Mining the Sky: a Future of Limitless Resources from Near-Earth Asteroids

Mining the Sky: A future of limitless resources from Near-Earth Asteroids

Grant Bonin, MSc. Chief Technology Officer Deep Space Industries, Inc. DSI Overview • Founded in 2012 as space resources company, based in Silicon Valley

• Vision: to enable human space settlement by harvesting the resources of Near-Earth Asteroids

• Team with more than 20 successful spacecraft, 18 rocket engines, commercial track record

• First commercial asteroid prospecting missions beginning in 2020

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Human space settlement is the goal.

The gravity problem

Moon Mars Venus Earth Goodness

0g Gravity Level 1g Viable space settlements will offer the most Earth-like environments.

Dubai

14 10/23/18 DSI CONFIDENTIAL 15 We need resources from space. Human expansion has always required “living off the land”. You can’t take everything with you. Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) have all the resources needed for expanding human civilization

Fuel, air, and water Construction materials Precious metals H Fe Pt Hydrogen C Iron Ni Platinum Rh Carbon Rhodium O Nickel Co Pd Oxygen Cobalt Palladium

17 Water: the oil of the solar system

10/23/18 DSI CONFIDENTIAL 18 Bulk materials returned to construction/services location

People + highly- manufactured equipment from Earth The economic proposition: small, smart machines to harvest big, dumb construction material

Swarms of spacecraft mining asteroids for raw material

19 So how are we making this happen? The DSI roadmap Sample return missions fund more material return and processing

Commercial spacecraft sales fund sample return

Enabling Technologies Low-Cost Exploration Prospecting and Sample Return Bulk Material and Processing

2016 2020 2025 2027 Deep Space Xplorer • Lower the cost of space exploration missions by as much as 50x

• Small size and safe propulsion allows inexpensive launch • Every commercial launch becomes a deep space mission opportunity

• Range of commercial applications • Small COMSats, small in-space tugs, space situational awareness

DSI in-space and RCS propulsion DSI radiation-tolerant power system, COTS PV, star trackers, DSN ranging Composite tankage and primary structure GNC, C&DH computers transponder, deployable antennas

“life has to be about more than solving problems … There have to be things that inspire you to be proud to be a member of humanity.” - Elon Musk

10/23/18 DSI CONFIDENTIAL 29 We are at the beginning of history, not the end.

The resources of near-Earth asteroids offer us effectively limitless resources to fuel our expansion into space.

Space settlement is a task for the current generation of working engineers. With gratitude to customers and partners…

“DSI’s strategy is akin to what Elon Musk has done with going to Mars [...] there’s a huge long-term goal, and then all these on-the-way money-making technology-advancers.” —Wired, 2016

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