Engineering the Future of Off-Earth Mining

• Next-generation mining methods: UNSW wins funding for ARC Research Hub

• Is now a good time to invest in space resources?

• Five things you need to know about green minerals

Neil Martin  00:06

Welcome to UNSW's Engineering the Future podcast. In this episode, we'll answer a big question: When will there be a colony on the Moon or Mars, and why would we want to mine there?

Serkan Saydam  00:19

According to the International Energy Agency to meet the demand for the net-zero targets, we will need six times more resources by 2050, especially for clean energy technologies. So that's a big challenge in front of us, and therefore we need to look into how to extract minerals from off Earth, off-Earth mining operations must be sustainable as well as ethical.

Neil Martin  00:47

That's UNSW Professor Serkan Saydam, who says valuable resources, which are vital for humanity's future, are now known to exist far beyond Earth. But it's important we extract them in a responsible way. On Engineering the Future, we speak to experts and researchers who are embracing cutting-edge ideas and pushing the boundaries of what is truly possible. Join us as we discover how world-changing action starts with fearless thinking on Engineering the Future of off-Earth mining.

Hello, and welcome to Engineering the Future of off-Earth mining. My name is Neil Martin, and I'm a journalist and STEM communicator working in the Faculty of Engineering at UNSW. Joining me today to discuss the exciting potential of going to places like the Moon and Mars and even asteroids to acquire valuable minerals and resources is Professor Serkan Saydam. Serkan is the chair of mining engineering at the School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering at UNSW, and his research fields include space resources engineering, ground control, mining systems and design, and technology integration and management. He also serves as the director of the ARC Research Hub for Next Generation Mining Methods, leading multidisciplinary collaborations between academia, industry, and government, to drive innovation in sustainable mining. In addition, he is deputy director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research at UNSW. Welcome, Serkan.

Serkan Saydam  02:34

Thank you, Neil. Thanks for the invite. I'm looking forward to fruitful discussion.

Neil Martin  02:38

So, mining for materials deep in space sounds like science fiction to me, but it's increasingly becoming part of a serious discussion about humanity's future. And there's growing recognition, I think, that the next space race may not just be about exploration, but also about resources: who can access them, how they're used, and what they could mean for life on Earth and beyond. So, before we dive deeper into the topic, Serkan, can you just explain why off-Earth mining is so important?

Serkan Saydam  03:13

According to the International Energy Agency, to meet the demand for the net-zero targets, we will need six times more resources by 2050, especially for clean energy technologies. So that's a big challenge in front of us, and therefore we need to look into how to extract minerals from off-Earth. So when you say off-Earth mining, I actually like that term because we created back in 2012 this term instead of saying space mining because space is empty. So we need minerals for the future. So one way of looking at because the minerals currently on Earth near surface deposits, mineral deposits are depleting, so we need to go deeper. And in Australian case, we are in the 1,500 metres depth at the moment, and South America 2,500 metres, South Africa even more than 4,000 metres down. We need to do underground mining. So with that, the physical conditions and costs of extracting minerals is quite different. So, for example, in that depth in 1,500 metres, stress regime is quite high, as well as rock temperature, for example, over 70 degrees Celsius. So, it's sending people there. It's not safe, and it's also financially not feasible anymore. I mean, I'm a mining engineer, as you said, but I've got an interest in space. Old mining proverb says that where she be, there she be. So, if there are valuable minerals to be mined, the advantage. Humans us will arrive in crowds, no matter operating in extreme conditions or excessive risks. So, if you look at that, this has been the story of the humanity exploring.

Neil Martin  05:13

Yeah, seeing what's exploring.

