Asteroid fever has already begun

About why the chase of the asteroids and how can be ensured by asteroid safety, we talked with the doct. physical. Sciences, professor, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, scientific director of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences Boris Shustov . Talked by Natalia Demina .

- You said that in the future a great competition of earthlings will begin for asteroids. Why will asteroids become so in demand?

-When they talk about resources and that most conflicts and even wars are due to resources, energy carriers-oil, gas come to mind. Even water can be the cause of international disputes. As you know, water is a very serious resource argument in many conflicts in the Middle East.

But there are other resources that are not very “visible on the surface”, but they are. For example, a smartphone is the gadget that you are now holding in front of me, - includes platinum micrograms. Modern electronics cannot without platinum. But since gadgets are produced on a massive scale, according to some estimates, platinum remains on the ground for a period of 30 to 1000 years. The lower border is already alarming and almost comparable to similar estimates of oil reserves.

There are other popular elements, such as nickel. His reserves are also not infinite. We get heavy elements from the earth's crust. When the earth was in a molten state, then all the heavy elements drowned, and now they are in the nucleus of the Earth, the iron core. But those elements that were subsequently brought by the late bombing of the Earth by asteroids are on the surface of our planet. Therefore, the idea arose: is it possible to use asteroids as sources of important minerals, as they say, in situ ?

The speeches of delivering a large asteroid to the Earth is not yet, but the development of technologies for the extraction of heavy rare earth and other elements, the same platinum or nickel, in space, on asteroids, is already developing with might and main. This market appeared a few years ago. Several companies were created; Among them, for example, Planetary Resources. These are American companies with the participation of different capital: the above - with the participation of Luxembourg capital and with the support of the government of Luxembourg. Their goals are set 30-100 years in advance.

The race, which received the name of the new gold fever in the USA, began. Only now it is a race for interplanetary resources. First of all, we are talking about asteroids. Comets also contain minerals, but most comets have such high speeds that huge costs are required, but asteroids are more convenient for planting and mining. Humanity already has the experience of landing, as well as fence and even delivery of soil from asteroids. Microscopic amounts of the substances of the asteroid of the outcome were delivered to the ground by the Japanese spacecraft “Hayabus” (“Falcon”).

Some of the asteroids are iron -nickel. Imagine - a huge kilometer block consisting of iron and nickel. But this means that there is Palladium, Platinum, and a bunch of all kinds of rare earth elements. Their cost is estimated at many billions and even trillions of dollars. It all depends on the market. Recently, Nickel has doubled in price, and the cost of such asteroids also increased. As soon as the cost of those materials that can be extracted, and their extraction, transportation from asteroids to Earth is equal, we will get not just preparation, but the real process of the race behind these interplanetary mines.

- Why do you call it a race? After all, the race is when it is important, who is the first and who will stake the site ...

- I use the American term Gold Rush (“gold fever”), although gold is not the main goal. As in Alaska at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries, who will first master and begin to use these resources, he will get a great advantage.

Another material that is even more valuable than these rare metals is water. Asteroids, although they are stony, contain a lot of water. The extraction of water from asteroids is considered one of the main promising and important projects, because water is not even ensuring someone’s life, but primarily fuel.

This is an important energy resource. Using solar energy, we can, directly in the space, produce hydrolysis of water for oxygen and hydrogen, receiving large fuel reserves.

That is why modern ideas about how humanity will spread in the future within the solar system is largely due to the fact that it will be possible to extract fuel in space, that is, in place. It is much cheaper than transporting it from the Earth. You may have heard about the formula of the Tsiolkovsky (or the equation of Meshchersky). According to this working formula for interplanetary flights, you need to bring with you an intermediate (near -earth) orbit a large amount of fuel so that the rocket can then be able to gain the desired speed. And in the case of asteroids, fuel can be taken in place. This is a very important resource, the extraction of which is thought absolutely seriously. And rich countries that can spend money not only on survival, but also on the future, on the perspective, for example, the UAE, order such works of both their and foreign scientific organizations.

Our institution of astronomy also participated in such a study. As a supervisor of the institute, I gave this work to a group of youth so that they would work out and looked wider at the world, and fixed my research into the future. I looked at the result of their work - it was done well, although it was possible to “dig” even deeper.

Since money goes from business, customers ask us: indicate which asteroid is most valuable and easily. There are such candidates, but work on the search for the most promising candidates requires serious research, because it is absolutely confident to say that the asteroid consists of is not so simple. At the first stage, we can do this only remotely, based on the studies of spectra of the sun reflected from the asteroid, and according to this spectral information to understand what the upper “crust” of the asteroid consists of, which reflects light.

This technology still needs to be brought to perfection, but at least we know several asteroids that can already be of commercial interest in the near future. The fundamental science here meets the very practical needs of all mankind, the need, which is not now but very soon.

- Correctly I understand that such studies are ordered, for example, Arab emirates, and they do not seem relevant for the Russian authorities yet or are not enough money for them yet? Russia has joined this race or is it as soon as possible?

- Yes, we slow down. And not only in this. I have an academic (from the Russian Academy of Sciences - RAS) an order, I am the chairman of the expert group on space threats at the Council of RAS on Cosmos. One of these threats (along with the problems of cosmic garbage and “space weather”) is an asteroid-cometary danger (AKO). While the Russian authorities are thinking about whether to deal with this problem seriously, the world has already gone far. In the USA, under NASA, there is a department on the problem of AKO, and the budget of this unit is quite solid - $ 40 million. In addition to special projects that are more expensive.

