The asteroid rush sending 21st-century prospectors into space
行星热引领21世纪探测器飞向太空
A race is on to mine billions of dollars in resources from the solar system’s asteroids, fueling our future among the stars
太阳系小行星蕴藏着丰富资源，无穷潜力，各家争相研究开采小行星
In an industrial park in San Jose, California, Grant Bonin is holding what looks like the end of a metal water bottle. It is the casing, he jokes, of his company’s “flying steam kettle”: a propulsion system for small spacecraft that uses super-hot water vapour, heated to 1,000C (1,832F), to produce thrust. The company has sold about 40 to date. “It comes right out of the hole,” explains Bonin, who is the chief technology officer of Deep Space Industries (DSI).
在加利福尼亚州圣何塞一个工业园里，格兰特博宁拿着一个像金属水瓶底的一个东西。他开玩笑说，这是他们公司“飞行蒸汽水壶”的外包装。这个“水壶”是个推进系统，使用加热到1000摄氏度的超高温水蒸气，产生推力，给小型航空飞行器助推。该公司售迄今为止售出了约40件。博宁是远天工业的技术主管。“到现在刚刚赚回本”博宁说道。
It is literally rocket science, but the ultimate aim of Bonin’s startup is even more audacious: mining asteroids. No private company has even got close to one. One of the main reasons asteroids will be mined in the future, so the thinking goes, is for the water locked in their clay deposits –and one of the chief uses of that water is likely to be as propellant for spacecraft. Probes and other spacecraft will be able to refuel in space either directly with water, or the hydrogen and oxygen that can be created from it,enabling them to zip around merrily anywhere they want with no end to their useful life. But before the idea of a solar system dotted with gas stations is realised, what is needed are more spacecraft that can actually run on water,which is where selling flying steam kettles comes in.
严格来讲，这属于火箭科学。但博宁公司的终极目标要来的更为大胆：开采小行星。目前还没有私企有能力接近小行星。开采是早晚的事，公司也就自然而然这么设想了，主要原因还是其黏土沉积物中蕴藏的水分，而水估计会大量用于航天器助推。到时候，太空探测器和航天器可以直接加水，补充燃料，或是用水分解出氢气氧气作燃料，这样，它们就能活蹦乱跳，无所不及，再也不用担心报废了。实现燃料站在太阳系星罗棋布之前，得先有足够多的航空飞行器用水作燃料，这也就涉及到了之前提及的飞行蒸汽水壶。
The idea of mining asteroids is more popular than you might think. The oldest and biggest of the companies on the scene is Seattle-based Planetary Resources,established in 2009 by investors including Google cofounder Larry Page and Richard Branson. DSI was formed in 2013. Other smaller companies include Aten Engineering and the TransAstra Corporation, both also based in the US. In Britain, pursuing the idea is the Asteroid Mining Corporation(AMC). Established in 2016, it’s run by 23-year-old Mitch Hunter-Scullion, who set up the company after his Liverpool Hope University dissertation on the topic.