Serkan Saydam  05:16

Yeah, I mean, it's the same motivation to be honest. When you look at the Europeans in 16th century, or maybe end of 15th century, went from Europe to Americas or come to Australia in 18th century, the motivation was exactly the same: resources and colonisation. So actually, if you look at that, we have more knowledge today about Moon and Mars compared what they knew about the places they were going. They did. They didn't know anything, but they still were going to find. Yeah, they just. I mean, some accidentally, some by guessing or doing a research, their terminology. We know more about Moon and Mars at the moment, but the motivation is important because an abundance of valuable resources, which are technologically driven, society required, and if you look at that, minerals are not sustainable. Mining operations are sustainable. We're proud to say that, but minerals are not sustainable because they are finite.

Neil Martin  06:25

So basically, we just don't have enough of them. Yeah, exactly. 

Serkan Saydam  06:29

Yeah, exactly. Imean, looking at beyond Earth is one idea, and the necessity and demand of finding new places, curiosity of humanity. It's colonisation. So, as I said, resources and colonisations were the two main things humanity always apply. The last motivation, I guess, that's my biggest motivation to achieve welfare mining. You need to develop many technologies and need to be tested on Earth operations. That's my motivation as a mining engineer. How can we transfer the technology between the two industries? So, if you look at that, how much more minerals needed for net-zero targets by 2050, according to International Energy Agency, six times more mining needed. But we don't have capability to eat on Earth. As I said, we got to go deeper, and our new project, next generation mining, is actually targeting that on Earth. Looking at this, one other part is why do we need to do that? Because we said resource extracting resources. Another one is colonisation. So if you separate that, if you go to colonize Moon, everyone is talking about you know Artemis program and European Space Agency's Moon Village concept, it's coming in next five years. They're talking about and what they want to establish colonisation. They need infrastructure and facilities. They need to bring from Earth to there. One example effect actually moving one kilogram, launching one kilogram something from Earth to the Moon’s surface costs $1 million to $1.2 million.

Neil Martin  08:11

Very expensive.

Serkan Saydam  08:11

So having a one bottle of water is $1 million on the Moon’s surface. So clearly, with that calculation, only viable mission is stop bringing things from Earth. That's why it's important to do off-Earth mining forum. That's how the term called in situ resource utilisation, as Americans say, and Europeans say space resource utilisation. It's the same thing. Basically, instead of bringing things from Earth to the colonisation in planets, you use the in situ resources to do that.

Neil Martin  08:47

Yeah, if you want to go and set up a moon base, you need to be using the materials on the moon to create your moon base and to live and, like you said, drink water.

Serkan Saydam  08:57

Yeah, exactly. I mean, water has been everyone's first target, and we need to classify the locations based on locations because where are we going? Are we going Moon, Mars, or asteroids? Because there are different conditions on both. So if you look at that, you know we say Moon, Mars, asteroids. That's not a chronological order because everything started with asteroids during the Obama presidency, focus was asteroids, then moved to Mars, and then now everyone is talking moon. So the order changed. So we want to go first moon, establish a colony and sort of a petrol station on the moon to go beyond.

Neil Martin  09:41

And when you talk about petrol station, that's linked to water, is it? I think my understanding is that you can create a fuel from water. So, if we go to the moon and we find enough water, that then gives you the ability to use that as a fuel to then kind of go other places. Exactly.

Serkan Saydam  10:01

We don't need to find the water because it's there. We know where it is, and water is H2O, right? You know, hydrogen and oxygen. When you separate with a technology called electrolysis, which we can do it, technology is available. Hydrogen and oxygen can be used as a fuel, so that's what we need, and also water we need for life support. That's important. So, I mean, everyone thinks that where is the water? We can't see the oceans and lakes. No, it's not in liquid form. It's either in trapped in regolithh, or in the polar region.

Neil Martin  10:36

And when you say regolithh, that might be a word that some people haven't heard before. What do we mean by yeah? 

