Few asteroids are worth mining, suggests Harvard study

A new study might contain some bad news for companies hoping to mine asteroids for their valuable ores.

In the last couple of years, start-ups - including one backed by Sir Richard Branson - have announced plans to extract resources from space rocks.

But calculations by Dr Martin Elvis suggest our cosmic neighbourhood might not be such a treasure trove after all.

The Harvard astrophysicist argues just 10 near-Earth asteroids might be suitable for commercial-scale mining.

But Eric Anderson, co-founder of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, told reporters that the values quoted in the study were off - conservatively - by a factor of 100.

Dr Martin Elvis

Dr Elvis, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, US, has developed an equation to estimate the number of asteroids in the Solar System that could be exploited in a cost-effective way.

His research paper is in press at the journal Planetary and Space Science, and has been posted on the pre-print server Arxiv.org.

In 2012, Planetary Resources, backed by billionaire investors including Hollywood director James Cameron as well as Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, unveiled their vision of using robotic spacecraft to squeeze the chemical components of fuel as well as minerals out of asteroid rocks.

Several months later, the company was joined by a competitor - Deep Space Industries - which plans to use low-cost spacecraft called Fireflies and Dragonflies to reconnoitre and return samples from near-Earth asteroids.

Advocates of asteroid mining say it could turn into a trillion-dollar business, but some experts have been sceptical of the idea.

Concentrating efforts
In the latest study, Dr Elvis worked out the factors that would make an asteroid commercially viable to mine and what fraction of known space rocks met these requirements.

He emphasised there were large uncertainties in the values and called for more thorough surveys of what's out there.

He assumed that mining operations would want to focus on iron-nickel asteroids (known as M-type), considered the most promising targets for finding so-called platinum-group metals.

These include platinum, along with iridium, palladium and others.

These are rare in the Earth's crust because they dissolve in molten iron, instead being mainly concentrated in the planet's core.

Platinum and palladium are the most economically important, having a wide range of uses in industry. But according to the analysis, just 1% of near-Earth asteroids are rich in these elements.

Suitable asteroids also need to be relatively easy to reach, further narrowing the pool by ruling out all but the nearest objects to Earth.

The operative parameter here is delta-v - the change in velocity needed to send mining equipment to the target and return with a larger mass of ore.

The size of the target is also a factor; the paper suggests it wouldn't be worth mining asteroids smaller than about 100m because the total value of the ore they would produce wouldn't be enough to cover the costs of a space mission.

However, Dr Elvis points out that the ore values in his analysis range from a low of $800m to a high of $8.8bn.

"Such a large range of values could greatly change the profitability of a venture, making more accurate assays necessary," he explained.

More Information: How Many Ore-Bearing Asteroids? Arxiv.org

Moon Express Lunar Ambitions

Moon Express, a privately funded company, is developing a robotic spacecraft to land on the moon.

CREDIT: Moon Express

When he's not acting as the CEO of Intelius, an information-services company, Naveen Jain dreams of one day being able to mine the moon.

In August 2010, Jain co-founded Moon Express, a privately funded company that aims to build and launch a robotic spacecraft to the moon.

The lander is being designed to carry up to 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of cargo to the lunar surface.

Moon Express is one of nearly 30 teams making a run at the $30 million Google Lunar X-Prize, which is a commercial race to land a homemade robot on the moon.

The company was already awarded a contract worth up to $10 million as part of NASA's Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data program. But Jain has his sights set on even loftier ambitions.

NASA is feeling the pinch in its plutonium supplies.

Plutonium-238's high heat-production rate and 89-year half-life makes it a good power source for long space missions (Image: US Department of Energy)

Many spacecraft power units are powered by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238, but the US no longer produces the material. Instead, NASA relies on its shrinking stockpile, topped up with purchases from Russia, who have links with Iran and China.

Previous estimates suggested the decline would not affect solar-system exploration until after 2020, but NASA is already tightening its belt. Candidates for NASA's next "New Frontiers" mission, which aims to launch an exploratory spacecraft by 2018, will not be allowed to rely on plutonium for power, effectively limiting the candidate probes to solar power only.

That puts a number of destinations off-limits, says Jim Green, head of NASA's planetary science division. These include targets beyond Jupiter or even darkened regions closer to the sun, like the polar regions of Mars. "Without the plutonium, there's just a huge dimension of science we're going to be missing," Green told New Scientist.

NASA is also relying on Russia for some plutonium-238 that it needs for its next major mission to the outer solar system – to explore Jupiter and its moon Europa. The US Department of Energy is currently analysing what will be required to restart plutonium-238 production, but new fuel may not be ready in time for the mission to launch as planned in 2020.

China has recently bought into the lucrative uranium mining in Canada and South America, whilst Iran has a 'secret' agreement with Kazakhstan for uranium trading.

Russia's ARMZ wants two-thirds of Canadian Uranium mining rival

Russian state-owned mining firm ARMZ Uranium Holding Company wants to acquire at least two-thirds of Canadian rival Khan Resources Incorporated, Russian news agencies reported on Monday.

"Two-thirds of shares would suit us," ARMZ director general Vadim Jivov was quoted as saying by Ria Novosti on Monday, adding that his company would not buy at "just any price."

Khan Resources had announced on Friday that it was the target of a hostile takeover bid from ARMZ at 65 Canadian cents per share. ARMZ is a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia's nuclear energy corporation.

"After the announcement of our intention to buy the shares, we have the right to receive the list of all of the company's shareholders and communicate to each one of them," Jivov said. "We intend to do this soon."

Khan Resources owns 58 percent of the exploitation license for a uranium mine in Dornod, Mongolia. ARMZ owns 21 percent of the license while Mongolia has the remaining 21 percent.

But Mongolia and Russia signed an agreement in August to jointly exploit the Dornod uranium deposit and create a joint company with equal stakes by the end of the year.