Mars is a dusty planet. From tiny dust devils to vast storms that shroud the planet, dust is a constant challenge for research missions. That was especially true for Ingenuity, the rotorcraft that since February 2021 has been exploring Mars alongside NASA's Perseverance rover. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology, the Space Science Institute, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have completed the first real-world study of Martian dust dynamics based on Ingenuity's historic first flights on the Red Planet, paving the way for future extraterrestrial rotorcraft missions.

The work, reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, could support NASA's Mars Sample Return Program, which will retrieve samples collected by Perseverance, or the Dragonfly mission that will set course for Titan, Saturn's largest moon, in 2027.

We know the world must move to cleaner energy sources to head off the worst effects of climate change, but the technology required for the transition is very mineral-intensive. So where will all these resources come from?

Many in the space industry are pointing beyond Earth. Asteroids and the Moon are thought to contain abundant platinum group elements needed in the transition, as well as other valuable resources. This has prompted a push towards commercial mining in outer space.

California-based company AstroForge is the latest company to make strides into the space mining rush. The company last week announced plans to launch two missions this year—one to refine platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material, and another to find an asteroid near Earth to mine.

Proponents of mining in space often point to the potential benefits for Earth and its people. But how certain are these benefits? Our research casts doubt on many of them.

A very risky bet

Space mining supporters often claim a bounty of space resources exist, and exploiting them would generate trillions of dollars in mining revenue.

"Never again" is the phrase echoed among NASA leaders recalling the last major tragedy in the space program that occurred 20 years ago this week, when Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003, never making its way back home to Florida.

But with more spacecraft, more players and farther-flung destinations like the moon and Mars, the potential for another disaster has grown.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who as a member of Congress flew on the space shuttle on the mission immediately before the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, recalled this week how engineers at one of the shuttle's contractors told their managers to call off the launch because of the weather. The cold was ultimately blamed for shrinking an O-ring that led to the explosion.

"The management would not listen to the engineers begging them to stop the count, and that went up all the way to the top," Nelson said.

The warning signs for Columbia on STS-107 were out there as well. Nelson's mission's shuttle commander, Robert "Hoot" Gibson, told Nelson how he would always inspect the orbiter in space during missions he flew in the time between the two shuttle disasters.

Before going to the moon, the Apollo astronauts trained at various sites on Earth that best approximated the lunar surface, such as the volcanic regions Iceland, Hawaii and the U.S. Southwest. To help prepare for upcoming robotic and human Artemis missions, a newly upgraded "mini-moon" lunar testbed will allow astronauts and robots to test out realistic conditions on the moon including rough terrain and unusual sunlight.