MINERAL RESOURCES OF ASTEROIDS AND THE MOON AND PROBLEMS OF THEIR MINING

The literature data on promising sources of mineral resources in space, as well as on geological projects for their development, is summarized and critically reviewed. Most of geological projects concern iron asteroids and a regolith of the Moon as priority objects for the exploitation of mineral resources in space. Data on iron asteroids are based on a cosmochemical study of iron meteorites, which indicate to their belonging to a pure iron ore with high content of Ni, Co and platinum metals. The previous study of the Moon and its surface samples, delivered on the Earth, allowed to consider the regolith as a main carrier of ilmenite, which is a principal source of O2, Fe and Ti. The regolith agglutinates may be used for extraction of a native iron, volatile elements, and 3He, as an energy supply source. Additionally, the regolith contains water, ceramic and structural materials, so important for colonization of the Moon. Unfortunately, the modern cosmic geological projects have many technical and technological problems. The main troubles are connected with a method of useful minerals mining and location of their extraction (cosmic or terrestrial), a way of drilling in cosmic conditions with taking into account weightlessness, an absence of water and atmosphere, an extremal temperature difference and so on. From our point of view, even very short survey of literature data on perspective mineral resources of cosmic bodies indicates to possibility of their using in very far future.