MOON MINING AND ASTEROID WEALTH: The Next Step in Space Exploration | WELT SpaceTime

Space mining, extraterrestrial extraction of mineral resources sounds like science fiction. However, in the tireless and insatiable search for resources, humankind is also looking into space. Asteroids, and especially the Moon, offer promising targets to reap riches off a potential paradise filled with raw materials. Private investors want to mine these treasures, but space-exploring nations are also working on the future of space mining. Space mining, that is, mining raw materials on other celestial bodies and then bringing them back to Earth, sounds pretty good. Especially when you consider that resources on Earth are limited, and some are already running out, while on other planets, moons and asteroids, they are practically unlimited. So why not just fly there and collect them? Well, that might even be possible in theory. However, the question is, what resources are actually out there? How much technical effort is involved? How much does it cost? Is it even worth it? And on a different note, couldn't we use the materials where we found them, for ourselves and for our work? Yes, that's a really good idea. And that's why science has its own term for it, namely, in situ resource utilization, the use of resources on site. Space mining is a compelling, emerging field, with the current focus primarily on the Moon. The commercialization of space travel is being driven forward. The orbit of our planet has long been considered part of the Earth's economic space. Mining raw materials in space would only be a next logical step. One of the key countries and pioneers here is Luxembourg, which ventured into space a long time ago. The small European country is one of the world's largest satellite operators. And Luxembourg has also positioned itself well ahead of other nations when it comes to the future of space mining. Former Minister of the Economy at Tienschneider paved the way. I had a meeting with Dr. Pete Wilton. He was the head of the NASA Ames Research Center at the time. He came to my office and told me all the things that would be possible in space in the future, what economic opportunities there would be, and he mapped it all out for me. But to be honest, when he explained it to me, two things came to mind. First, what was he smoking before he came to my office? And then I thought, how am I going to get rid of him? But he didn't leave. He invited me to California to get together with a few space startups to meet with NASA. And that convinced me. And I thought, yes, okay, let's check it out. Then we came up with a strategy on how we could implement this in Luxembourg. In addition to moon rocks, asteroids are among the coveted spoils. These vagabonds in space promise fabulous riches. However, lucrative sources of raw materials must first be found and identified. It was October 2014. An Antares rocket exploded at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in the U.S. state of Virginia. A Cygnus space freighter supplying the ISS went up in a fireball. Also on board was the Arkyd-3 nanosatellite, a probe from the American space startup Planetary Resources. It was to be used to test technologies for a telescope to look for asteroids that could be mined. It was never built. Planetary Resources, whose business model was the exploitation of asteroids, was liquidated in 2018. The company was part of the Luxembourg Space Mining Initiative. It was very difficult at the beginning. When we started this project in Luxembourg, we couldn't find any private investors. So we invested the money. We invested in these companies directly or indirectly. Now we have equity funds specialized in new space, which will continue to develop. And with every equity fund that raises money to invest in this sector, this trend will accelerate. DSI, Deep Space Industries, another early-stage company funded by Luxembourg, also failed to rise above the status of beautifully animated advertising films. There was a lack of investor money. Developing ideas on Earth is one thing. To actually realize them in space, you need staying power. In other words, a lot of money. But despite the failure of the two startups, the topic of space mining is more relevant than ever before. Space mining is a growth market, even if the plans are only just being realized. Serious effort is being put into it, also by the space agencies. This is not utopian. It will become reality by all means. The question is when it will happen. We are currently in the process of creating real maps of the Moon, as we have done of the Earth or as they exist on Earth. Geological maps, where we estimate which mineral resources are in which areas. I was at an institute in Luxembourg recently, where I was shown such a map. And I couldn't believe my eyes. The surface of the Moon had been mapped, from observations of several probes and satellites that flew around the Moon and mapped it. That's why today we already have a good idea of where to find various types of mineral resources. Large quantities of iron oxide, plus aluminum, titanium, gold and rare earth elements. Apparently, our Moon is full of metal. Mining lunar resources promises brilliant economic opportunities. Not to mention revolutionary developments in the further exploration of our solar system, if the raw materials on site are used to build and operate rockets and research stations. It will probably take longer, but it will happen. Think