MINING THE ASTEROIDS #4: Starting With Near-Earth Prison Asteroids…

They say you have to learn to WALK before your can FLY, so before we start driving asteroids around the Solar System (and I can’t believe that Russia, China, the EU, India, Brazil, and the United States will give a happy thumbs up to that action (which just put in my mind that MOVING asteroids into Earth orbit will have to be a true, multi-national effort with multi-national crews…which, of course, will lead to incredible stress and possible conflict…)) let’s look at how we’ll start walking…

Humans have been taking pictures of asteroids, and doing flybys for twenty or more years. Recently, we’ve started landing on asteroids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landings_on_extraterrestrial_bodies#Asteroids

While I’m not a big fan of prisons as a general idea, USING prisoners as miners is an old, horrific practice. Called “convict leasing”, it is or has been practiced around the world; even right at this moment in the “Separatist Russian” parts of Ukraine: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/present-day-concentration-camp-eastern-europe. China has been reported to have this: https://thediplomat.com/2022/01/forced-prison-labor-in-china-hiding-in-plain-sight/. And the US is hardly exempt. Even today, we have a practice revised for the 21st Century – watch the YouTube below to get an idea of what’s going on. As well, the progressive state of California has this program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries.

So, what can we do? Obviously nothing, because these “labor camps” are going to continue, unabated, as they have since the dawn of Human history (ie: the Jews in Egypt – https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/were-hebrews-ever-slaves-in-ancient-egypt-yes-1.5429843)

We have already plotted out in detail the Near Earth Objects (including Asteroids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth).

The Near Earth Asteroids have particular parameters. There are also several types of these asteroids, the first discovered being the name of the class – NEC (comets), NEA (asteroids) and the others, with the type and the specification:

Atiras: a<1.0 au; Q<0.983 au NEAs whose orbits are contained entirely with the orbit of the Earth

Atens: a<1.0 au; Q>0.983 au Earth-crossing NEAs with semi-major axes smaller than Earth's

Apollos: a>1.0 au; q<1.017 au Earth-crossing NEAs with semi-major axes larger than Earth's

Amors: a>1.0 au; 1.017<q<1.3 au Earth-approaching NEAs with orbits exterior to Earth's but interior to Mars'
PHAs: MOID<=0.05 au; H<=22.0 Potentially Hazardous Asteroids: NEAs whose Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID) with the Earth is 0.05 au or less

au = Astronomical Units (ie 152,000,000 km [93,000,000 miles])
q = orbital period in years
Q = Aphelion distance
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/neo_groups.html

All right. Given:

All governments have prisons.
All prisoners are detained for short or long periods of time.
All prisoners do some form of labor.
All prisoners will be released.

What if we create and Prisoner Asteroid Miner Corp?

It WOULD BE dangerous! All potential recruits would be completely informed. As any new space endeavor has shown, death is a possibility. EVERY space program has had casualties. This program would be no different. 

Sorry, didn't mean to wax poetic...

The orbital period of all of the above (except the PHAs) is about a year.

A year of mining and astronaut training precedes the time served mining the asteroid.

A successfully served sentence, will result in the prisoner being released and reintegrated into society. They will be given stock in the asteroid being mined that can be traded or sold back to the government at current market value.

Asteroid Miners CAN choose to remain – but will return to Earth to be retrained and reintegrated as employees of the government initiating the incarceration.

An Artificial Intelligence will act as the Warden. If AIs are not as feasible as everyone things they are, then the AI will replaced by a Remote Warden – possibly in a nearby orbit; possibly on the Moon; possibly on Earth (no one would know for certain.) There would also be…”enforcement” robots. Or OTHER prisoners may be employed as prison guards. Also, enforcement will also be maintained by weekly delivery of foodstuffs, medication, and other necessities.

While it absolutely is horrendous...the potential for greatness exists. IF the gamble is won, the investment is realized, the PAMC could become a page in history and a jumping off point for a new phase of space colonization...

Aside from being a semi-serious proposal, this is absolutely rife with story ideas…see ya, I gotta go.

Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyNX5b8icrY, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_leasing
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg

Categories: Mining the ASTEROIDS