In 2015, I read an article on Space.com that changed my perspective on space. It was about a small half-kilometer asteroid named 2011 UW158.
There are a few very interesting things about this asteroid that I want to point out. The first is that it passed by at only 1.5 million miles from Earth—which is only six times farther than our moon. That’s pretty close.
The second is that the asteroid was estimated to contain as much as $5 trillion worth of platinum—a precious metal with countless applications, from emission control to fine jewelry.
But what really got me thinking was something I found later in the article—people were interested in mining asteroids like this. Awesome, right? This was the inspiration for my story: a foreign company sets out to do just that using a clever but dangerous technique. This is where corporate greed challenges the good of humanity. But don’t we see that sort of thing almost every day on the news? Yes, and it’s only a matter of time before space exploration is surpassed by space exploitation.
The capability to harness an asteroid and bring it back to Earth raises a lot of questions.
Who governs the use of this power?
What if this power is misused?
I find the question itself similar to that of nuclear weapons. Once someone has achieved this capability, what’s there to stop its misuse?
Properly controlled, a small asteroid 50 meters or less could flatten a large city. On the surface, it would appear as a cosmic sucker punch…but who would know for certain?
After writing my story, I concluded that the capability to bring an asteroid to Earth is more dangerous than anyone could imagine.
I believe that eventually someone will achieve this, and my bet is that it will be a corporation doing so for profit. My story explores this concept and how it might be accomplished, and the things that can go wrong.
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