From research to resource piloting near-Earth asteroids Through the Valley of Death

Can the resources of near-Earth asteroids be profitably mined? Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) contain water, which can serve as a fuel in space, and platinum group metals, which are valuable on Earth. The presence of these resources has prompted high valuations of the near-Earth asteroid population, but it is not immediately apparent if those valuations are accurate or if they can be realized. This thesis developed the Valley of Death model to frame the challenges opposing the development of an asteroid mining industry. This model poses the two following questions. What is the cash flow of a water/platinum group metal asteroid mining industry? How can the Valley of Death be crossed to realize that cash flow? The first question was answered in the affirmative for water with a Monte Carlo simulation of the near-Earth asteroid population under resource content, price, and accessibility constraints.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Data, Systems, and Society

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Cohen, Dylan(Dylan H.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Richard Binzel and Frank Field.

• Institute for Data, Systems, and Society.
• Technology and Policy Program.
• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/124592

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/124592