We want to mine space resources from near-Earth asteroids to provide abundant, sustainable energy and resources in space and for Earth.
Our Mission and Operating Principles
Asteroid mining has lived at the intersection of scientific research and popular culture for decades, with as many academic papers published as there are books, TV shows and movies about it.
Access to resources, with its finite nature and disparate distribution, plays an essential part in the geopolitical web of power and wealth. It has defined economic growth to such an extent that we have been using them as primary demarcation lines and identifiers in our history, from the stone to bronze and iron age to our current silicon age.
But our resources-driven growth faces a massive existential challenge, with climate change, ecosystem degradation and resource depletion demanding a complete reset. Humanity needs to shift global transportation, manufacturing, construction and energy onto a sustainable path.
Expanding beyond the Kármán line is where we believe transformative future growth and innovation will be found. Recent missions by NASA (OSIRIS-REx & DART) and JAXA (Hayabusa2) have firmly pushed the idea of using space resources from academic research into commercial opportunity.
We believe the Regolith Age, powered by abundant space resources, is an inevitability that we can accelerate.
Our long term goals
- Mine asteroids at scale (cost/kg, mass return measured in tonnes/day)
Our competition is the cost and carbon emissions of launching from Earth, which drives the relative expense of making any amount of material available in a certain orbit. - Find product-market fit for asteroid regolith ($/kg, product applications, volume demand)
Water for propulsion and regolith ceramics for shielding (radiation and re-entry), up to larger scale applications such as building the structural elements of space solar power plants. - Jumpstart space economy and space mining ecosystem (companies engaged with regolith)
A sustainable ecosystem combines many different companies with specialized focus and skill sets, which takes time and effort to mature and nurture. Resources enable and boost growth, allowing us to create an accelerating positive feedback loop as activity drives more activity.
Our principles
These principles are intended to reflect our shared system of values and behaviors. They touch on how we work (both alone and together), how we collaborate, how we communicate and who we aim to be.
- Iterative innovation. We are working in uncharted territory, which we navigate from first principles through rapid iteration. We optimize for learning as quickly as possible and adjusting our approach as we go. Many of our ideas today will prove wrong and will require us to adjust. The ability to learn quickly and iterate/change our direction is key to success.
- Rigorous focus. We are intentional about what we don’t do. We use clear and measurable goals to define success, stay on track and ensure focus. Clear goals enable autonomy at the team and individual contributor level, while ensuring accountability.
- Feedback is a gift. We prefer to talk about what we’ve done, not what we’re planning to do. We value ideas and inspiration and embrace partnerships, both to learn and improve as well as to give back. We care deeply about intellectual honesty and appreciate having our minds changed.
- Open source collaboration. We believe information should be accessible and available to provide context and facilitate decision making. This applies to information internally, but also extends to external collaborations where we optimize for ecosystem growth in how and where we disclose our inventions. We default to being open.
- Positive intent and impact. We are not just working for ourselves or for the technical challenge, but are trying to have a fundamentally positive impact. We assume positive intentions from our colleagues and partners with that frame of mind.
Our location
Our home base is in Denver, Colorado. Our address: