Next steps for off-Earth mining

We've wrapped up the Off-Earth Mining Forum, hosted here by the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research at the University of New South Wales. After two days of talks by some of the world’s experts, informal discussions stretching late into the evening, worldwide media coverage, and a rousing public lecture on the Curiosity Mars ScienceLaboratory, we have gone our separate ways. Each of us is asking: how can we continue helping this bold venture succeed?

Of course, we still haven't answered the questions many of my friends and the general public are asking: “Does this make any sense? Is this just an unaffordable pipe dream? Aren’t the technologies required just too demanding?” Here's a nice, balanced article in an Australian newspaper, looking at both sides of the coin.

An example I’ve been using to provide a different perspective is the Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of the world’s most famous feats of engineering (although perhaps not as photogenic as the Opera House).

(University of New South Wales)

When the First Fleet pulled into Sydney Harbour in 1788, someone like Captain Arthur Phillip might have said, “I say, it would be jolly to have a bridge going over to the north shore.” In fact, architect Francis Greenway proposed it in 1815. But at just over a kilometer, he would have recognized that no contemporary material was up to the task—not wood, not cast iron. A few decades later, Bessemer made high-quality, low-cost steel available. The design of the Harbour Bridge began in 1900, and it was completed in 1932.

A century seems like such a long time—especially to politicians. But in the sweep of human history, it’s a blink. A century from now, there will be a vibrant space infrastructure, which will generate new prosperity for humanity. The health of our own planet's environment will be protected by beaming down energy from orbit. Those of us in the field are building the technological roads that will enable these things.

Another story from Australian history is germane as well. The early settlers learned that there were vast grasslands to the west of the Blue Mountains bounding Sydney. 

 

(Government of New South Wales)

But the Blue Mountains are carpeted by dense, impassable brush and forest. Governor Lachlan Macquarie ordered a road leading west from Sydney—a brutal undertaking, using prisoners as laborers. With its completion, grazing lands for vast herds of sheep and cattle were connected to a port. The wealth of Australia began to multiply exponentially with the cutting of that road.

In addition to our space technology “roads,” we need to build some institutions to support the construction of an interplanetary infrastructure. The terrestrial mining industry is supported by programs at universities, technology conferences, a legal framework, industry associations, and interplay with numerous other sectors of the economy. As an off-Earth economy begins to develop, the same broad base of enabling structures must be developed. 

It should also be noted that off-Earth mining is synergistic with planetary defense--which basically means deflecting asteroids. Some of the early products of the space miners will be small telescopes, to search for good asteroids to mine. Those could well warn us of previously unobserved bodies headed for Earth.


(Associated Press)

Conference attendees noted how timely the Chelyabinsk meteor was for our topic!

 To move forward, we "space miners" will start with baby steps--including creating more superb conferences like this one.

Day One of the Off-Earth Mining Forum

My boss at the University of New South Wales, Professor Andrew Dempster, began organizing this forum several months ago. He simply realized that Australia’s world leadership in mining automation could be brought to a conference with space engineers, creating a dialogue about how we might mine the Moon and other planets. The two asteroid mining companies, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, hadn’t even been announced when he started organizing.

A few weeks ago, we published a couple of small articles on an online academic discussion site here in Australia, talking about the forum and how Australia might make some technical contributions to this field. Evidently we struck a chord with the press and the public. In the last five days, I’ve been interviewed on television five times (two were live!) and at least that many times on radio. Andrew has done an equal number of spots, and we’re not done yet. And here's an example of the print media coverage--fairly well informed and balanced.

We have some “space mining superstars” attending the conference. Our keynote speaker is Rene Fradet, deputy director of the engineering and science directorate at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Rene was the flight system manager for the amazing Curiosity rover now crawling around Mars. Earlier, at the head of his own company, he built Curiosity’s amazing robotic arm. The attendees were in awe of the complexity and capability built into Curiosity, and how it was all made to work together. In my introductory talk, I used Curiosity as an example of the first step in mining—prospecting.

Also here is Dr. Laurent Sibille of the Kennedy Space Center, a world expert in the properties of “moon dirt,” or Regolith. Laurent and his colleagues are working on processing the regolith found on asteroids and the Moon. He emphasized a common theme: using the resources we find out in space will change the game. We will transition from isolated, one-way exploration missions to a robust space infrastructure with greatly expanded economic productivity for all of humanity.

Dr. Hijame Yano from ISAS/JAXA in Japan came to share his asteroid geophysics research, which has benefited from his experience as part of the first team to explore an asteroid. For 17 years, he was part of the remarkable Hayabusa robot mission that explored asteroid Itokawa, and returned its sample capsule to Earth in the Australian desert in 2010. Some of the most valuable information from that mission was the very close-up photography of Itokawa’s surface. 

 

(JAXA)

Many of its features look similar to Earth’s—landslides, gravel beds, boulder fields—but why should they be similar, given how much smaller the asteroid’s gravity is? Hijame is actually starting an entire new field of science—Microgravity Geology. 

Honeybee Robotics is a small 50-person company that has accomplished some amazing things. They built one of the tools at the end of Curiosity’s arm, a small mechanized brush used for cleaning the surface of rocks so the chemistry would be accurate. Dr. Kris Zacny represented Honeybee here at the conference. Kris is a particularly appropriate speaker for this forum since, in addition to being a “space guy,” he is also a highly experienced miner, with 10 years in South Africa and other mining venues. 

We got a good turnout from the Australian mining community, too. The idea was to get some real-world, hard-won experience in Earth mining projects. A speaker who bridged the gap between high technology and production was Dr. Adrian Boeing of Transmin, the mining equipment company. Adrian talked about the 13-year development of RockLogic, a highly automated rock breakingand processing system. Adrian performed a valuable service for the rest of us—he taught us the steps that were necessary to address real-world mining issues in the development of automated processes. One important point he made was that, once automated systems were in place, the improvement in safety was dramatic. Automated systems also improved system "up time" by reducing human error.

Also presenting was my good friend Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California. Behrokh defines the term “innovator.” One of his most famous inventions is the Contour Crafting process—using robots to do 3-D printing with concrete. This concept has tremendous applicability on Earth, particularly in its potential for providing low-cost housing for billions of the lowest income people on Earth. Behrokh came to the forum to discuss his NASA-funded project studying how to do Contour Crafting on the Moon, an important idea for establishing permanent bases and robotic factories.

(University of Southern California)

Notice that a crucial technology and a common theme of these presentations was the importance of robotics. Everyone at the conference understood that off-Earth mining is a robotic process, not one done with astronaut miners. And after a little explaining, even the press seemed to get it!

At the end of the first day, conferees were treated to a cruise on Sydney Harbour. The weather was absolutely perfect. Discussions between miners, space geeks, roboticists and materials scientists continued over wine and dinner on the boat deck.

This topic, and this conference, really have captured people’s imaginations. During dinner on the cruise boat, my cell phone rang. “Hello, this is BBC London.” My interview on World Update (minute 19 of the World Update link) was broadcast throughout the UK and the US. 

Rene Fradet generously agreed to give his talk a second time, this time for a general audience instead of a bunch of engineers. We’re using the largest venue on campus, 950 seats. Registration was maxed out a week ago! 

I'll post again after the conference concludes.