Asteroid mining could open up a new space frontier and key to space exploration. Asteroids are leftover debris from the early solar system formation and the asteroid belt exists between Mars and Jupiter also many asteroids orbit the sun.
Scientists think asteroids are treasures and they could provide many resources. They contain many materials and minerals like water, Iron, Nickel, Magnesium, zinc, tin, lead, silver,copper, platinum, tungsten ...etc. Asteroid mining operations might supply the Earth and its colonies on other planets with a plenitude of materials.
Maximum fuel is spent in overcoming the earth's gravity and need to carry fuel for further space exploration, but if rocket fuel was sourced from space for space, that problem can be avoided. When water is broken into its constituents hydrogen and oxygen, you have two of the most commonly used elements in rocket fuel.
Asteroids also give us the potential to create tools in space. “Iron is abundant,” says Chris Lewicki(Planetary Resources president and chief engineer) as is nickel and cobalt. Using technology such as 3D printing you can grab material off asteroids and 3D print something that never has to be on a rocket.” Tools, machines and even habitats can then be built off Earth, reducing the cost of exploration even further.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral 8 September 2016 with the help of 1.2 million pounds of thrust provided by an Atlas V rocket. The spacecraft will journey to a near-Earth asteroid known as Bennu and return an asteroid sample to Earth 2023. This will be NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission.
Of course we have to wait and see how this nascent technology will progress.
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