.
Not to worry, Benson says. Problem solved.
The Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NorCat) based in Sudbury, Ontario, has come up with a prototype of a low-gravity drilling device that anchors itself to an asteroid’s surface.
Although the drill has not yet been tested, its technology has been fabricated in lab tests, according to NorCat CEO, Darryl Lake.
NorCat has teamed up with SpaceDev to drill for ice in the core of a burned-out comet. Asked when such a mission will take place, Lake says "it probably won’t happen for another 10 to 20 years."
Regardless of the when it might happen, SpaceDev seems to be leading the charge for space mining.
Last week, the company announced a joint venture with the aerospace giant Boeing to look at opportunities in the commercial deep space arena.
"Benson’s company is the first really serious private company to venture into space," says Steven Ostro, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "This is the kind of thing that has to happen if colonies in space are to become a reality."
Will Benson be the next John D. Rockefeller of outer space?
"You never know," Lewis says. "As soon as someone makes a buck out there, a dozen serious companies will get involved. Who will survive is hard to tell."
"It’s inevitable that companies will do it," Benson says. "I would like to see that SpaceDev will be the first to do it."
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