Research on the impact of asteroid mining on global equity

TL;DR

This paper develops a model to measure global equity and evaluates how asteroid mining could impact it, using simulations and policy analysis to ensure benefits are shared globally.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Unified Equity Index (UEI) model and assesses asteroid mining's potential effects on global fairness through simulations and policy scenarios.

Findings

Asteroid mining can positively influence global equity under certain policies.

The proposed model effectively measures changes in global fairness.

Policy interventions can enhance the benefits of asteroid mining for all nations.

Abstract

In the future situation, aiming to seek more resources, human beings decided to march towards the mysterious and bright starry sky, which opened the era of great interstellar exploration. According to the Outer Space Treaty, any exploration of celestial bodies should be aimed at promoting global equality and for the benefit of all nations. Firstly, we defined global equity and set a Unified Equity Index (UEI) model to measure it. We merge the factors with greater correlation, and finally, get 6 elements, and then use the entropy method (TEM) to find the dispersion of these elements in different countries. Then use principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce the dimensionality of the dispersion, and then use the scandalized index to obtain the global equity. Secondly, we simulated a future with asteroid mining and evaluated its impact on Unified Equity Index (UEI). Then, we divided the mineable asteroids into three classes with different mining difficulties and values, identified 28 mining entities including private companies, national and international organizations. We considered changes in the asteroid classes, mining capabilities and mining scales to determine the changes in the value of minerals mined between 2025 and 2085. We convert mining output value into mineral transaction value through allocation matrix. Based on grey relational analysis (GRA). Finally, we presented three possible versions of the future of asteroid mining by changing the conditions. We propose two sets of corresponding policies for changes in future trends in global fairness with asteroid mining. We test the separate and combined effects of these policies and find that they are positive, strongly supporting the effectiveness of our model.