Uploaded July 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
In his book, The Case for Space, Robert Zubrin outlines a potential business model for the economic and technological complexities of the ever-changing market for goods from space.
In his book, he outlines the components of a typical two-billion-ton Type S asteroid.
Type S asteroids make up about 80% of those surveyed, are composed of stony-iron, as opposed to metal or silicate rocks, and lie about 2.4 astronomical units from the sun (Zubrin, 2019, p.129).
Using rough estimates, of a two-billion-ton asteroid, 1.8 billion tons would comprise rock with no resale value on Earth.
About 200 million tons would be Iron which would sell at $0.70/kg for a total of $140 billion. About 30 million tons would be Nickel which would sell at $13/kg for a total of $380 billion. About 1.5 million tons would be Cobalt which would sell at $60/kg for a total of $90 billion, and about 7,500 tons would be Platinum Group elements which would sell at $40,000/kg for a total of $300 billion (Zubrin, 2019, p.137).
This sounds like a huge score. Snag one of these and that’s almost a trillion dollars right? Not exactly. Zubrin goes on to explain how feasible this really is.
To make it all work, Zubrin claims you’d need to refine it in space. With 90% of it being worthless rock, moving it all to earth would only grant you $0.15/kg and definitely not worth shipping to Earth.
This being said, Zubrin claims to make it worth the trip, you’d have to refine it down to, at most, the cobalt and the platinum group elements, giving the miners a sale of $400 million (Zubrin, 2019, p.137). This, if part of a larger operation with reusable spacecraft would be feasible in a new space economy.
This is great news! Let’s all go into the asteroid mining business. There are two main reasons that the early birds may be the only ones to get the worm though.
First, the necessary technology hasn’t been developed to fly to, capture, refine, and return asteroids. Second, with an influx of that much material, how long would cobalt and platinum elements be worth a staggering $400 million per asteroid? How long before it turns into the main activity of the poverty-stricken belters from The Expanse?
This all being said and questioned, according to Zubrin, mining metal from asteroids will continue to be important and valuable work for a long time at least for the next several generations. Platinum group metals are essential to build fuel cells, fast-tracking our civilization out of the oil age and into an industrial revolution of solar power, personal spacecraft, flying cities and more (Zubrin, 2019, p.137).
What would you like to hear about? Let me know in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe to see these videos when I post them. See you later!
In his book, The Case for Space, Robert Zubrin outlines a potential business model for the economic and technological complexities of the ever-changing market for goods from space.
In his book, he outlines the components of a typical two-billion-ton Type S asteroid.
Type S asteroids make up about 80% of those surveyed, are composed of stony-iron, as opposed to metal or silicate rocks, and lie about 2.4 astronomical units from the sun (Zubrin, 2019, p.129).
Using rough estimates, of a two-billion-ton asteroid, 1.8 billion tons would comprise rock with no resale value on Earth.
About 200 million tons would be Iron which would sell at $0.70/kg for a total of $140 billion. About 30 million tons would be Nickel which would sell at $13/kg for a total of $380 billion. About 1.5 million tons would be Cobalt which would sell at $60/kg for a total of $90 billion, and about 7,500 tons would be Platinum Group elements which would sell at $40,000/kg for a total of $300 billion (Zubrin, 2019, p.137).
This sounds like a huge score. Snag one of these and that’s almost a trillion dollars right? Not exactly. Zubrin goes on to explain how feasible this really is.
To make it all work, Zubrin claims you’d need to refine it in space. With 90% of it being worthless rock, moving it all to earth would only grant you $0.15/kg and definitely not worth shipping to Earth.
This being said, Zubrin claims to make it worth the trip, you’d have to refine it down to, at most, the cobalt and the platinum group elements, giving the miners a sale of $400 million (Zubrin, 2019, p.137). This, if part of a larger operation with reusable spacecraft would be feasible in a new space economy.
This is great news! Let’s all go into the asteroid mining business. There are two main reasons that the early birds may be the only ones to get the worm though.
First, the necessary technology hasn’t been developed to fly to, capture, refine, and return asteroids. Second, with an influx of that much material, how long would cobalt and platinum elements be worth a staggering $400 million per asteroid? How long before it turns into the main activity of the poverty-stricken belters from The Expanse?
This all being said and questioned, according to Zubrin, mining metal from asteroids will continue to be important and valuable work for a long time at least for the next several generations. Platinum group metals are essential to build fuel cells, fast-tracking our civilization out of the oil age and into an industrial revolution of solar power, personal spacecraft, flying cities and more (Zubrin, 2019, p.137).
What would you like to hear about? Let me know in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe to see these videos when I post them. See you later!
