In a sense this abundance is befitting of nature and our solar system. While we are accustomed to thinking of work as necessary and energy as a scarce resource, there is literally nothing on our planet so plentiful as the power of our sun. In the span of just ninety minutes enough potential solar energy hits the Earth’s surface to meet present demand for an entire year. Every twelve months we receive twice as much energy from the sun as will ever be obtained from the entirety of Earth’s non-renewable sources – coal, oil, natural gas and mined uranium – combined. While rising global demand for energy might seem daunting, it is nothing compared to what the giant nuclear reactor approximately 149 million kilometres away can provide.
Such unearthly wealth is only matched by the mineral resources beyond our planet, particularly among near Earth asteroids (NEA). Take the asteroid 16 Psyche, located in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Measuring over 200 kilometres in diameter, it is one of the largest asteroids in our solar system. Composed of iron, nickel and rarer metals such as copper, gold and platinum, its iron content alone could be worth \$10,000 quadrillion – not bad when you consider the annual GDP of the Earth economy stands at around \$80 trillion. Psyche is unique, but it demonstrates a crucial point: the opportunities of of-world mining – once the technical barriers are surmounted – are as breathtaking as machines that can perform any task, or the sun sustaining our cities as it presently does our forests and fields.
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chaos under heaven