Serkan Saydam  10:41

Regolith is actually the definition of the first couple of meters of the any planetary object soil part. Simply, in layman language, is the soil. What first couple of meters up to 10 meters on the moon? The regolithh is quite unique. Very similar to bentonite can be used to produce cement, and so we can construct something using the regolithh. We don't need to mix with water. There are other technologies available without mixing with water because water is super expensive on the moon as well. So regolithh consists many other minerals as well on the moon, you know, if you look at the moon, there are rare earth elements, and iron or even uranium. But most recently, the focus mode on the moon, leave it off from water. Water needed. It's no discussion on that. But the second commodity most people is talking about helium-3 now.

Neil Martin  11:43

Helium-3.

Serkan Saydam  11:44

Yes.

Neil Martin  11:45

And why are they talking about that? 

Serkan Saydam  11:47

So, because this helium-3 is needed for the quantum computing, as very critical mineral, and also, if when we achieve fusion in the future, it's going to be the main mineral needed for the fusion. Currently on Earth we can only find in residue of the nuclear power plants, and super rare, and cost about $$20 million per kilogram. So on the Moon’s surface, we have estimated about 80,000 times more helium-3 exist on the Moon’s surface compared to Earth, so you can calculate the so $1 million one kilogram to launch. So if you can develop a mining system, can cost less than $20 million

Neil Martin  12:37

to bring it back per

Serkan Saydam  12:38

Kilogram, then it's a business, right?

Neil Martin  12:41

So it sounds there like you've got a couple of things going on. There's some resources that you would need, like you said, in situ. You're setting up a colonisation. You need those materials to live and work and build things. There are other things then that you are bringing back. Is that the operation model? Do you think it's changing? 

Serkan Saydam  13:02

In 2014, one of the first involvement to space mining or earth mining activities, we've done a research. We calculated extracting minerals from asteroid on asteroids, especially some of the rare earth elements like platinum group metals, and specifically like ruthenium, 810 times more on asteroids compared to Earth, and another example could be rhodium, 180 times more estimated to be on asteroids, like palladium, osmium, iridium, and all of these rare earth elements and platinum group metals, they exist on the asteroids, which we can extract them. If we extract and bring them back to Earth, it's too expensive. It's not feasible financially. It's not feasible. Forget about technical part. Financial is not feasible because the launching cost is too expensive.

Neil Martin  14:05

Yeah, you need an expensive rocket to go there and come back.

Serkan Saydam  14:07

And one thing that people get confused: most of the metal minerals and rare elements we didn't form on Earth. It's not growing on Earth, except the fossil fuels like coal, so most of the metals come from space when Earth being formed, and come by the asteroids or meteor meteor attacks, and therefore asteroids have all the minerals and other planets all the other metals as well. So that's why whatever we have on Earth, we must have in other planets, even much higher grade compared to Earth because the conditions are different.

Neil Martin  14:48

And you explained why helium-3 was of interest. Why are those rare earth metals of interest? What use are they to ask people here? These kind of quite complicated metallic. Elements they might not know what they're used for.

Serkan Saydam  15:03

I mean, most of the rare earth elements used for batteries, and currently is very important for electric vehicles and also, you know, the defence and defence-related activities and computing, and technology.

Neil Martin  15:18

And like you said, that goes back, I guess, to the we need six times more mining to potentially get those things to use in greener energy, battery technology. But we just they're more abundant out in space. So more energy can we go and get them?

Serkan Saydam  15:34

Yeah, that's the challenge. So we don't know how to do it. We got ideas how to do it, and we don't have financial power to do that. And currently, there is no actual reason to do that for a mining company to go and do that. So maybe a tech company will do it. Maybe an entrepreneur will do it. We don't know yet. So there are lots of unknowns. That's why it's pushing back to investors. 

Neil Martin  16:05

Obviously, you've done a good job there of explaining what's out there and why we need it. It sounds quite complicated, though, and I think you referenced that going to the moon, going to Mars, I guess landing on an asteroid and mining these materials, not very easy, right? How do we actually do it?

