British company at forefront of asteroid gold rush ‘which could net £75 billion for everyone on Earth’

Companies plan to drag one back to Earth (Picture Getty)
Companies plan to drag one back to Earth (Picture Getty)

A new satellite launched by a British company in 2020 could be part of a new gold rush predicted to create the world’s first trillionaires – the hunt for valuable asteroids.

Bankers Goldman Sachs predict that the new gold rush will create trillionaires – with NASA estimates suggest that the total value of asteroids in the solar system could be up to $700 quintillion.

That’s equivalent to £75 billion each for us here on Earth.

British company Asteroid Mining Corporation aims to be part of this, says founder Mitch Hunter-Scullion in an interview with Yahoo News.

Hunter-Scullion says, ‘A single metallic asteroid just 25 meters in diameter (2 double decker buses) would contain 29 tonnes of platinum worth £725 million (15% of current global supply), while the rest of its metals would bring the total value to £2.3 billion.

Planetary Resources plans to begin dispatching spaceships in just two years.
Planetary Resources plans to begin dispatching spaceships in just two years.

‘AMC are working to develop the Asteroid Prospecting Satellite One (APS-1), this will launch in late 2020 to conduct a survey of the Near Earth Asteroids to identify ones that contain Platinum Group Metals and Gold.

‘It is now possible to do such a mission on very cheap budgets thanks to CubeSats, we estimate it will cost £2.3 million for the Prospecting phase.

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‘Once we have this information then we will then use it to compile a database of asteroids that are closest to Earth and cheapest to fly to, that contains the most Platinum and Gold that we will sell access to. The demand for this data stems from its disruptive impact to the global economy.

‘We will then use the revenues from the Space Resource Database to fund our own Asteroid Mining mission in the mid to late 2020’s. Therefore being both the Shovel Salesman and the Miner.

‘Asteroids of this size could in theory be moved into a Lunar Orbit to be easily accessible from Earth but easy to mine. And could alongside the Deep Space Gateway form the bedrock of a Lunar Orbital infrastructure to facilitate the colonisation of the Moon.’