Here's an article from the NY Times about biomining experiments currently being conducted on the International Space Station; this (directly and indirectly) relates to
SpaceX, Tesla and Elon's quest to colonize space.
These Microbes May Help Future Martians and Moon People Mine Metals
The following are a few excerpts:
"
Space colonists, like people on Earth, will need what are known as rare earth elements, which are critical to modern technologies. These 17 elements, with daunting names like yttrium, lanthanum, neodymium and gadolinium, are sparsely distributed in the Earth’s crust. Without the rare earths, we wouldn’t have certain lasers, metallic alloys and powerful magnets that are used in cellphones and
electric cars. But
mining them on Earth today is an arduous process. It requires crushing tons of ore and then extracting smidgens of these metals using chemicals that leave behind rivers of toxic waste water.
Dr. Cockell and his colleagues wanted to know whether these microbes would still live and function as effectively on
Mars, where the pull of gravity on the surface is just 38 percent of Earth’s, or even when there is no gravity at all. So they sent some of them to the International Space Station last year.
The next SpaceX cargo mission to the space station, currently scheduled for December, will carry a follow-up experiment called BioAsteroid. Instead of basalt, the match box-size containers will contain pieces of meteorites and fungi. They, rather than bacteria, will be the agents they test for breaking down the rock.
'
I think eventually, you could scale this up to do it on Mars,' Dr. Cockell said."
I wonder if biomining is being considered by Tesla here on Earth for their mining plans--it has the potential to be cleaner and more cost efficient than current mining techniques. And Elon did say he didn't want to divulge all the secret ingredients during Battery Day...