back to personal computers. Think back to when computers were developed. Back then, they cost a huge amount of money. It was unthinkable that one day everyone would own a computer. But technological progress has democratized it. It's the same with mobile phones. Many technologies are very expensive at first, and you don't really see how they can work commercially. I can also see that the motivation is very strong. More and more countries are becoming active and ever more companies are getting involved. The course has long been set for a new conquest of space. In contrast to the first space race, it is private individuals with well-funded bank accounts and commercial enterprises that are driving developments forward. They are sending technology and people into space, and their visions and entrepreneurial spirit are fueling the creation of new technologies. At the same time, emerging space-exploring nations are jockeying for position in space. China is running a vast program to explore and develop the Moon. In the United States in particular, there are fears that Beijing could set foot on the Moon and try to control areas that are particularly rich in raw materials. India is also heavily involved in lunar endeavors with the Chandrian-3 mission. In the summer of 2023, the Vikram Exploration Probe landed on the Moon. Days after the successful landing, the probe fulfilled another mission objective. It briefly lifted off and touched down softly on the lunar surface again. Europe's space organization ESA, on the other hand, is planning to set up a satellite network for communication and navigation on the Moon with the Moonlight Project. Future missions could thus save weight, as an important part of the equipment for data transmission would already be on site. We want to help ensure that Europe will play an important role in this area of exploration and utilization of the Moon, and that it won't be left out of this geopolitical endeavor. Why shouldn't Europe be a part of this? As always, if you don't participate, then you won't be part of this new economic area. The rules associated with it are being set up to create new standards and exploit new opportunities. And Europe has the expertise, the capacity, and also the opportunity to become actively involved in it. The Moon is there, and it is within reach. And so the Moon is once again the focus of interest, both for state space agencies and private space companies. If resources are to be extracted outside the Earth, it will probably be on the Moon first, but not necessarily to bring them back to Earth. The Moon is practically around the corner for us, as we only need three days to get there and three more to get back. But does it have much to offer in terms of raw materials? The answer is no, unfortunately not, because it was formed from the Earth's mantle around 4.5 billion years ago after a giant impact. And that's why there are the same types of rock and minerals there that we have on Earth. With one exception. Helium-3. How did that come about? Well, over billions of years, the solar wind implanted helium-3 into the surface of the Moon. That didn't happen on Earth because it has an atmosphere. We could use helium-3 in the future for so-called fusion technology, but we're still a long way from that. What we could use the regolith, that is, the Moon rock for in the future, is to produce oxygen there, to build habitats, and very importantly, to produce the fuel that will bring us back to Earth. The Moon has a giant filling station in Earth orbit. This is no utopia. The Moon carries water. In lunar rock and in the form of ice. These water reserves would be needed for a long-term stay of researchers on the Moon. First, the Moon needs to be explored in more detail. That would still be done by robots. Then man will return to the Moon and set foot on the Earth's satellite again. For the time being, only for short stays, similar to the Apollo missions. The researchers will take a closer look at the places that the robots and probes have scouted out for them. And once the technologies for extracting and converting lunar water are ready, the ultimate goal will be to set up permanent stations for research similar to Antarctica and to prepare for missions deeper into the solar system. There will come a time when different countries or different organizations build an infrastructure on the Moon, just like in a village, for example, where there is a hotel, a house, a church and an inn. There will also be an infrastructure on the Moon. That is certain. It may take a few more decades before it's really fully developed, but that is certainly the future. An outpost of humanity on the Moon. That is the idea. An international extraterrestrial research center that draws on the raw materials of the Moon for its construction and maintenance. The European Space Agency ESA already developed an idea for this years ago. A concept for cooperation between all space-exploring nations, which the then-Director General of ESA, Jan Werner, presented and called Moon Village. The hope behind the concept was, and still is, to build a community of all space-exploring countries. It is about the deeper exploration of space and also about creating a basis for the journey to Mars. The Moon would be the ideal springboard for this complex mission. It's easier to escape from the Moon because the Moon is lighter than the Earth. On the Moon we only have one-sixth of the gravitational force on Earth, which means