World’s First Trillionaire Will Make Fortune In Outer Space, Claims Goldman Sachs

The next big industry to develop and ultimately give rise to the world’ first trillionaire is asteroid mining, states Goldman Sachs, according to RT.

This is not the first time the company has discussed the future mining of asteroids. Goldman Sachs has long indicated that this new industry could yield unprecedented financial gain due to the bounty of precious metal resources that currently lie unexploited inside space rocks.

Last year, the global investment firm advocated for asteroid mining in a 98-page report describing the estimated costs of such a venture, as well as the predicted gains of this type of investment, Business Insider reported at the time.

According to the 2017 report, mining asteroids in outer space could be achieved far easier than we would normally expect.

“While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower,” Noah Poponak, an aerospace and materials analyst at Goldman, wrote in the 2017 report.

“Prospecting probes can likely be built for tens of millions of dollars each and Caltech has suggested an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft could cost $2.6 billion,” showed the report.

Other voices have also spoken out in favor of asteroid mining and hailed the financial benefits that could stem from such an investment.

Physicist Michio Kaku has indicated that humanity would greatly benefit from turning to asteroid mining as a way of solving the resource shortage crisis our planet is currently facing.

In his opinion, asteroids are “a flying gold mine in outer space” brimming with a wide assortment of minerals, including iron, nickel, carbon, cobalt, platinum, rhodium, and iridium. These valuable resources could be harvested and transported back to Earth to replenish our rapidly depleting stores.

Luxembourg ?? leads the trillion-dollar race to become the Silicon Valley of asteroid mining ?https://t.co/yhMRHz4dcl pic.twitter.com/TGEXqm0Tn7

— LTIO Abu Dhabi (@LTIOgulf) April 17, 2018

Considering that just one 3,000-foot wide asteroid is estimated to yield $5.4 trillion worth of platinum, there’s little wonder as to why Goldman Sachs anticipates mining to become a trillion-dollar industry. Smaller asteroids that don’t exceed 100 feet across are estimated to have precious metal contents of around $50 billion, the Daily Star stated earlier this year.

Kaku has even predicted a “galactic gold rush” in which the Earth’s nations will compete against each other to reach the most sought-after resources, reports the Daily Star.

Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson agrees with Kaku’s prediction.

“The first trillionaire there will ever be is the person who exploits the natural resources on asteroids.”

Tyson believes that asteroid mining, which opens up a whole new, wider horizon, would help prevent future conflicts over resource access.

“There’s this vast universe of limitless energy and limitless resources. I look at wars fought over access to resources. That could be a thing of the past, once space becomes our backyard,” he said in a statement.

With the trillion-dollar race so close to starting, Luxembourg is not wasting any time and has already begun taking steps to shift the nation’s focus on asteroid mining, notes RT.

The small European country established a Space Resources Initiative in 2016 and intends to grant $223 million of the nation’s space budget to companies working toward space mining.

“Our goal is to put into place an overall framework for the exploration and commercial use of resources from ‘celestial bodies’ such as asteroids, or from the moon,” said Etienne Schneider, Luxembourg’s deputy prime minister and minister of the economy.