你可能想象不到开采小行星这个想法有多火。目前西雅图的行星资源公司在做这个项目，规模最大，资历最老。该公司于2009年成立，投资人是谷歌联合创始人拉里·佩奇和理查德·布兰森。DSI是2013年成立的。除这以外，美国还有些公司，规模稍小，比如说艾登工程，环宇公司。在英国也有做该项目的，公司名叫行星开采。该公司2016年成立，一把手是米奇·亨特-斯克林，年仅23岁，他在利物浦希望大学写了一篇关于行星开采的论文，不久便成立了该公司。
As these companies see things, the inevitable next step for our civilisation is to expand into space. The Earth is too small for our increasing population, struggling over finite resources. To survive long term, they argue, we need to become a multi-planet, space-faring species. Human settlement won’t happen without the use of what is already out there, as transporting everything from Earth would be too expensive.Asteroids,says Bonin– with their negligible gravity making it easy to lift things off – are the “low-hanging fruit” of space resources. Unlike the Earth or moon, they’re too small to have any appreciable gravity, so it should be easy to lift material off them
这些公司看得很准，要将人类文明延续下去，必须要走向外太空。人口不断增长，资源又有限，地球着实独木难支。人们议论纷纷，说要想长存，我们得在其他星球扎根，宇宙各地生存。若想在地球外殖民，得充分利用好殖民点资源，要是什么都靠从地球运，恐怕会是一笔巨额开支。“小行星”，博宁说道“上面重力微乎其微，搬运东西轻而易举，这的资源简直是送到嘴边的肉”。这和地球月球还不一样，小行星体积小，上面几乎感觉不到重力，搬运原料应该不成问题。
Pickings are potentially getting richer as more asteroids are discovered close to Earth: about 18,000 and counting. Some of them, much closer than the ones in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, also pose a potential hazard to our planet. “The joke is that we’re threatened by giant piles of money,”says Bonin. The revolution in small low-cost satellites is opening up opportunities for these startups to prospect and survey them.
在地球附近发现越多小行星，钱基本上也就来的越快，目前发现了约18000颗，但总数远不止如此。有些小行星靠地球过近了，甚至比火星木星之间小行星带里的还近，这也给我们的星球构成一定威胁。“有意思的是，大笔大笔钱反成了威胁”博宁说道。在小型廉价卫星领域，一场革命正在扩散开来，给这些创业公司带来许多机会勘察小行星。
Some countries are offering regulatory and financial incentives to encourage the nascent industry. In July 2017,Luxembourg introduced legislation to allow companies with a physical presence in the country to keep any resources they mine from celestial bodies. Similar legislation was introduced in the US in 2015. Luxembourg also offers research and development assistance to space resource companies and invests directly in them through a fund of around €200m established for the purpose. DSI and Planetary Resources have both benefited. Development also takes people: master’s and doctoral degrees in space resources will begin this autumn at the Colorado School of Mines, which is starting the world’s first graduate programme in the subject. And while none of the companies have got near to an asteroid yet, Nasa and other space agencies have missions on the way that will demonstrate capabilities essential for asteroid mining.
一些国家为了鼓励该新兴行业，在监管和金融上给予各种激励。2017年7月，卢森堡立法，允许实体公司保留其在各星球上采集的任何资源。2015年时，美国推出了类似法律。对这些太空资源公司，卢森堡在研发商予以协助，拿出了2亿欧元作为资金，直接投给了他们。DSI和行星资源都受益不少。研发还需要人才：这个秋天，科罗拉多矿业大学将开设太空资源专业，设有硕士和博士学位，该学科也是世界首开。尽管说这些公司还没接近过小行星，美国航空航天局已经接下任务，将会证明开采小行星需要哪些能力。
Nasa’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft is scheduled to rendezvous with the Bennu asteroid – one of Earth’s most “potentially hazardous asteroids”, but also thought to be rich in water-bearing clay minerals – in December 2018. The spacecraft will flit around the half-kilometre diameter object making maps, before retrieving a 150g sample that will be returned to Earth, completing the $1bn project.
预计2018年12月，NASA的欧西里斯-雷克斯航天器将抵达贝努行星。对地球来说，这颗行星威胁最大，但科学家认为，上面也蕴藏着丰富的含水黏土矿物。贝努直径约500米，航天器会绕着它飞上几圈，绘制地图，然后采集样本150g，返回地球，总价值10亿美元的项目将至此完成。
Before that, in mid-2018, Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is due to rendezvous with near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, also a sample-return mission. It follows from the Hayabusa mission, which returned 1,500 grains of dust (about one milligram) from another near-Earth asteroid, Itokawa, in 2010 –the only sample of material to be brought back from an asteroid so far.
