CAJ - discussion

I have discussed my CAJ top (asteroid mining) with my flat mates. The discussion was interesting and really informative. There were some aspects I have not thought of before:

• The question “Can asteroids collide with each other?” came up. I was not quite sure but would have said so. In order to clear it up, we googled it and found out that asteroids can collide. We then imagined the consequence of a collision between two asteroids when one had a “fuel station” on it. We discussed what would happen to them. Would the fuel explode? Would the shock wave be big enough to harm or destroy life on Earth?

• David said: Sometimes asteroids leave orbit. It could happen that they burn up in the atmosphere or, in the worst case, crash into Earth (that already happened). We looked that up on the NASA website and found out that he is right. About once a year, an asteroid, in the size of a car, hits Earth’s atmosphere and creates a fireball. What would happen if there was a fuel depot on this specific asteroid?

• When Hendrik asked me “Who should own asteroids?”, I honestly had no idea what to answer. Meanwhile I have found out that there is a United Nations treaty that prohibits ownership of celestial bodies by nations. However, there is no specific regulation for companies or individuals. I asked my friends the same question and they came up with answers ranging from “no one should own them” to “the company that first manages to mine them” to “everyone should be allowed to buy asteroids and do with them whatever they want”.

• Unsurprisingly, the biggest question was “Why would you mine on asteroids and not use the money for more ‘sensible purposes’?” I tried to explain them the advantages of asteroid mining (that the mined materials could be used for various purposes such as spaceship fuel or in medicine (platinum is needed for implants or pacemakers)) but I think I could not convince them. “Wouldn’t it be cleverer to invest in sustainable development and the conservation of resources rather than thinking about mining for mineral resources somewhere in the universe?”, one person asked.