The ASCE’s 19th Earth & Space Conference just happened in Miami, Florida (FIU). The highlights:
Broslav, T. Dreyer, C. Sercel, J. Volatile Production Model from Optically Spalled CI/CM Asteroid Sim… 9662
Ellery, A. Trials & Tribulations of Asteroid Mining 8087
Witness the continuing progress in asteroid mining; the name “Sercel, J.” should then ring a bell. TransAstra, a “NewSpace” firm, already has a portfolio of investigations, technologies, and yes, hardware demonstrations to its credit. Joel Sercel is its, well, its principal- that’s NewSpace for you. Official nameplates and titles are too rigid and restricting for fast-moving tech firms. (At least, fast compared to OldSpace. Compared to consumer electronics, let alone consumer software, not so fast.) The bulk of those investigations, technologies, and at least some hardware involves resources, and the bulk of them asteroid resources. Optical mining is the volatilization of water from deposits by concentrating sunlight, a free source.
Professor Alex Ellery gives us our money quote (pun intended): “Lunar industrialisation will require access to bulk asteroidal resources… Asteroids possess a unique range of useful materials, both bulk and exotic, that are absent or scarce on the Moon.”
Do I have to repeat? Ellery does- he is far from the first analyst to reach this conclusion.