GineersNow Engineering Magazine November 2016 Issue No 009

Will Hodgman
Photo by TheAdvocate
TASMANIAN GOVERNMENT
WILL TAKE OVER
AUSTRALIA’S OLDEST MINE
The Tasmanian government
has seen a new opportunity
to bring back to life an
Australia’s oldest mine. In
an interview with NDTV, the
premier of Tasmania Will
Hodgman announced that
the Tasmanian government
plans to restart a copper
mine that was once the
property of Australia. This
announcement came after
Hodgman's trade mission to
India.
The Mt Lyell copper mine
is set to restart next year.
He said, "It is a sizable
operation and at its peak
could employ well over
300 Tasmanians. So it is
an important opportunity
for us to demonstrate our
support to Vedanta, the
Copper Mines of Tasmania.”
The copper mine started
operating back in 1896 as a
gold mine. It has produced
around 62 tonnes of gold,
1,300 tonnes of silver and
over 1.8 million tonnes of
copper. Hodgman said
the mine has the capacity
to produce around 30,000
tonnes of copper per year.
The Mount Lyell mine has
been under maintenance
two years ago due to the
accidents which led to the
deaths of three workers. One
died from a mudslide while
the other two were killed in a
mine shaft accident.
Photo by TheMercury
TURNING ASTEROIDS INTO
SPACECRAFTS FOR MINING
Since our mineral resources are starting
to run out, a lot of companies are looking
into the possibility of asteroid mining.
But wait, it’s not that easy. There are still
a lot of challenges ahead as companies
develop the right technologies for outer
space mining. At least the US has already
worked on the legal aspect of mining in
asteroids though.
But how is it possible for asteroid mining
to occur when it’s not very economical
for companies to send spacecrafts to
space and collect minerals?
A 3D printing company (based in
Mountain View, California) just had a
brilliant idea. Made In Space suggested
that we’d let the asteroids come to
us instead. According to Mike Wall
from Space.com, this concept is called
Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical
Automata, RAMA. This technology uses
3D printing that turns asteroids into selfflying
vehicles. An unmanned spacecraft
would be launched into space and
goes to an asteroid. It’ll mine minerals
and uses these samples into a 3D print
simple propulsion, then sends them to
our planet. As soon as it’s done with the
asteroid, it’ll move on to the next one.
NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts
program gave $100,000 to the concept
to provide funds for its feasibility studies.
We’ll just have to see if this becomes a
reality for all of us.
Photo by Space.com
54
NOVEMBER 2016
Mining Engineering and Its Importance