Serkan Saydam  16:25

To be honest, I don't know. I got ideas. I had a couple of PhD students working on that, so there are lots of challenges. You know, what equipment we will use? It's very extreme environment we're dealing. So humans are expert on extreme environment, but the situation is very different. Super extreme. Super extreme. You know, we can go very deep. We can go deep sea. We can go to polar regions, deserts, quite extreme as well. But look at moon, no atmosphere. Having no atmosphere, all the metals are coming to the Moon’s surface, and you can't stop them. There is nothing to stop that. And the second thing is the radiation exposure, and the dust in Mars on the Moon as well. Dust is super difficult because extremely abrasive and very, very fine compared to Earth. It's a huge problem. 

Neil Martin  17:23

So, is that a problem in terms of getting into machinery and it's yeah abrasion?

Serkan Saydam  17:27

It's super abrasive material, so your equipment will go damage. You know, it's going to be damaged. So, I mean, looking at the gravity, like Moon has six times less one-sixth gravity compared to Earth, Mars one-third, asteroids almost no gravity, so that is also difficult, but also make things sometimes easy because you may need much heavier equipment to break it, or less heavy equipment to break it, because one of the things that how we break the rock is with the heavy material and the power. So these are challenges in the gravity we may use as an advantage. So moving things easier in less gravity, right? It was very well done in Martian movie. You know it was very good on that movie. So the radiation exposure is another one. I think all of them are engineering challenges, but to me, is the distance is the biggest challenge because it's extremely high cost.

Neil Martin  18:37

How easy is it to test those things as well. If we're planning to go to the moon or Mars or an asteroid, like you said, the conditions are very, very different to those on Earth. So how do you test that? How do you test for that gravity issue, for example? How do you test for the regolithh abrasion? We might not be able to replicate those conditions easily on Earth, I would imagine. Is that true?

Serkan Saydam  19:03

Exactly. So UNSW has laboratory on space resources engineering. We established. So we got test beds for that, and we got dirty vacuum chamber, which we can establish the vacuum environment as well as the temperature. So we can simulate and replicate temperature and vacuum, but we can't do gravity. So you know the only thing that you can replicate gravity with the parabolic flight, which you got only a couple of seconds to test gravity. So that's challenging. On the other hand, we have some crane activities, so like dropping, but it's the gravity only can be tested. I think numerically with the conditions of adding like temperature and other physical, so we can guess.

Neil Martin  19:56

Yeah, it's going to be a case of we think this is going to happen. Until we're actually there doing it, yeah, engineers are pretty good on this.

Serkan Saydam  20:03

You know, I think we can do it. So everyone is looking at testing regolithh, because regolithh Simulants is easier to make it. We have UNSW regolithh we developed ourselves, and the point is regolith, can be tested and built very similar to Moon and Mars, but rock impossible to simulate, replicate, because rock is formed very differently in space compared to Earth. So that's I learned very recently. So you can't really do rock testing of any planets on Earth unless otherwise you collect them, which we collected some moon pieces. You know, the last one was in Apollo 17. Actually, Harrison Schmitt collected and did some seismic. So Harrison Schmitt, we are in the same group. It's astronaut. He's the only scientist went to moon. All the other words are like pilot. So that's very important. And he was geologist.

Neil Martin  21:08

Bringing people into it-that's a good segue. Maybe do we think that these mining operations are going to be, you know, companies sending people, or are we just going to have robots? If it's complicated, do we need people there, or do you think kind of robotic machinery is capable of doing this, or does it have to be robots because we literally can't send people?

Serkan Saydam  21:33

I don't know. I can guess. We did it years ago, another interview together, and I said it's going to be done by robots. I think I was wrong.

Neil Martin  21:43

Wrong. Okay.

Serkan Saydam  21:44

I was wrong on that. So I think it was in 2015 or 16, if I remember. 

Neil Martin  21:47

This is an ever changing.

