Profitable Asteroid Mining

From The Space Library

Author - M. Busch

Co-Author(s) -

JBIS Volume # - 57

Page # - 301-305

Year - 2004

Keywords - Economic spaceflight, magnetic solar sail, asteroids

JBIS Reference Code # - 2004.57.301

Number of Pages - 5

Abstract

Mining platinum group metals from asteroids has long been a proposed method of making a profit from a space program. Until recently, however, such a proposition was non-economic. New technologies, particularly magsail propulsion and high efficiency solar cells, drastically change the situation. An asteroid mining operation with an initial revenue of ~2.6 billion dollars/year and an initial cost of ~5 billion dollars seems quite reasonable if such technologies are utilized.

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