The Key Companies Hoping to Profit from Asteroid Mining
SpaceFab.US – Perhaps the best opportunity for an ordinary investor looking to put his money into an asteroid mining is SpaceFab. Although the stated long term goal of this ambitious American company is to mine asteroid resources, they have a more practical stepping stone target of launching their own telescooeinto space. While it is hoped that the telescope will ultimately be used to prospect suitable asteroids to be mined, they aim to allow it to be used initially by others, including the general public, in order to generate revenue in the shorter term. And you can invest in the company now. SpaceFab are offering a
Pre-IPO invitation for the public to become early stage investors.
ispace is aJapanese compqny hoping to launch their own missions to the moon by 2020, and hope to play a leading role in providing the infreastructure of the expected exploitation of lunar resources by several countries over the next decade. They have a contact page for potential investors.
Planetry Resources is another American company that has huge long term space resource mining ambitions, but a more practical near term plan of funding their ultimate goals and turning a more immediate profit for investors. Similar to Spacefab, their immediate strategy is for developing a market for small (30–50 kg) cost-reduced space telescopes for Earth observation and astronomy.
Other private companies hoping to make a profit from exploiting the vast resources of space include Offworld, Moon Express, Kleos Space, and TransAstra.
Elon Musk On Asteroid Mining – A Caveat
Although Elon Musk is leading the way in making space launches more affordable and economical – a key ingredient in the process of making asteroid mining profitable – he himself doesn’t see any potential value in mining asteroids in the near future. At a speech to the Royal Aeronautical Society he said :
“I’m not convinced there’s a case for taking something, say, platinum, that is found in an asteroid and bringing it back to Earth.”
He also earlier claimed, in regards to asteroid mining :
- It would always be less expensive to mine the same resources on Earth.
- Not all asteroids are rich in resources and asteroid mining remains a huge economic risk requiring immense research
- If SpaceX did successfully mine and return rare resources back to Earth, the value would immediately plummet and hence the whole enterprise would not be profitable.