Serkan Saydam  21:51

Yeah, so I'm a researcher. I'm learning every day, and I'm I can change my mind. That's the beauty of research.

Neil Martin  21:56

So why have you changed your view?

Serkan Saydam  21:58

Because robots definition, I learn a bit better. Robots make their own decision, so I think that's not going to happen at the beginning. Always humans will make decisions. Therefore, space industry is very closely looking at mining operations, especially in Australia, because we are best on remote operations. So even though actual mining currently happening remote operations nearby, and yeah, okay, we got remote operations pert. We operate in you know the Pilbara, that's still far, but it's not far compared to another planet. So my guess still will be semi-autonomous systems. Still decisions will be made by humans, either nearby, like fly-in, fly-out operations. I think that's going to happen at the beginning.

Neil Martin  22:56

So they would be maybe orbiting in probably

Serkan Saydam  23:00

will be in the spaceship in orbiting, and or in the international space station, or multiple stations will be built, or even from Earth for Moon, because the delay is only 1.3 seconds communication delay. 

Neil Martin  23:14

It's not too big a problem.

Serkan Saydam  23:15

Yeah, but for Mars is completely different story. 

Neil Martin  23:20

20 minutes delay right?

Serkan Saydam  23:20

Plus you lose contact for two years because of the orbital situation of Mars and Moon. So Mars, you gotta stay in Mars orbit. Then becomes another challenge: how human being will behave physically, mentally, in space, because the longest person to stay in the International Space Station one year. So, what I'm saying for the Mars case, you can stay 30 days, 30 days to 500 days, between 30 days to 500 days. Very similar to Martian movie. That's why they left Matt Damon. That's why they left him, and they had to leave because they were losing the point that they moving away. So the Mars is 54 million kilometres away from Earth. That's the closest point. The largest, longest one is 225 million kilometres, compared to Moon is 384,000 kilometres. Getting to Moon is three to four days, which Artemis two did it in four days. Apollo did it faster in three days. Getting Mars is six to nine months, which we have fuel to take them there. We don't have fuel to bring that back, yeah. So we need to extract energy while we are in Mars between 30 to 500 days, or it's a continuing operation is already existing.

Neil Martin  24:51

Does that lean towards the importance of these colonisations that you speak about? Like, do we need those? Establish colonies to have groups of scientists, geologists, like you said, mining experts in situ living on Mars, to then be able to start these operations to a level that is required.

Serkan Saydam  25:14

I believe we will have permanent colony, both on the Moon and Mars, but the people will be flying, fly out.

Neil Martin  25:22

Right.

Serkan Saydam  25:23

That's my feeling because it's too risky for them to stay longer in the looking at their physical conditions. We don't know. That's big question mark for me because safety is the highest priority for us. You know, especially as a mining engineer, we can't risk people's life. So accidents may happen, but we will do the proper risk management and control the risks and reduce the risks, potential risks. 

Neil Martin  25:55

But would you be putting your hand up for a fly-in, fly-out job too? 

Serkan Saydam  25:58

I mean, if I was10 years younger, I would definitely be interested, but unfortunately, in my age, if they accept me, I'm happy to go. You know.

Neil Martin  26:08

Well, that might be my next question. You say that you're confident that that will happen. Do you think that will happen in five to 10 years or 30 to 50 years? What's your kind of time frame for that? 

Serkan Saydam  26:20

 You asked me this question 10 years ago. I said 10 years.

Neil Martin  26:22

Right.

Serkan Saydam  26:23

It's 10 years past. It didn't happen. So I would say 10 years again. But it will happen. And by looking at the Artemis one in 2022, I guess Artemis two now 26, Artemis three four in next five years, in parallel European Space Agency Moon Village, it's also 25 to 2035. 10 years makes sense to me, but things can be fastened or escalated if a typical resource we find on the moon, which we don't have on Earth, and we desperately need things. Gonna be very different.