it's much easier to launch from the Moon. So the strategy would be to set up a station on the Moon, generate fuel from the materials we find there and then travel further from there. That would be the best strategy from a physical point of view and certainly the most economical strategy on a large scale. Scientists and engineers are searching for solutions to the problem of colonizing alien celestial bodies. Whether it's the Moon or Mars, if humans want to survive there, they need a place to live. A habitat. Bringing all the building materials from Earth would be far too complex and expensive. The solution is space mining. The raw materials on site must be utilized. Only then are manned missions far from Earth realistic. We will certainly have mines on the Moon in a few decades. The big question now, of course, is who, how and what will be done to achieve this. But the way we humans are, people will persevere. And of course there will be competition and rivalry because resources can be utilized. In other words, there will be companies that want to cover a certain area of the Moon and engage in mining there. Our Moon has an eventful past. It was once covered by a glowing layer of magma that formed a thin crust. Cosmic bombardment cratered the entire surface, but also shattered it in parts, mainly on the front side. This led to volcanism. Magma escaped and solidified. This is how the Lunar Maria, the dark plains on the front, were formed. It was probably asteroids hitting afterwards that left water in the polar craters. There are areas on the Moon, especially in the craters, where there is a lot of material from asteroids that have impacted there. And there are lunar rocks, as we know from the Apollo missions. They actually have little metal spheres in them that contain these elements. However, I'm not quite sure how promising these deposits are, because it's not that much material. I think it can vary extremely from place to place. So I'm not sure whether it really qualifies as a large deposit. The Moon does not appear to be a huge storehouse of valuable metals, despite the interesting elements that have been found in lunar rock. But the potential smaller deposits of gold, platinum and rare earth elements are fueling investors' fantasies. And so it will only be a matter of time before private companies also send probes to the Earth's companion to explore possible mining areas. Nevertheless, thinking about mining on the Moon is like betting on a distant future. I don't think it makes sense economically to bring raw materials from another celestial body back to Earth. Even rare earth elements are not that rare. They've been called rare earths because they're difficult to separate from the material, from the rock in which they're found. Today, they're only being mined in certain countries, because they're easiest to access there, and because environmental standards might be lower there. But you could also find rare earth elements in Germany if you looked for them. So in fact, it's not because of a lack of raw materials that we need to mine on the Moon or on Mars or other celestial bodies. Economically speaking, mining the Moon would not be worthwhile. So what can you actually find there? The Moon's mineral resources appear to be diverse. For the space agencies, however, the water deposits are of particular interest. Water can be found in the form of ice, presumably in the permanently shaded crater basins at the poles, and it can also be found in small quantities as crystal water in the lunar rock. NASA is sending its exploration rover Viper to find water in the South Pole region of the Moon. The area that the rover will explore is almost always in the shade, so there are probably large ice reserves there. This could turn out to be the water reservoir that long-term missions depend on. That would be a key factor to actually set up a station there. Furthermore, the water could be used to produce oxygen through electrolysis. Of course, oxygen would be needed in such a station in order to be able to breathe. So that's another prerequisite for setting up a station on the Moon. If water didn't exist there, you'd have to bring some from Earth. That would mean a lot of weight to bring to the Moon, requiring enormous effort. So it would be extremely helpful for the lunar station if there was a water supply on site. The Moon, once the object of poetic enchantment, then the target of the space race during the Cold War, it is now attracting the curiosity of private investors as a potential source of valuable raw materials. But the pursuit of economic gain is countered by the inhospitable nature of space and our Earth's satellite. It is not yet certain what quantity of mineable treasures it holds. Legally, at least, there do not appear to be any problems. The Moon belongs to no one, and therefore to everyone. Is it allowed to mine raw materials on other celestial bodies just like that? It boils down to the question, is there an international space treaty? And the answer is yes, the so-called Outer Space Treaty from 1967. What does it say? It says that space and celestial bodies may not be appropriated by nations, whether by occupation, utilization or any other means. But the extraction of raw materials is not the appropriation of a celestial body. However, there is a second law. The Moon Treaty of 1979 states that even parts of celestial bodies may not be appropriated. The problem with the treaty is that nobody signed it. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 declares space, the Moon and other celestial bodies to be common property of mankind. However, the mining of raw materials is not clarified in the treaty. That possibility was not considered. To ensure that potential investors are not deterred, more and more states are guaranteeing them legal certainty in this area, through their own statutes, Luxembourg too. There is only the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, and back then it was only written to prevent a state from going and sticking its flag on the Moon and saying that it now belongs to the USA, China, Russia or whoever. That's why it said that space belongs to humanity as a whole. But that's not a particularly good business model. If I mine something in space, bring it back to Earth and then it belongs to everyone, that doesn't work economically. And so we said, we'll regulate it in a way that anyone with a license in Luxembourg has the right to go into space and mine minerals, whatever they want, and to use this material commercially, without any legal consequences or problems. Near-Earth space is already highly commercialized. Earth orbit is a lucrative economic area for private space companies and satellite service providers. The space business model works. And so it is not surprising that new business areas are to be developed outside our planet, be it on the Moon or in the quest for research-rich asteroids. The big money is tempting. I believe that the legal issues are the easiest to solve. I think the economic question, whether this can be done at a reasonable price, is much, much more difficult. And my prediction is that the answer will never be yes. You should never say never. But at least let's say it won't be answered in the affirmative in the next 50 years. The technology is still lacking. But in the long term, the path is already set. Mining in space not only arouses curiosity, but above all, human greed. The commercial and in particular strategic prospects of extracting raw materials in near-Earth space will give rise to conflicts of interest. The topic is already high on the agenda in China and the USA, while it is only slowly gaining momentum in Europe. The problem is the geopolitical situation we have in the world. It will always be reflected in space. That's a problem. But I believe you have to think outside the box and find solutions. Apart from that, the race for resources and the utilization of resources is actually very beneficial for the development of this entire industry. The more competition there is, the better things progress. And that's why I'm not worried about it from an economic point of view. It's the geopolitical point of view that needs to be considered in the first place. Especially as space is also used for military purposes and may be used even more so in the future. Technological development is progressing. And as soon as it pays off and the corresponding technical prerequisites are in place, gold miners will set off into space and mine for precious metals, privately or state-funded. Yesterday it was ships, railways or pipelines that made profit possible. Tomorrow it will be the spaceship. I believe that the need or thirst for raw materials, and perhaps also for economic profit, is a very, very big driving force. I find it incredibly difficult to assess the extent to which this will be technologically possible. But when I think about it, I get worried that we might repeat what we have done wrong on Earth, that we use resources carelessly here and that we will continue to do so on the Moon and then perhaps on other bodies in space. That is my personal, unscientific or scientifically unfounded opinion. I don't think we should make that mistake again. I think we might actually be happier if we left these things as beautiful as they are. The Moon has always fascinated and inspired people. And recently man has learned that he can visit other celestial bodies. Just as he once rose from the ground into the air, he took a giant step farther not long afterwards, into space. The next step will be to spend longer periods of time there, be it on the Moon or other planets, to carry out research or even to settle there. He can only do this if he utilizes the resources offered by the celestial objects in his vicinity. Where in our solar system do we find the raw materials we are interested in? You have to know that the entire planetary system was formed from the same material. That's why we find everything we have on Earth on other planets, on their moons and, very importantly, on asteroids. Why are asteroids of interest to us? We have to fly there and back again. And as they have low gravity, this requires little fuel. That means low prices. But not all asteroids are the same. Around 75% of them are so-called carbon asteroids, meaning they only consist of rock. Not of interest to us. The second most common are the silicate asteroids, meaning sand, not interesting either. But here it comes, the metal asteroids. There are very few of them, but scientists say they contain nickel, iron and there could also be platinum and gold. More importantly, there's an asteroid called Psyche. It has a diameter of 200 kilometers. And some people think it could be a gold mine, and that's why they have dollar signs in their eyes. 16 Psyche is the official name of the unusual asteroid. It measures around 200 kilometers in diameter and apparently consists largely of iron and