Having written on the ethics of asteroid mining, I thought I would return to this subject and address an additional moral concern, namely the potential dangers of asteroid (and comet) mining. My concern here is not with the dangers to the miners but with dangers to our home world and the rest of us.
While mining of asteroids and comets is currently science fiction, it is possible and might prove to be economically viable. One relevant factor is the high cost of getting material into space. Given this cost, space construction using material mined in space might be cost effective. Satellites might be built in space from material harvested from asteroids. It is also worth considering that the cost of mining materials in space and shipping them to earth might also be low enough that space mining would be viable. If such material is more expensive to mine or has limited availability on earth, then space mining could be viable or even necessary.
If material mined in space is to be used on earth, an obvious problem is how to get the material to the surface safely and as cheaply as possible. One approach is to move an asteroid close to the earth to facilitate mining and transportation—it might be more efficient to move the asteroid rather than send mining vessels back and forth. One obvious moral concern about moving an asteroid close to earth is that something could go wrong and the asteroid could strike the earth, perhaps in a populated area. Another obvious concern is that the asteroid could be intentionally used as a weapon—perhaps by a state or by non-state actors. An asteroid could do incredible damage and would provide a “clean kill” without radioactive fallout or chemical or biological residue. An asteroid might even “accidentally on purpose” be dropped on a target, thus allowing the attacker to claim that it was an accident (something harder to do when using actual weapons).
Given the dangers posed by moving asteroids into earth orbit, this is something that should be carefully regulated. That said, accidents and intentional misuse are guaranteed.
Another concern is the transport of material from space to earth. The obvious approach is to ship material to the surface using a vehicle, perhaps constructed in orbit from materials mined in space. Such a vehicle could be simple as it would not need a crew and would just have to ensure that the cargo landed in roughly the right area. Another approach would be to drop material from orbit—perhaps by surrounding valuable materials with materials intended to ablate during the landing and with a parachute system for some braking.
An obvious concern is the danger posed by such transport methods. While vehicles or rock-drops would not do the sort of damage that an asteroid would, if one crashed into a densely populated area (intentionally or accidentally) it could do significant harm. While such crashes will almost certainly occur, there is a moral obligation to try to minimize the chances they will happen. The obvious problem is that increasing safety usually increases cost and decreases convenience. For example, having the landing zones in unpopulated areas would reduce the risk of a crash into an urban area, but would require transporting materials to places where it can be processed (unless the processing plants are built in the drop zone). As another example, payload sizes might be limited to reduce the damage done by crashes. As a final example, the vessels or drop-rocks might be required to have safety systems, such as backup parachutes. Given that people will cut costs and corners and suffer lapses of attention, accidents are inevitable. We can also expect the Republican party to work hard to ensure that space mining is not well regulated and that it is used to hurt people. Also of concern is the fact that the vessels and drop-rocks could be used as weapons (as a rule, any technology that can be used to kill people will be used to kill people). As such, there will need for safeguards. It would, for example, be bad if terrorists were able to get control of a system and start dropping vessels or rocks onto a city.
Despite the risks, if there is profit to be made in mining space and new chances to make people suffer, it will almost certainly be done. Given that the resources on earth are limited, access to the bounty of the solar system could be good for (almost) everyone. It could also be another step for humanity towards the stars. Or it could play out in a corporate dystopia.
A Philosopher’s Blog is Now on Substack!
You can subscribe and read for free.