Neil Martin  27:08

And you're doing a very good job of leading into what I'm wanting to ask you. You mentioned those big space agency, national space agency programs. Are they the only people that are involved in this, or is there a place for kind of private companies? When you say about those resources, I guess capitalism says that if there's a valuable resource on the moon and somebody can make money out of it, potentially there's an individual or a company that might get involved as well.

Serkan Saydam  27:38

Yeah, people think that NASA will do it. European Space Agency or Chinese will do it. Yeah, the agencies will do it. I think agencies, governments will be enabler, and they will encourage and provide incentives, and provide research to make things easier, to make decisions easier for the companies. I can't call myself futurist, mining futurist, but I love history. I always go back history and learn, try to learn from history. If you look at aviation technology inventions, innovations, first man flight in Istanbul in 1400s, Hezarfen Çelebi died, and Montgolfier brothers in 1700s had air balloon. They were successful. Actually, the first people really successfully fly flew, and of course, Wright brothers in early 1900s. They were not agencies. They were not funded by government. They were technical entrepreneur and scientists, so that will be the same. I believe, like companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, they are technology providers, and but they using currently government funding to support their research. That's what the governments should do. To me, a company will do space or off-Earth mining activity and produce water and the energy to sell colony. Probably, colony will be owned by agencies, governments. Then the governments will be customer. That's what I guess will happen in near time in next 50 years.

Neil Martin  29:28

So there's a symbiotic relationship going on there. But maybe the bottom line is, if there's money to be made, and I think you mentioned it there, that might be the driving force. If somebody thinks we can go and find something that costs 20 million per kilo, and bring it back for 10 million. The numbers add up.

Serkan Saydam  29:48

I mean, money is the biggest motivation for human right to do things. So why do we need spices, resources in the past? Because to make money, right? So I think it's. Same thing. Of course, the ownership and rights is a huge issue. I mean, if you look at governance of Earth minerals, already been set to look at the long-term care of Earth, and if you look at that in space, there is no difference. However, the big difference: we don't have regulations yet. Actually, the working group on space resources by the committee on the peaceful uses of outer space, COPUOS, is actually developing this regulation right now on what's going to be the ownership and rights for the resources on the Moon space, because as you highlighted, monopolization can happen, which we don't like. Monopolisation can create security issues and conflict between the companies and nations.

Neil Martin  30:53

I guess it comes down to yeah, like you said, people will be thinking it's going to be the same big global companies who've got money to be able to go and be involved in this off-Earth mining, then they control it. They can charge whatever they want. They make more money. What is the benefit? 

Serkan Saydam  31:12

So the royalties needs to be set, taxation. But where are you going to pay this tax? Which government you will pay? That's we have that problem already on Earth at the moment.

Neil Martin  31:20

Yeah. 

Serkan Saydam  31:22

But you know, we have we had this problem in the sea, oceans, but International Seabed Authority had regulations. Have regulations still, deep sea mining not yet. We don't have regulations. That's completely another path. We can do another interview on that, but you know, if you if you look at that, benefit sharing is an important thing. But one thing that I want to really highlight: intergenerational equity, which we do some activities now for our generation because we are living in this area, what's going to happen in the future generation? So we need to consider this. So it's called intergenerational equity. We need to really looking at an impact of economies. It's it's called space gap. So most of the mining activity is done in the low income countries on Earth. So they have significant economic benefits of doing mining. Let's say if we don't do mining on Earth, while we dig in our own backyard, we move to space in the future, in not in near future, 50 plus years or maybe 100. So what's going to happen those nations? So that's called space gap because spacefaring nations are high income countries. So therefore, benefit sharing concept is very important. One of my PhD students, he graduated, Ben Macian developed this idea about space resources funds. So basically, companies involved in space resource activities can contribute financially to the fund, and that fund then support further space industry development, and some part could be distributed to global nations, all the nations.

