Outer space and outta control - the mining of space

Outer space and outta control

An important aim of this site is to anticipate where mining companies are heading in the near future: whose territory they may be expected to enter; with which states they will be negotiating; what minerals and metals lie within their sights.

It’s not an easy task. The industry evinces a deplorable lack of transparency and there is hardly any greater openness displayed by government agencies and private banks or multilateral investors. To be fair, it’s often impossible for companies and their consultants to predict the outcomes of a specific project. They rightly tell us that only one in 300 (or 1 in 500, even a thousand) exploration ventures end in a viable mine. Moreover, judging an appropriate balance between metals supply and demand is notoriously difficult. Not even the London Metals Exchange – the sector’s largest spot and futures market – necessarily knows who is dealing in what metals, or what physical stocks may be available, at any moment.

However, such uncertainties should make us more, rather than less, alarmed about any new, let alone unknown, fields into which miners appear to be moving. The latest allegations against foreign companies, of complicity in human rights atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, surely justify resumption of a mining moratorium, at least for some parts of the country. The call, made by many Indonesian NGOs three years ago for a ban on all mining in protected forests, seems even more valid now than it was then.

At least general debate about these issues can be framed in terms of preventing the contravention of specific rights, the acceleration of adverse climate change, or the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources. But proposals, recently mooted by some mining proponents, go where existing rules just cannot reach.

Out of sight, out of mind

Take seabed exploration. Although there is a UN law of the sea, supposedly governing the exploitation of submarine resources, it is neither methodically applied to corporate seabed exploration, nor to mineral rich “vents” which play a crucial role in guaranteeing the integrity of oceanic life. Last March, Placer Dome financed a joint venture with Sydney-based Nautilus Minerals, enabling the Canadian company to survey sulphide based gold emerging from such vents, located off the coast of Papua New Guinea.

The CEO of Nautilus described the plan as a “world first for exploration”. This statement alone should have set alarm bells ringing among marine biologists, fisher folk, international lawyers and environmentalists at large. Yet it doesn’t seem to have sparked any concern - including from the PNG government itself.

Then, within the past fortnight, the Japanese government has proposed making a “journey to the centre of the earth” (or at least drilling six miles into its crust) to find out what’s there. It’s surely the height of naivety to believe that this is simply a disinterested scientific investigation with no intended commercial pay-off. Here again, though, the announcement passed off with hardly a murmur of concern.

In theory it might be possible to devise international treaties to control such unprecedented (if so far largely conjectural) moves beyond the limits of traditional earth-bound extraction. Unfortunately there seems a complete lack of political will to do so. In any case, how could mining deep below the earth’s surface, or at the bottom of the Pacific ocean, be effectively policed? For the past fifteen years, it has proved impossible to determine accurately the impacts of submarine tailings dumping, even though this may take place just 100 metres or so below the surface and only a few kilometres offshore.

Lunacy

And now we have the most grotesque spectre of all: mining outer space, not simply on the moon (where mineral “grabbing” on a small scale has been an integral part of moon shots since the 1960s) but on Mars and beyond.

Bogus sales of “plots” on our nearest celestial body have been offered for some years via the internet, and no doubt some unsuspecting people have fallen for such a literally lunatic scam. This time it’s deadly serious. NASA, the world’s most powerful space agency, is proposing large scale access to extra-terrestrial resources and seeking Canadian mining expertise for assistance.

The initial justification is to enable space craft to find fuel and minerals to re-equip themselves. Nonetheless, a NASA spokesperson has already gone much further than this, speculating that planetary plunder could compensate for the rapid diminishing of earth’s own minerals.

The idea may seem fantastical, or a ruse from deep within the US military-industrial complex to appropriate even more public funds. After all, during the uranium boom years of the seventies, Japanese scientists secured money from their government to extract uranium (at one part per million!) from sea water; a pilot plant proved it could be done.

Not surprisingly, this was where that particular experiment ended. Unfortunately – without a major outcry - stopping NASA’s crazy project in its tracks may not prove so easy.