It is quite logical that now 98% of information about dangerous bodies comes from American sources! Unfortunately, the contribution of Russia is very insignificant, almost amateur. In fact, if you want to be a relatively information -independent state, and just participate in the international cooperation, you need to make your scientific and financial contributions. When some of our officials say that, they say, the Americans are observing, draw up catalogs and databases, and you can draw information from there and make their conclusions, then, of course, this can be done, but the secondary position of our science will not change in this direction.

It is important to understand that we are talking about the practical side of the matter, including security (after all, this is an element of a cosmic threat), and without your own work and participation in international cooperation. It is impossible to come and say: "Hello, let's cooperate, we will not give anything, but where can you get your results?" Russia itself should be active in these directions.

We are now engaged in a number of projects. The Federal Law “On Space Activities” 2015 provides that Roscosmos should take care of at least the prevention of cosmic threats. So, as was done in the USA, where NASA also did not immediately begin to engage in this topic, there was a long struggle, but in 1995 the Congress simply ordered NASA to do this and allocated the necessary funds. And our officials from Roscosmos until recently discouraged the fact that in the (old) law it was not written that this should be done.

One institute cannot deal with this problem, even as big as the Central Bank of the RAS. All our “large” institutions are still poor, and the technique that is necessary to ensure space safety, Redoshev, especially the space base technique. In general, this problem is a national affair. As I already mentioned, a specially allocated body is engaged in this in the United States. The EU has created a directorator on space threats at the European Space Agency. And in principle, we need to have about the same structure ...

- A kind of Ministry of Emergencies on Cosmos?

- Yes. Just with the Ministry of Emergencies, we have an understanding of the need for such work. The last time we published a book under the general editorship of the Minister of Emergencies V. A. Puchkov. It is called "Asteroid-Commercial Danger: Countering Strategy."

Around these topics, associated with both asteroid danger and the prey of fossils, a terrible amount of all kinds of husk. Some media figures and pseudo -students make business, raise noise, scare people. We know well how we are trying to attract the attention of the country's leaders and the media with blowing sensations. Therefore, many serious scientists are careful about this topic. But in fact, this is a normal science, very interesting.

In the world every two years, the most solid conference on planetary protection is held. The latter was in May 2017 in Tokyo. There were exclusively interesting reports from the point of view of any fundamental science: in astronomy, laser physics, geochemistry, geology, cosmogony and even psychology.

We presented several reports there; One of them is on a very interesting and important problem. Do you know why the Chelyabinsk meteorite was not detected and could not be discovered by any ground means?

-He walked somehow against the sun?

- From the daytime sky. In the daytime sky, you can’t find such bodies with optical telescopes. And radars work only at relatively small ranges. What is the use of detecting asteroid five minutes before the fall? It’s too late to do something significant, for example, to evacuate. And we suggested the idea: to put the telescope at a relatively large distance from the Earth, in the vicinity of point L between the ground and the sun, at a distance of one and a half million kilometers from the Earth, there is such a point (the so -called Libration point); The body placed in the vicinity of this point will not go anywhere, it will move with the ground. And the same point is on the other side on the Sun - Earth, at the same distance of one and a half million kilometers. There are already several spacecraft. These points are very beneficial for a number of reasons. One of them: if you flew there, you will be there, practically without spending fuel.

The idea of ​​our project Soda - “Systems for detecting daytime asteroids” - look from this point L1, but not at the sun (there are devices that look in the sun, for example, the famous SOHO), but at the vicinity of the Earth: surround the Earth with such an observation barrier. The telescope placed there, rotating, describes in the sky a cone with the axis of the telescope is the earth, and any body that flies to the ground is crossing this conical barrier. (It is better to have several telescopes - there will be several cones, and the orbit of the body will be determined more precisely.) The task is to detect all bodies in size of more than 10 meters that arrive from the Sun, that is, from the daytime sky. And if the body is a danger - to warn of a possible collision in at least four hours (preferably ten) before the event.

- Is this project so far in the planning stage?

- We work it out, make publications, but in order to implement the project, it is necessary that it be included in the federal space program. Or some department became interested in them. But so far we do not see such a prospect.

- And other countries are already engaged in all this?

- Yes, sure. First of all, the United States. Now the Chinese are interested in: I don’t know how much they advanced, the information is not very open, but we know that they show great interest in this problem. It is possible that this will be implemented by someone, and this project will work throughout humanity. But, of course, I would like Russia to participate in this. This is not only interesting for science, but also an important and useful project.

Another important topic is space garbage. At a recent conference on October 3-4, Iki RAS dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first satellite was a report with the participation of A. M. Sergeyev, dedicated to laser technology for changing cosmic garbage orbiting. As you know, cosmic garbage is a huge problem. We lit up the near -Earth space very much; Many scientists have fears that in the near future space can become inaccessible to practical use. Now many countries, and Russia, too, collaborate in an attempt to develop effective methods of counteracting cosmic garbage. But this is another topic.

- Thank you for the interview!

Boris Shustov;
Talked by Natalia Demina