Abstract

The Third Future Mining Conference 2015 will address innovations and opportunities to transfer scientific and technological developments from other disciplines into the minerals industry. It will examine the human factors and skill needs for the future operations, identify possible blue sky scenarios of Mining in the Future, strategies of mining education and research, novel mining systems and future commodities and directions. Furthermore, the Second Off-Earth Mining Forum will be held as a post-conference event on 6 November 2015. The conference will provide a forum for communication industry leaders as well as industry partners including scientists, engineers, executives, investors, government representatives, academics and other stakeholders. The 2nd Off-Earth Mining Forum will take place immediately following the Future Mining Conference. The traditional way to do business in space has been to provide communications, remote sensing or satellite navigation services. As new markets emerge in space tourism, commercial launch, and low-cost space platforms, it is becoming increasingly attractive to use space resources "in-situ", i.e. to extract resources from space (asteroids, the moon, Mars) for use in space. Pursuing that aim provides a wide range of opportunities for researchers, developers and investors. The forum will host speakers from across the spectrum of off-earth mining issues: missions, resources, mining technologies, robotics, automation, instrumentation, legal impediments, business risks, and ethical considerations.