Resources like metals, propellants, breathable air, and drinking water don’t magically appear and self-replenish. They aren’t endlessly available 24/7, especially in space, on other planets, or on spacecraft. There’s no magical, self-replenishing supply of these essentials. Although this is unfortunate, it highlights why asteroid mining and planetary mining may be one of the most important industries in the future.
Humanity’s inevitable future involves living and working in space, and on other planets and celestial bodies. To maintain sufficient resources necessary for our survival and prosperity, it is crucial to build autonomous technologies for mining, unless other technological breakthroughs occur (such as matter synthesis as seen in sci-fi). This means collecting water ice (for drinking water and hydrogen/oxygen for propellant), metals (for construction and repairs), and more.
Mars represents humanity’s next major step towards expanding beyond the solar system. On Mars, we will certainly need to mine for water ice to create drinking water and use electrolysis to obtain hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel and oxidizer.
Examples of mining vehicles and spacecraft include autonomous rovers on the surface of planets and asteroids, searching for and mining resources such as water ice. These vehicles would mine and collect resources, storing them in internal tanks until they are transferred to a processing plant.
Sol’s proposed mining vehicles would be human-commanded but AI-assisted. Humans would control these rovers, while onboard AI software and algorithms would provide important analysis and data. The AI would also automatically tweak the rover’s actions/operations based on real-time data.
We hope to be part of this technological revolution through our Planetary Mining program. More information will be available on future vehicles and spacecraft, including their technical details, designed to mine resources on planets and asteroids. For now, we would simply like to outline our plans for this space. Inquiries are welcome at [email protected].