Few nations have had the treasure to dump into serious space programs but suddenly everyone wants to get into the ether. Private ventures are popping up left and right to get into the new frontier. The biggest drawback to reaching for the stars has been the lack of a compelling economic motivation. Well we may have found one in the form of 16 Psyche, a 180 mile long rugby ball of iron and nickel and silicates.
Oh, and this may now have water!
... in a paper accepted in The Astronomical Journal, Vishnu Reddy, an assistant
professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, argues that new observations from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility show evidence for volatiles such as water or hydroxyl, a free radical consisting of one hydrogen atom bound to one oxygen atom, on Psyche's surface. ...
"We did not expect a metallic asteroid like Psyche to be covered by water and/or hydroxyl," said Reddy, second author on the paper led by Driss Takir at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona. "Metal-rich asteroids like Psyche are thought to have formed under dry conditions without the presence of water or hydroxyl, so we were puzzled by our observations at first."
16 Psyche is one of the largest known asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Due to it’s composition it is hypothesized that it originally was the core of a larger protoplanet that was rent asunder, causing the belt and other solar decorations. Such a large ball of metal implies possibly an Earthlike magnetic field. Water from the many iceballs inhabiting the region likely plowed onto the Iron Giant due to it’s high mass purportual to it’s size. It makes sense. It also makes for an interesting possibility.
Start with a lot of water with which to make rocket fuel, oxygen and cocktails on a solid surface at very low gravity. Add metals and silicates right on the surface for smelting into infinite cables, panels and commemorative coins. Now wrap it all in a magnetosphere protective enough to take a long midday stroll without any SPF. If that happened to be right on the midway point of Jupiter and beyond, that would be just the awesomest place for Utopia Planetia EVER! There are plenty of icy floaters in the heavens but none have access to metals and a surface density to build a factory on, let alone at a perfect goldilocks gravity.
All the riches of the mineable asteroid belt could come and go through the docks of 16 Psyche. What it doesn’t have could be towed there for refinement. There is even the possibility of endless energy there to run robotic factories or recharge spacecraft batteries. You may have heard of a Dyson Sphere but have you ever contemplated a Dyson Belt?
If 16 Psyche could churn out enough nano cable, and enough solar panels they could be launched in a retrograde direction to the asteroids orbit around the sun. Given a few decades (or centuries) this trailing belt of hardwired solar collectors could completely circumnavigate the sun. Depleted ships looking for some “juice” to make it back home could pull up to this infinite array, plug in at any point, and trickle charge the largest of batteries. Asteroid tugs would always have a bar they could siddle up to and sit a spell, sipping of cool clean electrons.
Yep, there is finally a dollar to be made in the ether. NASA may be noticing:
The findings are interesting in the context of a proposed $500 million mission to send a spacecraft to Psyche, currently under review by NASA. Images taken by a spacecraft orbiting Psyche would enable us to distinguish between water and hydroxyl on the surface.