What’s the Gold in this space Goldrush?
Most company’s that are going to space are quoting the line, “you want to be selling pickaxes during this new goldrush”. Thats great and all but what exactly is the GOLD in this GOLDrush. For context I am very bullish on space. I think it’s a new age rail road headed up instead of west. The thing I find lacking is to sell prospective miners pickaxes there needs to be miners after something. What are company’s keen to go to space to get?
My best guesses so far are minerals, energy, microgravity, fame.
Good old fashion gold, platinum, silver etc. I know those minerals aren’t worth it for space mining but it’s the idea. The big one thrown around is helium-3 on the moons surface for fusion energy and I 100% agree that will happen right after fusion is figured out. But for minerals like palladium or even ice. It makes more sense to capture asteroids than mine the moon. Asteroids self concentrate and need no mining. It’s like if there’s a fridge sized block of gold in Alaska. All you need is to move it. I also think Australia with its robust mining industry and GIANT uninhabited spaces will become global landing pad for asteroids. For testing you can have ballistic reentry and just crash land. Future captures you’ll want to preserve the asteroid for ease of collection but just in case you’ll need to never aim over inhabited areas and there will be a maximum allowed shipment. Ergo australia and russia are great. No one will be allowed to send a Texas sized asteroid to earth with the promise they know how to slow it down. Density matters more than size but my guess is a couple dozen tons max otherwise you get into bombing territory. Anything larger will demand a moon landing or mining/breaking before renetry.
Theres energy in space. The recent solar reflecting is an amazing idea. It will 100% increase global warming but for a few million I can have a nighttime wedding in full daylight. Or I can grow one more season of crops or my crop insurance company can pay to prevent me having a lost season. You can increase solar yield for existing solar arrays. Long term they can reflect light onto the dark side of the moon directly into habitats or rovers. An issue rovers had was they can’t live for the 15 days in a lunar days. I think this is a week ideas as battery tech develops but it was a problem for old rovers. BUT AGAIN the same issue. Solar powering a rover for what. What company needs a rover.
There’s microgravity in space company’s want to use for manufacturing. Drugs can benefit from
The no gravity crystallization/cooling process. Without gravity hot va cold density doesn’t matter. Things mix homogeneously. BUT AGAIN WHAT DRUGS? What product is better in space.
Going to space is good PR. What if I could sell Coca-Cola the ability to have their name on the moon. Now I have a reason to go to the moon and use a rover and have a rover mechanic. But what company can use space for advertising? Space billboards were recently stopped by the FAA/SCC I believe. Someone wanted to have a dot logo with satellites but was denied.
WHATS THE THING WE WANT TO USE Space FOR??