Mining the heavens: extractivism, (re)making the frontier and outer space

Asteroid mining has had persistent traction for over a decade, with multiple valuations being touted despite mining activities having yet to take place. Private and State actors have advanced a series of discourses to enclose outer space: conceptually through (re)creating certain imaginaries and practically through creating various legislation, policies and accords. Indeed, moves to extend extractivist logics into outer space are rooted in the symbiotic relationship between capitalism and extraction. Stemming from these developments, this paper will utilise data produced during research conducted between 2017 and 2021 with European and American ‘New Space Economy’ (NSE) actors and materials associated with their activities. Through an assortment of interviews, participant observation and textual analysis of NSE documents, activities and actors, this paper explores how the asteroid mining sector is perpetuating extractivist logics into outer space. This is brought into discussion with geography’s critical interactions and investigations into the histories of extractivism and the Anthropocene to explore how outer space is being territorialised and (geo)political tensions (re)created regarding the increasingly contested governance of outer space.