Asteroid Mining

Many of the materials that make possible the modern technologies we take for granted require rare and valuable substances, such as Terbium, Neodymium or Tantalum to be made. Substances that become scarcer and more expensive year after year.

The mining industry that supplies these materials is responsible for polluting air and water and destroying entire landscapes, as well as involving chemical compounds that are dangerous to biodiversity and people.

One way to solve this problem of mining scarcity and inefficiency would be to exploit asteroids.

Space travel is becoming cheaper by the year, making it increasingly feasible to exploit resources in the asteroid belt. Even the smallest ones contain trillions of dollars worth of metals such as platinum, gold and nickel.

One solution to make space travel cheaper is to replace rockets with ion engines, at least outside the atmosphere.

This would at least partially lower the cost of space travel.

Once the asteroid is reached, the next step is to secure it by stopping its rotation. There are several ways to do this, such as using a laser to vaporize some of the material in the opposite direction of rotation.

The orbit of a still asteroid can be subtly manipulated by pushing it toward a specific direction with a specific…