日本宇宙航空研发开发机构也进行着类似的任务——从小行星采样。日本是用隼鸟二号航天器，目标卫星是近地小行星龙宫，预计在2018年中旬抵达，比美国要早。在此之前，服役的是隼鸟一号，它曾在2010年抵达另一颗近地小行星“系川”，带回来1500粒尘土（重约1毫克）。目前来说，小行星样本仅此一份。
“Osiris-Rex is a proof of concept for any asteroid-mining activity,”says mission leader Dante Lauretta, a planetary scientist based at the University of Arizona. Chris Lewicki, CEO of Planetary Resources, draws a parallel with the way the US Geological Survey mapped the geology of America, helping early mining companies.“It is both public and private activities that move this forward,”he says.
“欧西里斯－雷克斯就是各类小行星开采想法的一种证明“丹特·劳雷塔说道。丹特·劳雷塔是一名行星科学家，在亚利桑那大学工作，他也是该项目的负责人。克里斯·莱维茨基是行星资源公司的首席执行官，他谈到了美国地质勘探局曾绘制出国内地质状况，帮助起步阶段的矿业公司，他举了这个例子，和小行星开采作了比较。“公家和私人都有功劳”他说道。
To mine asteroids, DSI’s long-term vision is a swarm of small low-cost spacecraft that would go out to many near-Earth asteroids at once, harvest small amounts of raw material and aggregate them at a central depot that would be constructed at a gravitationally useful spot somewhere between the Earth and the moon.
开采小行星这个事上，DSI有着远见卓识。他们设想储备成群的小型廉价航天器，一声令下便朝各近地行星飞去，采集少量原材料，堆放在中央仓库里。仓库会在地月之间，找一个引力能帮上忙的点建造。
“It is like honey bees going out to a lot of different flowers and flying that back to the hive,”says Bonin. The model circumvents the problem that the asteroids,with their heliocentric orbits, only fly past the Earth periodically and are therefore only accessible to mine for relatively short periods of time.
“就像蜜蜂花丛采蜜，踏蕊而归”博宁说。这个模式很聪明，因为小行星绕太阳公转，很多只是匆匆掠过地球，开采不了多长时间，这个模式就巧妙避开了这些问题。
From the depot, the company would then sell whatever raw material made the most sense economically. That might be water-derived propellant (which would also fuel DSI’s “swarm”), but it also might be metals such as iron and nickel – for shaping into products by 3D printers –for construction in space. “To some extent we are agnostic about what the first market will be,” says Bonin. “We think it will be propellant for gas stations in space, but we wouldn’t want to bet.”
公司会在仓库售卖任何划得来的原材料。可能是水提炼燃料（同样能给DSI的“蜂群”补充燃料），也可能是金属材料，像是铁、镍等等，3D打印和太空工程会用到这些材料。“某种程度上，我们不知道首个市场会是什么样子”博宁讲到。“我们觉得会是卖燃料给太空燃料站，不过也不能保证。”
Planetary Resources is betting water will be the first market. One argument goes that there are already gas station customers in the solar system: rocket components that use liquid hydrogen and oxygen floating as space junk. If you could refuel them, you could do anything from servicing satellites to going to the surface of the moon, and that would be worth a lot of money, notes Lauretta, who is also on Planetary Resource’s science advisory board.
行星资源认为水会打开销路。太阳系中，有不少火箭部件，他们用液态氢和氧作燃料，现在却飘在太空，成了太空垃圾，有一种观点就是，这些部件就是水的销路。劳雷塔也是行星资源科学顾问组的一员，他提到，要是能给他们补充好燃料，你可以维修卫星，也可以登月，简直无所不能。
The UK’s AMC, meanwhile, imagines first mining platinum and similar metals – relatively abundant in asteroids – and sending them back to Earth. Going by the current value of platinum, trillions of dollars’ worth is out there. But, notes Lauretta, with a large supply prices would fall. “You would probably just crash the market and we would all have tons of platinum jewellery,”he says. Hunter-Scullion acknowledges the price would depreciate, but thinks it is possible to make a tidy profit first.Water, he says, would come next.