nickel. Researchers suspect that it could be an old planetary core that was uncovered during a cosmic collision. A NASA space probe of the same name is to explore Psyche in more detail. Outside of science, Psyche is making headlines primarily due to the promise of fantastic wealth. NASA estimates the value of the metal on the asteroid at an unimaginable 10,000 quadrillion dollars. This would make the lump in space many times more valuable than the entire global economy. There are asteroids that are rich in metals, precious metals. That's because they are asteroids that are metallic, the so-called M-type asteroids. Basically, you can think of them as the material from the Earth's core, really just iron and nickel, enriched with all these precious metals. And there are some that are not chemically differentiated, as we say, because the process of core formation has not taken place, so the metal is not separated at all. Then there is a relatively large amount of metal in the whole thing, and the concentration of precious metals in this rock is higher than in most deposits on Earth. So, due to this degree of enrichment, it's an interesting object for mining. The NASA exploration flight to 16 Psyche was launched in autumn 2023 and will take six years to reach the asteroid. The mission is solely for scientific purposes. NASA is not interested in the asteroid as a source of raw materials that could make every Earthling a billionaire. 16 Psyche is part of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Depending on its position in solar orbit, it is between 380 and 500 million kilometers from Earth. The mission is intended to provide insights into the formation of planets and thus also clues to our own origins. It is these lumps of metal that promise fabulous riches. The concentration of metals can be significantly higher on an asteroid than on Earth. You just have to find the right ones. And now we have the technologies to analyze the asteroids and to see what they are made of. And these technologies are constantly being refined so that in the future we'll know exactly which asteroids we'll want to approach and which we won't want to mine. Important developments like these will make this whole business profitable. Asteroids are remnants from the formation of the solar system. Objects of all sizes that were left over from the formation of the planets. The largest region of debris is the asteroid belt. It is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The Gaia space probe has recorded the exact orbits of 150,000 objects so far. The actual number of asteroids is likely to be well over a million. Nevertheless, all the asteroids together weigh only a fraction of the mass of the Earth. Sometimes Jupiter pulls one of these asteroids out of its orbit and sends it into the inner solar system in the direction of Mars, which then hurls them further in the direction of Earth. This means they can come dangerously close to our planet as they orbit the Sun. However, this proximity would also appear to make them perfect locations for future space mining. Near-Earth asteroids as an extraterrestrial source of raw materials. The idea is not far-fetched. There are several of these celestial bodies that contain potentially valuable materials. Interesting and relatively easy to reach targets. Search programs are used to detect these objects. Nevertheless, astronomers are only aware of a fraction of the existing near-Earth asteroids. On the one hand, they are of interest because they could potentially collide with the Earth and pose a great danger. And the other reason why they are so relevant is that when we think of space mining, these are the objects that you can potentially reach because they are relatively close to Earth. Around 50,000 years ago, the Earth came into contact with such a chunk of iron rock when a 45-meter, 300,000-ton celestial body crashed into what is now the U.S. state of Arizona. The impact site, known as the Barringer Crater or Meteor Crater, is still clearly visible today. Around 30 tons of fragments of the Canyon Diablo meteorite have been found, mainly consisting of iron. The so-called Holsinger meteorite, the largest piece found so far, weighs an impressive 639 kilograms. Pure metal meteorites, that is, iron or nickel-iron meteorites, are fascinating witnesses to the history of the formation of our solar system. Meteorites are particularly valuable for us. They go back to the early days of planet formation. The Earth is a very dynamic planet. The signatures from its very beginnings are no longer there. They're gone. But these signatures have been preserved in the meteorites because they are about the same age. The first step in any asteroid mining operation would be to identify worthwhile specimens and localize their orbits. The second step would be to capture the asteroid, if it were small enough. This could be done with a kind of net or an inflatable trap basket, with which the asteroid is then slowed down. The autonomous probe would finally transport it to a kind of central recycling site in space. The site could be a stable orbit in the Earth-Moon system, a kind of quarry or refinery in Earth orbit, where the catch could be examined more closely and also exploited. The system could be used to capture asteroids with a maximum diameter of 10 meters. An average stony-iron asteroid of this size would have a mass of 1,000 to 2,000 tons. For mining to be worthwhile, a whole lot of such objects would have to