Space is no longer the final frontier. With his eyes firmly set on the stars a Scottish entrepreneur, Mitch Hunter-Scullion, is seeking investment for his recently announced asteroid mining project. Asteroid mining is a relatively new space industry with only a handful of players such as Planetary Resources, a multi-million dollar venture founded by Peter Diamandis, the executive chairman of Singularity University.

A Trillion Dollar Industry

Asteroid Mining Corporation, (AMC) founded by Mitch in 2016, is working alongside academic partners to develop the Asteroid Prospecting Satellite One (APS1) with the goal of identifying platinum group metals deposits on Near Earth asteroids.

The company has received support from Business Gateway and is now seeking further investment to build the APS1 in Glasgow at a cost of £2.3 million, which will secure the creation of up to ten new jobs.

“Space Resources will change every aspect of life on and off Earth,” Mitch explained, “Our goal is to develop groundbreaking technology that will eventually enable the extraction, processing and use of materials derived from the many millions of asteroids known to exist near Earth. The APS1 will be our first step to achieving this success.”

So far around 10,000 celestial bodies of varying sizes have been located in near-Earth orbit, with around 900 bodies large enough to be a target for mining. One single, 500 metre water-rich asteroid could be worth $5 trillion; it currently costs $20,000 to send a litre of water into space so the possibilities are endless.

A single asteroid of similar size which is platinum-rich could be worth $2.9 trillion and produce 174 times the annual output on Earth.

Growing International Interest In Space Mining

AMC are also working with the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University to draft a proposal for a UK Space Resources Activities Bill.

Mitch believes legislation is vital to the development of the space mining industry within the UK as it allows British based companies the rights to prospect for and extract mineral resources from asteroids, the moon and other celestial bodies.

In February, 2016, the government of Luxembourg announced an initiative to establish domestic laws and regulations to facilitate asteroid mining. The announcement further signalled that Luxembourg was willing to directly invest in one or more asteroid mining companies with the launch of a 200 million euro fund.

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