Asteroid mining is the path to a ‘shitload of money’, says Astroforge CEO

Californian startup AstroForge is preparing to launch its second mission in an effort to develop technologies for extracting precious metals from asteroids millions of miles away. The company is in a race against time become the first to mine an asteroid for platinum and sell it for a lot of money on Earth, taking advantage of the rapid commercialization of space.

AstroForge, founded by Matt Gialich and Jose Acain in January 2022, launched its first mission in April 2023 to demonstrate its ability to refine asteroid material in orbit. However, the initial task did not go well as the company had difficulty communicating with its satellite. The company’s second mission, called Odin, will attempt to observe a metallic asteroid from a distance, with plans for a follow-up mission to land on the asteroid target in 2026.

The mission’s asteroid target and mining technique remain secret, with AstroForge not wanting to reveal all its secrets to potential competitors. What we do know is that AstroForge focuses on platinum group metals, or PGMs, which are used in a variety of industries.

Asteroid mining could become a lucrative business, with materials found on a single asteroid which amounts to trillions of dollars in potential profits. The idea has been around for decades, although it has not yet been tried due to the high cost of launching into space. That’s changing, however, as private companies offer cheaper rides to orbit and create a viable market in the cosmos for space brethren to take advantage of.

AstroForge recently raised $40 million in funding to prepare for its second mission, which will launch in late 2025 as a part payload on Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 lunar lander. The company also received an experimental license from the Federal Communications Commission, the first to allow a private company to operate in deep space.

Gizmodo spoke with AstroForge founder and CEO Gialich to discuss the company’s plans to become the world’s first asteroid mining company.

Passer Rabie, Gizmodo: What is the story behind the creation of AstroForge?

Gialich: We started in January 2022 and our mission is simply to secure precious metals for the future. Jose Acain (co-founder of AstroForge) and I both worked at a company called Bird, a scooter company, and we were both actively recruited by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory here in Pasadena. And so we looked at this, and there were a lot of reasons why I didn’t end up working at JPL, the biggest of which was that I just didn’t feel like going to a place that we all thought would be my retirement in the air and space travel meant. , like I’ll retire from JPL one day. That’s when we realized that there’s a weird turning point happening right now where, for the first time in human history, we have rockets that can take us to deep space very cheaply. If you can leverage that by building cheap satellites, and the price of getting into deep space is much lower, what can you do?

That’s basically how the company was founded. I had a lot of stupid ideas about what you could do if you got to deep space. The most logical thing was to become a mining company, right? And that’s what we based ourselves on. Ultimately, we just want a version of JPL that can act differently, act faster, make things more economical and really push the boundaries.

Gizmodo: And profit is clearly part of that model, right?

Gialich: You should make a lot of money with this. I think everyone sees that if you go into something like asteroid mining, the market cap here is huge. Many aerospace companies have a thesis about the growth of the market that they are tapping into. I mean, not to bash space companies, I love all these ideas, but they make the leap (assuming) that the market will either continue to grow, or grow to a level that is economically viable. That’s not the jump we’re making, we’re going after platinum group metals, a huge market here on Earth. It’s a commodity market that we’re trying to influence and that’s basically how we wanted to start the company.

Gizmodo: What are some lessons we learned from that first mission?

Gialich: The company’s original position was that we would not build our spacecraft, we would buy them. That’s how we thought we could keep our overhead lower and that was mission one, right? We bought the spacecraft from a company called Orbital Astronautics in London and we can just build a payload. What we found in doing so was that if you don’t have the same incentives, if a company’s incentive is to sell a spacecraft and your incentive is to see a result, those incentives are not aligned, and it became very difficult to make that work. . The reality is that it didn’t work.

We made great progress on the first mission, but I think many of those problems could have been avoided if we had built everything ourselves. So we made the decision to move forward, that’s what we’re going to do.

Gizmodo: What’s going to happen for mission two?

