Some of the greatest journeys of human history are the result of our unquenchable thirst for exploration. Our drive to understand and see the world around us led humanity to rapidly spread from Africa’s Great Rift Valley to all corners of the globe. And as our technology improved, we continued to push the limits — diving deep into the oceans, climbing the world’s tallest mountains, flinging space probes beyond our solar system’s heliosphere, and even riding a rocket so we could stroll on the Moon.

Our adventurous and inquisitive spirit — as well as, perhaps, our innate desire to build wealth — is a major part of what makes humans human. And at present, it seems this eagerness for exploration has poised us on the edge of an entirely new era altogether, one that many think will gild the first trillionaires: the era of space mining.

Taking industry to space

At the brink of this new age, which is beginning at a time when humans are just coming to terms with the long-awaited consequences of the imperial epoch of global expansion, it is necessary to take a moment to talk about the non-monetary costs of a seemingly inevitable space rush.

Distant rocky worlds in the solar system entice development with the promise of mineral riches. And an entire industry has already begun to materialize with the sole concern of how to harvest the abundance of precious resources the solar system stores off-Earth. However, the rules of space mining are still quite vague — at best.

History, though, has already given us some glimpses of what the expansion might look like.

Take, for example, California, a popular site of the American gold rush. The owner of the land where the first gold flecks were found, John Sutter, died a pauper. It was the industrialists and merchants who minted the greatest wealth. Those that profited in spades weren’t the ones busy coaxing gold out of the ground, they were the ones literally selling the spades. The Hearst family fortune was built on silver mine real estate, Levi Strauss sold denim jeans to miners, and Sam Brannan peddled shovels, pickaxes, and mining pans. And, of course, a vast transit industry bloomed as railroads innervated the melee.

Like with the gold rush, the space rush will see outfitters and transporters driving development and investment across the solar system. Elon Musk is leading the pack precisely because he has realized that the capital barrier to entry into space will allow his company, SpaceX, to act as intermediary — and the public has supported his vision to the tune of some $36 billion. Involvement of other companies, supported by investment firms like Starbridge Venture Capital, suggest that both the monetary costs, and industrial subsidy of those costs, seem assured.

Yet, the next question we must face is more complex: How do we mitigate the scientific costs of the new space rush?