be collected. You have to ask yourself, is that economical? Even here on Earth, we're not yet in a position to act economically enough to fully recycle our raw materials. I think it would be easier to act sustainably by recycling our raw materials instead of flying them to an asteroid and exploiting it for new raw materials. If you compare the two economically, recycling will always beat the asteroid. Space mining is primarily based on visions. Science and engineering are mixed with science fiction. These are thought experiments about where and how extraterrestrial resources could be utilized for humans in the not-so-distant future. Mines flying through space, refineries that supply huge orbital filling stations, shipyards and factories in zero gravity that autonomously build spaceships and space stations. There should be no limits to the imagination. And if humans want to travel deeper into the solar system, then at least some of these fantasies must be realized. And so primarily it will be our moon where the future begins. Researchers know with some certainty what they will find there, thanks to the moon rock samples already in their laboratories. Humankind has already appropriated parts of other celestial bodies. The most famous case is probably the Apollo program at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s. The Americans went to the moon and brought back a total of 380 kilograms of rock. This is what moon rock looks like. Pretty grey, but unfortunately this is not real moon rock. The less well-known case is that of the Russians. They sent an unmanned mission to the moon in the mid-70s and brought back about 300 grams of rock. And the most recent case is that of the Chinese. They went there in 2020 and brought back a total of 1.7 kilograms. However, we also have fragments of asteroids. Debris and dust from the asteroid Bennu. The return capsule of the OSIRIS-REx mission brought a material sample of more than 200 grams of the celestial body back to Earth. In September 2023, the sample container landed in the salt flats of Utah in the USA. Bennu is a near-Earth asteroid of the so-called Apollo type, with a diameter of around half a kilometer. Two years after its launch, OSIRIS-REx collected material from Bennu during an approach maneuver. The probe did not land, but instead extended a kind of trunk, a robotic arm that sucked the asteroid material into the sample container of the return capsule. Then OSIRIS-REx set off on its long journey back to Earth. The entire mission took seven years almost to the day and cost around 1 billion U.S. dollars. A few years earlier, the Japanese visited the asteroids Itokawa and Ryugo with their Hayabusa missions. They brought material from both asteroids back to Earth. The collection of such samples is based on complex scientific missions lasting many years. The duration and costs involved show that we are still a long way from economically viable resource extraction or even mining on the surface of asteroids. The so-called sample return missions, the two Hayabusa missions and OSIRIS-REx, did not actually land in the object, pick up material and fly back again. They did what we call a touch-and-go maneuver. So you go down briefly, suck up a bit of material and fly off again. Because otherwise you couldn't come back. On the Moon, on the other hand, man took samples in a more traditional way by simply gathering them up. Most of the lunar material was recovered by U.S. astronauts on Apollo missions. The largest chunk of the Moon weighs 11.7 kilograms. Most recently, the Chang'e 5 lunar probe brought back almost 2 kilograms of moon rock to China. The rock samples are among the most precious things that scientists can analyze. A total of 382 kilograms of lunar material has been brought back. Half of it has never been touched. And if you want to analyze moon rock, you can apply and NASA will assess your query. You have to explain what you want to do, why it's important, and you also have to show that you can do it. Then you have to explain how much material you need. If you get a few grams, that's a lot. It's valuable material and most of the tests don't require much. And you can still get it. There have also been plans to bring material samples back to Earth from our neighboring planet Mars. Several programs have already been conceived. So far, however, only the NASA rover Perseverance, which landed on Mars in February 2021, has collected rock samples. It deposits them in small sealed tubes, collecting them for the future. The samples prepared in this way will then be brought back to Earth by a joint mission of NASA and the European Space Agency ESA. A landing module will pick up the samples. Then a rover will place the containers directly in a transport rocket housed in the module. A mini spacecraft that will launch the valuable collection through the thin atmosphere directly into Mars orbit. In addition to rocks, samples of the Martian atmosphere are also to be collected. Once in orbit, the two-stage rocket will separate. In the end, the sample container will separate and fly to the rendezvous point to meet with the return probe. Which is to bring the Martian material back to Earth. That is the plan. But the elaborate program is on very shaky ground. It is too expensive, has an unrealistic timeline and expects to collect only a small amount of sample material. These are the findings of an independent commission set up by NASA to scrutinize the mission plans. How do