Water and platinum group metals that are abundant on asteroids are highly disruptive from a technological and economic standpoint. In the space race, Middle Eastern oil producing countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have their own space and aeronautics programs.Īccording to James, some countries in the Middle East could serve as launch pads for prospecting satellites, because spacecraft would burn less fuel to exit the Earth’s atmosphere from a launch site closer to the equator, due to the higher surface velocity from spinning around the Earth’s axis.Īlthough asteroid mining still sounds like something that could happen only in a Star Trek movie, analysts consider that it’s not as far-fetched as it may seem.Īccording to Goldman Sachs, “ space mining could be more realistic than perceived. According to MIT’s Mission 2016 review, a platinum-rich asteroid of 500 meters (1,640 feet) in width could contain nearly 175 times the annual global platinum output, or 1.5 times the known Earth reserves of platinum group metals. Water can be used as a propellant in space, while metal-rich asteroid belts are thought to contain gold, silver, and even platinum in quantities exceeding more than 100 times the annual platinum mining output on Earth.
The Middle East “is an emerging new space power fuelling the future of commercial space and exploration”, James said in a lecture at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute earlier this month. “Water is the new oil of space…Middle East investment in space is growing as it works to shift from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy,” James told Bloomberg in an interview published earlier this week. In this new quest for resources, the Middle East oil-exporting countries, which have long been considered the swing crude oil suppliers on Earth, could play a role in mining for water and platinum group metals on asteroids in space, according to Tom James, Senior Quality Assurance (QA) Partner at energy consultant Navitas Resources. While scientists and engineers have been studying the costs and technology necessary to launch space mining probes and missions, an analyst reckons that private companies could begin launching satellites prospecting asteroids within five years, and actual mining for water and rare metals on asteroids could begin within eight years. The centuries-long human fascination with space may go beyond making sci-fi movies and into a brave new world of asteroid mining within just a couple of decades.
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