Lannan13's 300th Debate: Resolved: The United States Federal Government should mine asteroids.

Let us jump right into this. I will address all of my opponent's contention, but in a different order. I first want to address the issues here on Earth that were brought up. ==China and REMs on Earth== My opponent claims that 95% of the world's REM belong to China. This is inaccurate and completely misleading. China currently produces 95% of our REM, but they only hold 23% of the current proven reserves [1]. China merely cornered the market by undermining the price in the 1990's. If they stop providing REMs, we can just open back up our current mines for significantly less than mining from asteroids. We are already looking to open some back up [2][3]. The US alone has about 13 million tons of REM [4], this is currently enough to supply us for over 1,000 years [4]. Another key source on Earth is actually the other way from space, to the bottom of the ocean [5][6]. The estimates on how much is there are still vague, but all estimates put it around or above the 110 million tonnes on the surface, giving us thousands of years of supply. And, while my opponent points out that China cut exporting to Japan and imposed other restrictions in early 2012, they were forced to drop those that same year, since having the REMs but not able to use them all was pointless to them [7]==Money in Space==The money to be made in Asteroids from space is grossly exagerated. From my opponent's own source [8]"'Deep Space Industries is being far too optimistic about this particular rock,' Michael Busch, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, told SPACE. com via email. 'Nick Moskovitz at MIT has obtained an IR spectrum of DA14, and it is an L-class object,' he added. 'That means a stony composition, made of iron-magnesium-silicates, and minimal water and accessable metal content. It also is not obvious how much the value of water and metal in Earth orbit would decrease with an increased supply. '" A significant amount of the money is estimated to be in water. Regarding the $195 billion asteroid that my opponent referenced (and that the quote comes from), $65 billion is for water. This is inflated on two scales to make it seem more profitable than it is. It is based on the number that it costs $20,000 per liter to send water to the ISS. First, the Falcon 9 can take 13,150 liters of water to the ISS for $61.2 million [9], or only $4,650 per liter, over 75% less than my opponent's claims. The other issue is that the ISS only consumes about 1,270 liters of water a year[10][11] (you have to use both sources, [10] shows that it would be 40,000 lbs or 18,200 liters per year if it wasn't for the recycling and [11] shows that it is currently at 93% efficent at recycling the water). This particular asteroid has 3.25 million liters (estimated) of water in it. As you can see, there is no demand, at that price point, for that much water. Talking about the value of the water is like talking about the value of an extremely rare coin after finding millions of them in a warehouse and not adjusting the value. My opponent talks about the cost to retrieve the elements. He states that it is $2.7 billion (then later $2.6 billion), but I cannot find that located in any of his sources. ==Alternative Profits in Space==Alternatively, the Moon is much easier to find, get to, and get back from. Because it is tidally locked with Earth, the same side of the Moon always faces us, the return trip will not requiring waiting for a particular time of the month. The Moon contains a treasure trove of material, from metals like Titanium [12] to nobel gases like He3 [13]. But, most importantly, it has a ton of KREEP (which includes REMs) [14][15]. If water is still a concern, Ceres (a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, making up over 1/3 of the mass of the entire belt) has more water on its surface than the entire planet of Earth [16], and likely, and unimaginable amount of REM under the ice crust. These points address all that my opponent has brought up and more. I will now pass it back to him. Thank you,[1] . http://www.bbc.com... [2] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] . http://www.gwmg.ca...;[4] . http://www.usgs.gov...;[5] . http://www.mining.com...;[6] . http://www.nature.com...;[7] . http://www.theregister.co.uk...[8] . http://www.space.com...;[9] . http://en.wikipedia.org...;[10] . http://science.nasa.gov...;[11] . http://www.nasa.gov...;[12] . http://www.space.com...;[13] . http://news.discovery.com...;[14] . http://rbth.com...;[15] . http://www.planetary.org...;[16] . http://www.space.com...;