铂金等金属在小行星较为富足，英国公司AMC设想先开采这些金属，然后运回地球。照铂金这个市值，可供开采的铂金价值能到数万亿美元之多。可劳雷塔提到，供给太多，价格势必下跌。“这样很有可能破坏市场，最后铂金堆积如山，卖不出去”他说。价格下跌这个说法，亨特-斯克林也承认，但还是觉得能先赚上一笔。“水嘛”，他说，“下一个吧”。
Of course, significant technical challenges abound, and they will probably cost billions to solve. To go from recovering grams to kilograms, or tonnes, is a big technological jump and large infrastructure for refining and processing the asteroid ore will need to be developed. Even things like anchoring and holding on to an asteroid can be tricky. Their surfaces are lumpy and non-spherical and each has its own size, topography and rotation speed. Hayabusa only bought back any material because the spacecraft basically tumbled across the asteroid and some dust got into the equipment. “It is going to be a learning curve and at the moment we are at the bottom of it,”says Ian Crawford, a planetary science professor at the University of Birkbeck.
当然，技术上挑战层出不穷，有些解决起来动辄就要数十亿。对提炼来说，提高采集过程是基础，能从采集几克到几千克，再到上吨，将会是重大的技术飞跃，同样，行星矿石加工也有待提高。就连锚定也可能是个棘手问题。小行星表面凹凸不平，整体并非球状，大小、地势、转速也是各不相同。隼鸟在小行星跌跌撞撞，尘土都钻进了设备里，只带回来少许材料。伊恩·克劳福德是伯贝克学院行星科学的教授，他说：”整个过程就是个学习曲线，我们还在线的底端。“
Whether space miners will be legally entitled to possess what they dig up also remains in question. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST)– which governs international space activity – is silent on a private company harvesting space resources. It says nations can use but can’t appropriate either the moon or other celestial bodies. It puts the treaty and the national legislation in potential conflict, says Christopher Newman, a space law expert at the University of Northumbria. He predicts a dispute in the courts: “It is just a question of when.”
太空矿机开采了以后，能不能保留采到的东西还是个问题。1967年，外层太空公约出台，管控国际上的太空活动，却未提及私企太空采矿。上面说明了，国家可以利用月球和其他天体，不可以占有。克里斯托弗是诺森比亚大学的太空法专家，他称：“这事可能让公约和国家立法冲突。“他估计免不了会在法庭上争论，只是时间早晚。
Hunter-Scullion, meanwhile, would like to see the British government introduce its own space-mining law, like the US and Luxembourg have done, giving private companies greater rights over asteroids.
与此同时，亨特-斯克林盼着英国政府能像美国和卢森堡一样，颁布本国太空开采法律，在小行星领域放些权限给私企。
But while it may be technically possible to mine asteroids a generation from now, the question is should we? One set of issues is around justice, according to Tony Milligan and Robert Sparrow, who study space ethics at King’s College London and Monash University, Australia, respectively. If asteroids belong to anyone, it is to everyone, says Sparrow. Should private companies be permitted to profit from resources that are part of our extraterrestrial commons? While the companies can be taxed, it is hard to see it being equitably distributed across humanity,says Milligan. There are also issues around safety and liability. What if mining an asteroid somehow changes its trajectory, putting it on a collision course with Earth?
