The final frontier

(jewelleryfocus.co.uk) - The universe is infinite, and so likley are its resources. One of the earliest thinkers of the modern space-mining is John S. Lewis, the current professor emeritus of planetary science at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He wrote his book, Mining the Sky, as early as 1997. According to Lewis, asteroid mining could be the “biggest game-changer in human economic history”. Our solar system is filled with asteroids. They are the left-overs of the formation of the solar system. Little bits of rock that never made it into planets or moons. They are also rich in iron, nickel, and valuable platinum-group metals such as platinum and iridium – and of course diamonds. Every year something like 200 tonnes of platinum is extracted from the Earth’s surface — to the tune of about $6bn (£4.6bn). But according to some estimates, the value of these platinum- group metals in all of the asteroids “close” to the Earth is valued at $700trn (£541trn). There is one particular mile-wide rock named 3554 Amun that is alone thought to contain $20trn (£15.7trn) worth of valuable metals and diamonds. And unlike on Earth, these precious materials are not buried under the surface, they are practically lying on top, waiting to be extracted. So it is perhaps not surprising that so many companies are scrambling to get up there. A further motivating factor is Goldman Sachs’ claim that the fortune of the first individual trillionaire is to be made in asteroid mining.