Webb, and Psyche

We just attended the launch of the James Webb Telescope, headed to the Earth-Sun Lagrange point 2 (L2), at 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. A very ambitious project, aimed to place a human eye in a location where it will be easier to investigate the origin and the meaningful life events of the universe, of our solar system and our mother planet.What raised some thoughts in my mind is one of the characteristics of this beautiful sample of human ingenuity and hunger for knowledge: the JWST mirror has been plated with gold, due to elements properties like a high reflection of infrared light and extreme un-reactivity. My aim is not to discuss this choice from the scientific point of view. It makes me rather think about the value of precious metals, that’s not only their beauty, nor the use we make of them to realize precious jewels.

While I was in space just with my mind, it was easy to go some more million kilometers further away, reaching to the 16 Psyche Asteroid. Psyche – an M-type asteroid, fragment of a proto-planet broken up during the birth of the solar system — dwells somewhere in the middle of the Asteroid Belt, between Mars and Jupiter. The distance from Earth ranges from 252 million to 645 million kilometers.

Why Psyche owns such a great reputation, among the space expansionist community, and the space miners subassembly, in a more specific way? Its diameter is estimated not less than 227 km. Due to the gravitational perturbations it causes among other asteroids in its surroundings, Psyche is kind of under special surveillance, since long time. Such perturbations are due to high mass and density, and such properties raised further analysis, by means of ultraviolet light observation. To make short a long research story, Psyche is likely mainly composed by iron and nichel, and its global value is estimated around $10 quintillion, a figure even hard to imagine.

When a $10 quintillion worth object appears in the collective imagination, everybody think about Scrooge McDuck, diving in his gold silos… People thinks obvious to bring and use those resources here on Earth.
Instead, JWST is bringing gold 1.5 million km away from Earth… It stroke me as a highly symbolic event, like the Tesla car, launched towards Mars onboard the first Falcon Heavy… Elon Musk wanted to tell everybody that it is now time to start doing normal civilian things in space, e.g. moving cars around in the Solar System. Of course none similar aim was in the mind of the JWST programme managers, however the symbolic value is evident, to me.A popular meme tells that Psyche, if brought to Earth, would make every Earther a billionaire.Why such a perspective doesn’t raise much enthusiasm to me?Leaving aside that, as NASA asserts, we don’t have suitable technologies to move such a big thing from its orbit into the geo-lunar space region, and that likely, should it be possible, Psyche would jeopardize the Earth-Moon gravitational equilibrium, there are a few more considerations, worth to be discussed. An exploration mission to Psyche, is scheduled to launch in July 2022, with the aim to confirm or change the current hypothesis — Iron and nichel – about ascertain its composition.First of all we need to formulate some good questions, from different points of view (not just financial).For example, what would be the best use of extraterrestrial resources, to help civilization overcoming the tremendous multi-crisis we are facing?Considering that such a crisis is mainly caused by our growth in the closed environment of planet Earth, should we really try to grow further in such a closed system?Concentrating more resources and energy within Earth’s boundaries, wouldn’t further increase the pressure in our still closed, precopernican, Ptolemaic world?From a merely economicist point of view, entering $10 quintillion on Earth could destroy the global market, sinking the world economy. Or, at least, that’s what several expert economists say.

Of course, mining Psyche where it is will be very much worth. Yet, the purpose will be totally different: as the Webb Telescope gold plated mirror reminds, precious metals have very good uses, especially if we think about the development of space infrastructures and settlements.

Another obvious reference is the European colonization of central and south America, when the Incas were exterminated, and their gold was stolen and brought back to the old continent. As all comparisons, it only works in part. Nowadays the rich natural resources of the solar system wouldn’t be stolen to anyone, since there are no “people” around in the Asteroid Belt. Yet, wouldn’t be coarse to conform ourselves to the very questionable style of the “conquistadores”? Bringing the Psyche valued metals 100% the Earth would mean, in a certain measure, to stole them to the future “Belters”, inhabitant the Asteroid Belt. Very much better – from an ethical point of view — to use those resources to prepare an expanded world in the Solar System.

In a nearer time horizon, the social and environmental goal now is to find ways to allow the Civilization development and progress to go ahead, in the same time loosening our industrial pressure on planet Earth’s environment. To begin pursuing such a goal, we need to start developing the space infrastructures, in the geo-lunar space region and beyond. In such a perspective, Psyche is really a gold mine, since its materials will be key for developing big rotating orbital infrastructures, to be located in the Earth-Moon and Earth-Sun Lagrange points, allowing people to have artificial gravity 1G space houses, near their working places (Moon, and Asteroids).

Adriano V. Autino, SRI Founder, Ambassador, VicePresident

Sources:

The Jerusalem Post