Neil Martin  33:17

How confident are you that that would actually happen, rather than we've put in all the money, we've taken all the risk, we'll keep all of that profit. Thank you very much.

Serkan Saydam  33:28

I got 20 plus research. I'm a professor, right? Everything starts with the hope. I am hopeful for everything. We can do if we need that. We can do if we are desperate, we coming to be desperate situation on Earth. I mean, we need a lot of minerals for the future, and we need to find a way of looking at outside of the Earth.

Neil Martin  33:56

I more meant the equity side of it in terms of how hopeful are you that those companies or even the more developed nations won't spread the wealth around, won't make sure that, as you said, those lower developed nations, which currently do make some money from mining resources, if they disappeared, you know what's going to happen?

Serkan Saydam  34:18

It's not my expertise. I'm only a mining engineer. However, first in, first served will only create conflict. I don't think it's the way to go.

Neil Martin  34:28

What other problems you've mentioned there about equity? But what other problems do we need to be aware of? I think you referenced something there before that you know we mine on Earth. Some people have some negative connotations of mining. They feel that we're, you know, ruining the planet. I guess their fear would be we're just going to export that problem somewhere else and start all over again and ruin the moon and ruin Mars.

Serkan Saydam  34:57

I don't want to call it ruining. Because mining is not ruining the earth, of course we're creating an environmental impact. But any engineering activity creates this environmental impact. If we got a new shopping centre, everyone rush to it. It's super nice, but how we built this shopping centre, we need minerals to do that. So nobody thinks that. So when is new smartphone comes up. Everyone rush to get one. We need minerals to build this smartphone. You know, people just ignore that part. If off-Earth mining happens, what's the emissions impact? So we talk about the cost of launching, but we don't talk about the emission of the launching. So using the current fuel systems in rockets, how much emissions we create compared to if we do? I don't know the numbers, but one of my PhD student, former PhD student, published that paper, Dr. Dallas. She said that number of rocket launches at the moment, how much emissions creating compare if we create the space tourism, space mining, or whatever, we will escalate the number of launches to numbers. She did the modeling and found out that the emissions will increase significantly on Earth because of the high number of rocket launches. So the question is either we're not going to do it or we're going to change the field.

Neil Martin  36:20

Right.

Serkan Saydam  36:20

So that's why maybe we need fusion in the future to do that.

Neil Martin  36:23

I was going to say you said before you were you like your history, you like looking back, and as you said, this has happened. This kind of exploration into new lands, new territories has happened before. I guess there are lessons. What what would be the one big lesson that you would hope we could learn from history, like a mistake that we don't make.

Serkan Saydam  36:45

Minerals are not sustainable, but operations are sustainable. And I will go beyond that. It has to be ethical. So even sometimes something is regulated, may not be ethical, may be sustainable. So we create enormous amount of waste in mining. It's sustainable, it's regulated, but may not be ethical. So because we're creating that much waste, so we need to create sustainable and ethical operations on the planetary operations. I mean, off-Earth mining operations must be sustainable as well as ethical. So we need to consider cultural impacts, environmental impacts to that planet and environment. So we need to carefully look at everything. So main thing is we need to really develop the sustainable and ethical operations in the future, that's what we haven't done in the past very, very carefully.

Neil Martin  37:46

Well, it's certainly going to be fascinating to watch how this all develops in the future, with as you mentioned, American, European Space Agency, and Chinese missions, which I think are scheduled to be growing in the next few years, so watch this space, Professor Serkan Saydam. It's been absolutely great to chat with you. Thanks for being here.

Serkan Saydam  38:09

Thank you very much, Neil. It was really nice, and looking forward to hearing the comments and things.

Neil Martin  38:16

I'm sure the positive. I'm sure we'll get a lot. It's a very emotive topic. Unfortunately, that's all we've got time for right now. Thank you for listening. I've been Neil Martin, and I hope you'll join me again soon for the next episode of our Engineering the Future series.

Outro

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