技术上讲，从现在起，开采小行星三十多年，应该不成问题，但是应不应该这么做呢？据托尼·米利甘和罗伯特·斯派洛所说，正当性上还有些争议。两人都是研究太空伦理学的，分别是在伦敦国王学院和澳大利亚莫纳什大学。真要说小行星归谁，那应该是所有人，斯派洛说道。那么应不应该允许私企从外星公地中获利呢？其实，可以对公司征税，要说平均分配给全人类，还是有些难度，米利甘说道。况且，安全、可靠性还有待商榷。若是开采偏移了小行星的运行轨道，撞击地球，这该怎么办？
When it comes to the environment, mining lifeless asteroids is not expected to disrupt any ecosystems but there are still some that may be worth protecting, just like the Grand Canyon or Uluru.Ceres and Vesta, the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt, could be considered unique and distinctive, says Milligan. And do we want to live in the middle of a“giant celestial quarry”, or feel a sense that we “belong” to a place? He draws an analogy to the development of the American frontier. It was so quick and got so out of control that a lot was destroyed in the process. “It became very difficult to get people to think in the long term when there were such short-term advantages to be had,”he says.
要说环境方面，开采无生命体的小行星理应不会破坏生态系统，不过还有其他东西值得保护，比如说像大峡谷、澳州艾尔斯岩这种奇观。小行星带中，谷神星和灶神星体积最大，可以说是独一无二，米利甘说道。你是想住在“巨型外星矿坑”，还是有些“归属感”的地方呢？他拿美国开发边疆做了比较。整个过程太快了，没有控制好，很多东西随之毁掉了。"眼前利益太多，要让人们不竭泽而渔，着实很难。”他说
“We have done so badly at looking after our home that the desire to mine asteroids can’t help but appear profoundly arrogant,” says Sparrow. However, Bonin flips that argument on its head. “I actually think of it as an ultimate act of environmental stewardship for Earth,”he says. People need resources,he argues, and mining asteroids could ensure they were obtained without hurting the planet.
“我们连自己的家园都没管理好，开采小行星这个想法解决不了问题，倒显得十分自大。”斯派洛说道。而博宁不这么看。“我真的觉得，这是地球环境管理的最终手段。“他说。人们需要资源，他称，开采小行星能得到资源，还不用破坏地球。
Yet before any mining, comes prospecting. AMC would like to put a satellite into orbit around Earth in 2020 to spectrally analyse the near-Earth asteroids to learn what they are made of. Most have never been analyzed this way. It is planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign later this month to start raising the £2.3m it anticipates will be needed for the project.
开采之前，先说说勘探吧。AMC计划在2020年向地球轨道发射一颗卫星，对近地行星进行光谱分析，了解构造。大多数行星还没这么分析过。整个项目预计要花费230万英镑，大约本月下旬，该公司会开展众筹。
Specialised technology to detect clay minerals has been developed by Planetary Resources. It is currently using the Earth for practice (it launched a satellite into orbit in January 2018), but also has aspirations to undertake a $100m mission to the near-Earth asteroids. However, it doesn’t yet have the funds andrecently had to scale back after it failed to raise investment.
为了侦测黏土矿石，行星资源公司专门研发了一项技术。目前该技术用地球做测试（2018年1月卫星发射，带其进轨道），该公司有意向让它去近地行星执行任务，任务需要资金100万美元。公司目前还没筹到资金，鉴于投资也没提上来，公司还得缩小项目规模。
DSI also has ambitions to get to the near-Earth asteroids. In 2020 it intends to demonstrate a small low-cost spacecraft it calls the Xplorer (its fuel will also, in the main, be derived from water). It plans to sell the spacecraft commercially for travel into deep space. Just demonstrating the technology will be enough, believes Bonin, but instruments on board will also hopefully reveal information about asteroids’ composition, “dig-ability” and how they interact with the probes. Asteroid-mining is risky, long term and definitely “out there”. “But our pursuit of it is very pragmatic,”he says.
DSI也渴望接触近地行星。公司打算在2020年展出其小型廉价航天器，叫做X探索者（其燃料主要构成是水）。X探索者计划对外出售，用于外太空旅行。博宁相信，单纯展示下科技就足够了，但航天器上有许多仪器，很有可能揭露出小行星构造，“可开采性”，还有小行星怎么和探测器交互。行星开采存在风险，项目周期长，绝对是“异星探险”。“可我们绝非在探索天方夜谭，”他说。
