The Future
Humans having unlimited resources is absolutely a joke, so is the idea of a single-person being worth a trillion dollars. What if all this fantasy was actually just years away from reach? It actually is, ever heard of asteroid mining, It is where the future is. A Caltech study put the cost of an asteroid-mining mission at 2.5 billion. It might sound a lot, but a rare-earth-metal mine has comparable set-up costs of up to 1 billion and a football-field-sized asteroid could contain as much as 50 billion worth of platinum, but bringing resources of an asteroid the size of a football field has its own complication like how is it going to go through earth’s atmosphere without denting the planet and even if you bring it back to earth is it actually going to be that expensive since metals like gold and platinum are expensive because they are rare metals. Let’s just forget about rare earth metals, for now, the real focus of asteroid mining companies right now it a type of asteroid called Chondrites, this is probably going to be the most immediate return for value. Guess what, these asteroids are just tanks of water. Yes, the first trillionaire is going to be someone who is going to sell water. Let me get this straight that water isn’t cheap in space and use of water in space is just not for human consumption. Water is more than precious. Ever dreamed of interplanetary travel or your trip to the moon, well all this is closer than you think, companies like SpaceX, Virgin and Blue Origin are taking huge steps to make space travel very cheap, SpaceX with their falcon rocket has been able to take heavy loads to LEO at such a huge profit margin and in a few years launch vehicles like the Blue Origins’ New Glen and SpaceX’s Starship will be able to take people into space like just hopping into an aeroplane. Bases on the moon, bigger space station and space tourism are going to be very popular in the future. Now how is this all related to mining water? Transporting a bottle of water to space will set you back by 1000 $ to 40000 $ per bottle and the demand for water in space is just going to increase manifold by time. Water is also a source of one of the most efficient rocket fuels in the world, so the possibility of space gas station is also not a joke. Rockets consume more than half the fuel to escape the atmosphere of the earth and refuelling the rocket in space can allow it to travel much further than ever. Water is also a good radiator and this can allow settlements on other plants and in the near future on the moon with the Artemis programme. By the way “in the future “I meant by next 4–20 years. Last year Japan was able to bring a sample from an asteroid back to earth and across the years many probes were able to land on asteroids. In three years, people will be back on the moon with the construction of the first base on the moon. Many companies have already started doing their part to secure their spot on mining water and minerals from asteroids. The future is near.
