WASHINGTON — A House hearing on space mining become a partisan debate about each the viability of the nascent field and the jurisdiction of the committee to look at it.
The oversight and investigation subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee took up the subject of mining the moon and asteroids for the primary time at a Dec. 12 hearing, where witnesses argued that space resource extraction may very well be essential for the long run of america but required each careful study and government support.
“Humanity stands on a precipice of a brand new era, one which can be defined by space development and utilization of space resources,” said Eric Sundby, chief executive of mineral exploration company TerraSpace and executive director of the Space Force Association. “Space holds an countless amount of opportunity for America.”
Nevertheless, he and another witnesses cautioned that america was liable to falling behind China in extracting space resources. “Any delay in America’s development of space resources, irrespective of how well intended, will leave the sector to that rapacious regime,” Greg Autry, a professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, said of China.
Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the University of Mississippi’s Center for Air and Space Law, provided the same assessment. “Winning requires only getting there first,” she said. Interpretations of the concept of “due regard” within the Outer Space Treaty, she argued, could mean that a spacecraft that lands and even crashes on the moon or other celestial body could create an exclusion zone that will reserve the mineral resources inside it. “We must speed up our efforts to guarantee continued access to extraterrestrial resources.”
A fourth witness, though, offered a more cautionary view about space mining. “I’m not against mining in space. Personally, I believe there could also be more positive outcomes than negative,” said Moses Milazzo, a planetary scientist and owner of the consulting company Other Orb. Nevertheless, he said any decisions on whether and easy methods to proceed with space mining needs to be examined by a committee with representation from science and industry but additionally including cultural experts, ethicists and others to completely review the potential advantages and impacts.
The hearing revealed a pointy partisan divide on the difficulty. “Space mining is an increasing number of a necessity,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), chairman of the subcommittee, based on the growing demand for minerals like rare earth metals and concerns about counting on China for them.
Democrats, though, raised questions on the necessity for space mining or perhaps a hearing about it. “It’s a vital conversation available within the committee that may consider laws about it. Newsflash: that committee isn’t this one,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) She said she asked the committee’s Republican leadership for a “clear jurisdictional justification” for the Natural Resources committee to take up space mining but never received a response.
Democrats argued that the difficulty of space mining should as a substitute be considered by the House Science Committee, which has previously taken up the subject, including laws about rights to extracted space resources that became law within the 2015 Industrial Space Launch Competitiveness Act.
“The committee does have jurisdiction on this issue,” countered Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), chairman of the total Natural Resources committee, later within the hearing. The committee’s jurisdiction, as stated on its website, does mention “mining interests generally” but not specifically resources beyond the Earth.
Democrats also questioned whether space mining was a near-term priority, particularly if it requires government support. That prioritization includes “whether to not it is smart to attempt to outcompete China by unilaterally spending billions of dollars to subsidize private industry for 60 to 80 years out in the long run,” said. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), rating member of the subcommittee.
One Republican member of the subcommittee also questioned space mining, but on different grounds. “Seeking to space for minerals where they might be plentiful is interesting, but it should present incredible access challenges,” said Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), who called himself a “skeptic” on the subject. He said any consideration of space mining needs to be balanced by the “immediate benefits of less expensive and fewer risk intensive resource mining here at home.”
Witness tried to remain above the partisan debate. “I’m hoping, frankly, to maintain space as a nonpartisan domain,” said Autry after a line of questions from Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) veered into allegations that China provided money to the president’s son, Hunter Biden. Autry said after the hearing that he wanted to make use of the hearing to construct support for funding for NASA science and technology programs that may gain advantage space mining, in addition to programs in other agencies just like the U.S. Geological Survey that might include “dual use” technologies for mining in space and on Earth.
“One thing that sort of makes me sad here is that we now have the chance to achieve across the aisle and agree on quite plenty of things that we’re talking about here,” said Milazzo, resembling funding dual-use mining technologies. “Now we have to approach this in a collaborative manner relatively than an acrimonious manner.”
AstroForge satellite struggles
One space mining company briefly mentioned on the hearing was AstroForge, a startup with long-term plans to mine asteroids for metals. The corporate launched its first spacecraft, a 6U cubesat called Brokkr-1 designed to check its refining technology, on the Transporter-7 rideshare mission in April.
In a Dec. 11 update, AstroForge revealed the corporate has run into problems attempting to operate the spacecraft since its launch. That problem was linked to a design flaw discovered before the cubesat’s launch where the magnetic field created by the refining payload would interfere with the spacecraft’s ability to actively maintain its orientation. The corporate decided to proceed with the launch regardless that it signifies that it will “be passively stabilized in a wobble, eventually settling in an orientation where we lose communication.”
The corporate said it took longer than expected to first discover the spacecraft from the greater than 50 deployed on the rideshare mission, then establishing communications with it. By September, AstroForge was capable of deploy the cubesat’s solar arrays and activate the refinery payload in November.
“Now it’s a race against time to finish the refinery checkouts and demonstrations before the satellite stabilizes and we lose the power to command completely,” AstroForge stated. “We estimate that to be in one other three months.”
Despite the issues with Brokkr-1, the corporate is pressing ahead with a second spacecraft that may perform a flyby of a near Earth asteroid and take high-resolution images of it. That mission, originally called Brokkr-2 but since renamed Odin, is on the right track to launch as a rideshare payload on the IM-2 lunar lander mission by Intuitive Machines in 2024.