Resource World Magazine

J U N E / J U L Y 2 0 1 7 www.resourceworld.com 41 Mines; Daniella Dimitrov, Director at Exellon Resources and Carol Plummer, VP of Project Development for the US and Latin America at Agnico Eagle Mines. Several of the other panelists echoed Sander's comments. For example, Lapointe noted the "overwhelming" amounts of data being generated by current mining applications, which is causing challenges very similar to what NASA is currently dealing with through the use of "open source" data repositories available for out- side research, and the creation of various contests (such as the NASA Space Apps Challenges) to encourage the low cost development of new applications which use the collected data. Dimitrov noted the disruptions cur- rently coalescing in both the mining and manufacturing industries, where the traditional silos separating the various specialties are starting to break down and be replaced by more generalized, decision making methodologies. This approach is also becoming more and more common to the space industry where generalist entre- preneurs knowledgeable in a broad range of engineering, IT, finance, public rela- tions and other areas such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are slowly superseding the traditional NASA technical specialist. But the detailed discussions took place after the 2017 CIM plenary, at the PTMSS and Space Resources Roundtable, where Sanders was joined by dozens of other experts in finance, law, science, engineer- ing and mining. The first day discussions focused on business issues while the sec- ond and third day focused on specific corporate case studies and engineering requirements in order to effectively mine resources in extreme environments. First day presentations included: Bringing the Moon into our Sphere of Economic Influence: The Importance of Lunar Resources, a presentation written by Clive R. Neal from the University of Notre Dame, was presented by Gerald Sanders. In this presentation, Sanders highlighted the use of commercial activities, such as space mining, telecommunications and remote sensing as "on-ramps" to foster sustainability and private sector funding, discussed ways to bring on-board private sector investors and inventoried initial steps to assess potential lunar resources available for mining, through the use of various resource prospecting missions being developed through NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and other international space exploration co-ordina- tion groups. A Business Case Tradespace Tool for Off- Earth Mining, a presentation written by Robert Shishko from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology and Joel Sercel, the founder and principal engineer at TranAstra Corp., was presented by Sercel. According to Sercel, the use of public-private partner- ships (PPP) for funding, in conjunction with the adaption of current private sector methodologies from the mining and other industries, makes space exploration and in-space resource utilization (ISRU), afford- able under current national space agency budgets. Sercel's company, after winning several NASA contracts worth several mil- lion US dollars, is currently working with private investors to raise additional funds. An Update on the Progress of the Hague Space Resources Government Working Group, was presented by Ian Christiansen, a Project Manager with the Secure World Foundation. Christiansen's presentation focused on the development of inter- national rules and regulations which influence the ability of terrestrial min- ing companies to stake a resource-based mining claim in space, with particular attention paid to recent developments in the US and Luxembourg as they relate to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Of course, and as noted by several audience members during this presentation, all the legal prec- edents in the world will be immediately superseded as soon as someone, or some- one's robot, shows up on a heavenly body to stake a claim. Leveraging Terrestrial Industry for Utilization of Space Resources, a presenta- tion by Gerald Sanders, Diane Linne from the NASA Glenn Research Center, Stanley Starr from the NASA Kennedy Space Center and Dale Boucher, from Deltion Innovations, was presented by Sanders and went into more detail on the similari- ties between terrestrial and space mining. Perhaps the best of the technical papers was Connecting Projects to Complete the In-Situ Resource Utilization Paradigm, a pre- sentation written by Diane Linne from the NASA Glenn Research Center and Gerald Sanders, which she presented. The presentation was developed origi- nally as a "living document" to inventory the specific technologies required to per- form a variety of ISRU activities on various "off-Earth" locations, their tech-readiness levels (a NASA measurement of how close a theoretical, developing technology is to its practical utilization) and the locations of the primary research facilities charged with developing the technologies. According to Linne, ISRU "involves any hardware or operation that harnesses and utilizes 'in-situ' resources to create prod- ucts and services for robotic and human exploration." The research is focused around the development of tools usable on the surface of the Moon and Mars and for LEFT: Gerald Saunders, Deputy Project Manager for the NASA in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) project, on the main stage of the 2017 Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) conference in Montreal. Photo by Chuck Black. Space mining companies are simply regular mining companies which prospect in an extreme environment.

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