we actually get these raw materials? Let's start with the Earth. It's a huge rocket. Because the Earth has a large gravitational field. That's by far the biggest effort involved in a mission like this. If we want to go to the Moon, we have to land and return. But the Moon also has a fairly large gravitational field. That's why the effort involved is also quite high. It's much easier on asteroids, which have a small gravitational field. That's why it's relatively easy to get there and back again. Specifically, Psyche. Psyche has only 1.5% of the Earth's gravity. This means that a small hop takes you to a height of 2 kilometers, which of course makes it difficult to work on the surface. And finally, return to Earth. Today, this is no problem at all. The classic return capsules with parachutes are all familiar and are well managed. Even unmanned. In contrast, the idea of a lift into space that could be used to transport material into orbit and from there back to the Earth's surface seems like a fantastic utopia. The idea is not new. At the end of the 19th century, the Russian mathematician and space travel pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was already thinking about enabling access to Earth's orbit via a tower. And since the 1990s, researchers have been working on realizing the concept. A space lift is a lift that goes up to a height of 36,000 kilometers. That's where the geostationary orbit is and where the centrifugal force and the gravity compensate each other. And if you could tension the cable there, you could get the materials up to an altitude of 36,000 kilometers somewhat efficiently. This possibility has been discussed for a long time. However, you'd need a material with a certain tensile strength to build that cable. The main problem is the cable that is to extend from the ground into space. Traditional materials ranging from steel to fiber-reinforced plastics such as Kevlar are out of the question. They would tear apart under their own weight. Now researchers and engineers are drawing new hope from graphene. This miracle material consists of just one layer of carbon atoms and is considered to be the thinnest material in the world. It is light and could also be tear-resistant enough over the required length. Graphene is already being used industrially. Today we should be able to produce these materials in the necessary quantities and also with a necessary degree of purity in order to manufacture such cable. But there's still a long way to go. Apart from the very futuristic concept of a space lift, the only other option for transport to Earth would be the classic method. The raw materials would have to be dropped onto our planet in a capsule. However, the basic idea is not necessarily to commercialize raw materials from space on Earth. Our planet has enough of them. Humans only need raw materials in space if they want to stay there in the long term and undertake expeditions into the solar system. Mining gold in space for Earth, on the other hand, is not a good idea. Imagine if we were to bring gold, platinum or other precious metals back to Earth in exceptionally large quantities. That would cause the whole market to collapse. Gold would no longer be valuable in the sense that there would be an infinite supply of it. I think the strategy should rather be that we utilize the resources we find in space. This brings us back to the Moon. We know that there is water there from which hydrogen could be extracted for rocket fuel. And humans need a lot of it if they want to fly to Mars. There is also water there in the form of ice, an important source for a Mars mission. Fuel for the return journey and oxygen for a longer stay could be obtained on sight. Humans would certainly like to set foot on the Red Planet. But without the utilization of raw materials there, this will hardly be possible. The asteroids are a tempting target. There are a number of concepts for capturing smaller objects in order to study or even exploit them. A side effect would be that such technology could also be used to capture decommissioned satellites or other pieces of space debris. For example, to recycle them in orbit. Not so much to supplement the Earth's resources, but rather to extract the raw materials that could be used to build larger structures directly in space. To summarize, the idea of using raw materials locally is a pretty good one. You just have to bear in mind that you need local production facilities. And the expense can be quite high. Another idea of bringing raw materials from space to Earth, well, we don't really need that at the moment. But in the distant future, that may well be an important option. Today, we just don't know exactly when that will be. Man left the Earth and set foot on the Moon just to prove that he could do it. And he will return to the Moon. This time, however, to utilize the Earth's satellite. As a research station. As a mining area. And as a springboard for traveling into the solar system. And he will also use asteroids to conduct mining in space. Or to obtain fuel for spaceships. Near-Earth space seems to be full of lucrative objects. A vast ocean full of resources. And just as people used to venture far out to sea in order to return with a profit, in a few decades' time they will also set out to recover new treasures from the universe. And perhaps the main prize for the fortune hunters of the future will actually be out there. An immeasurably heavy lump of platinum and gold.