Gialich: It will be the first time in human history that a private company will go into space to carry out a mission. I think it’s really cool to go after it and do it. So mission two is built: we’ve gone through all the major steps: testing, vibration testing or thermal vacuum testing, all these things that you have to go through to make sure the spacecraft is ready for launch. We are essentially ready for launch and we will continue to do more testing over time, but as of now we are waiting for the rocket, a Falcon 9 headed to the moon. It is clear that we will not land on the moon. We’re going to miss it, swing around and get to the asteroid.

Gizmodo: And then mission two leads to mission three, right?

Gialich: The goal of mission two is to get to the asteroid and take a picture of it to show that we have found the right asteroid we want to go after. We want to go to a special type of asteroid, a metallic asteroid. Mission three will go back and land on that asteroid to take a sample of it to confirm that that particular metallic asteroid has a high concentration of material that we want to see.

Gizmodo: That obviously seems a bit more complex than mission two. How do you prepare for that?

Gialich: It’s actually a lot less complex. We’ve already proven we can reach the asteroid, so mission three is a lot less risky. I think it’s all about how you look at those stepping stones as you go along.

Gizmodo: How did you choose the asteroid target?

Gialich: We selected it based on a number of criteria. Ultimately, we want a metallic asteroid that we can access and exploit for a period of time. We’re hiding some criteria, we’ve spent a lot of money to make sure we’re going after the right asteroid. We’ve worked hard on this to make sure we end up with the right piece of stone in the room.

Gizmodo: Is there a reason why you didn’t name the asteroid?

Gialich: We will never name the asteroid because there is no reason to do so. It is of no use to me to reveal which asteroid we are looking for. Why should I give competitors information about what we are looking for?

Gizmodo: When mining asteroids, there is also the philosophical question of who owns any object in space.

Gialich: In 2015, we passed the Space Act, and the Space Act says that any commercial company in the United States can mine an asteroid for profit. There could be a whole host of existential reasons why people want to discuss this. You are talking about a company that is going to fundamentally change (the availability of resources). If we are successful, there will be many people who will try to erase us from existence. They will be able to try to get their fair share. And that’s all fine, let it come when it comes. I guess my job is to prove that it’s fucking possible, and once we prove it’s possible, we’ll probably hire a bunch of lawyers or something.

Gizmodo: Why do you think no asteroids have been exported yet?

Gialich: What we’re trying to do is something that people consider extremely high risk. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that our upcoming mission has a 100% chance of success. That is not the case. In fact, we are moving extremely fast and taking a lot of risks. We have to get a shot on target, our job is to give us the best chance of that shot on target before the launch starts.

Gizmodo: Do you think this can become a sustainable practice?

Gialich: Absolute. Platinum is not on the Earth’s surface and I’ve seen people say, it’s much easier to mine on Earth than in space. The reality is basically this: that’s not true. We know there is a lot of platinum in the Earth’s inner core, but we have no idea how to get there. And once you start digging these mines, which are 2,000 meters deep and extremely hot, they are very difficult to exploit, and even machines break down, then the marginal costs will not go to zero, but will increase.

So in the end, asteroid mining can actually be hugely lucrative, and also much more environmentally friendly in every measurable way. I mean, a large percentage of global emissions come from mining. This is a major change in the way we look at extracting valuable materials. We just have to show that it is possible.

Gizmodo: Just as resources on Earth are limited, will we run out of materials in space?

Gialich: Essentially, the resources in the room are unlimited for the sake of this conversation. Keep in mind that in the 19th century, aluminum was a super rare material, more valuable than gold, and we then found a new way to obtain it. You can look at the monetary aspect, but more importantly, it changed our damn lives. The reason you can fly a plane is because of aluminum, the reason you have a car is because of aluminum.

I want to build the damn future. I’m not necessarily concerned about dominating the world when it comes to dollars. I want to dominate the world when it comes to ideal progress. And that’s how we think about it. At the same time, we will make a lot of money in the short term.