[Comment by Nostromo Research, London, June 19 2005]

Race to Mars will benefit Sudbury - Some technology needed to reach red planet will be developed here

By Rob O'Flanagan, The Sudbury Star

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

When U.S. president George W. Bush stated in early 2004 his intention to send a manned mission to Mars, the astronomical announcement set in motion vast problem solving machinery.

Mining expertise in Sudbury, a leading NASA official said Tuesday, is part of that machinery, and the region should be very excited by the prospect of participating in the mission.

Ronald Schlagheck is the element manager for NASA's In Situ Life Support Processes, arguably the most essential component of any future mission to Mars and beyond. He is in Sudbury this week for the Planetary & Terrestrial Mining Sciences Symposium, hosted by NORCAT and organized by GDM Group.

In his presentation to the symposium Tuesday afternoon, Schlagheck outlined the complex processes that must come together to enable so-called in situ (on site) life support systems to be produced on the surface of the Moon or Mars.

Air, food, water, radiation shields and replacement parts will have to be manufactured in space.

That is the only affordable way to travel great distances from Earth, he and others have said.

Engineers and scientists around the world, including here in Sudbury are developing the technology necessary to make such production possible. Leading scientists involved in some of that work are participating in the symposium.

"I think what the current administration, and the technical arm of the president felt was that we had to get beyond Earth orbit," Schlagheck said. "We weren't really advancing the technology or doing the kind of things in terms of a long-term vision, with a real objective."

Given that the budget is in place, and future administrations don't torpedo the plan, NASA will return to the Moon around 2010, and will work towards a 2025-2030 manned mission to Mars. On the Moon, astronauts will test robotic equipment capable of manufacturing life supports. Scientists and engineers in Sudbury are currently testing a space drill and other small-scale mining equipment with the financial backing of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency.

The enormity of the undertaking is only beginning to sink in, said Schlagheck. The technological advancements necessary to fulfill the mission could have untold implications for human society.

"As a NASA employee, I've been working with the NORCAT and associated people here for a little over a year," he said. "I see the mining and related technologies and research development items to make this stuff real on a planetary body. It ought to bring a whole new element in terms of enthusiasm, not only to these folks but to all the collaborating companies in Sudbury and surrounding areas."

Mars is not the end goal of space travel, Schlagheck said. The vision is to explore space and gain knowledge, which is the fundamental motivation for taking space travel to the next level. But there is a long-term, practical reason as well based on a somewhat gloomy vision of the future.

"The resources on this Earth will run out, and you have to find ways to get there, explore and get the knowledge to be able to survive," he explained. "You and I will be long passed on when, at some point, this planet will have used just about everything up, and will have to go to other places or get resources from other places."

"NASA wants our mining expertise Mining called key to colonization of space" - my response to Rob O'Flanagan article

June 9, 2005

Dear Editor of the Sudbury Star:

I find this whole article repugnant; not because I don't believe Sudbury is a world leader in mining expertise or could become the Silicon Valley in space-related mining technology.

It is because I believe NASA is interested in Sudbury's projects of rocket propellants and life-support systems in space, as part of the US program for the control of space, militarily, and for whatever resources might be available.

The question is not "Can we do it?" but, "Why do we want to do it?" and "What will our pursuit of the technology do to our local and world community?" and "Is money -and glory- for a few, our bottom line?"

While some may believe that science and technology will save us all; many believe that the balance sheet of their benefits is heavily weighted towards great and increasing damage to people, earth's creatures and our air, water and soil.

Why do we want to spend many billions towards travel to the moon and beyond, when we refuse to spend the few billions that would clean up, and maintain our environment to give us all clean air, water and soil; restore the fish in our lakes, rivers and oceans; animals in forests which are maintained as Earth's lungs, and minerals researched and used for sustainable travel and manufacturing on our planet. Even the birds do not despoil their nests as we humans do to our home.

The crucial question: "Who will benefit from the financial and ecological costs of space technology, and who will suffer from the subsequent loss of a decent habitat on Earth?"

When we look into the face of a new child or grandchild, we know the responsible question to ask is: "How can we use our technology to give adequate 'life-support systems' to the planet on which we and future generations will live?"

Eileen Wttewaall
Salt Spring Island, B.C.
gande@saltspring.com
250-537-4649