The Trillionaire

 Yes, because of the technological progress that this trillionaire will bring us.

Goldman Sachs, an American investment bank, as well as Neil deGrasse Tyson both agree that the world’s first trillionaire will be whoever spearheads asteroid mining.

The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter contains an estimated 1.1–1.9 million asteroids that are at least 1 kilometer in diameter[1]. These contain valuable minerals such as iron, platinum, gold, nickel, and cobalt. The total potential wealth of the asteroid belt has been estimated at 100 billion dollars per capita, equating 760 quintillion dollars in total. This is world economy shattering stuff.

Of course, getting there won’t be cheap. NASA spent 450 million dollars on a spacecraft just to explore a particularly valuable asteroid[2]. A spacecraft capable of actually grabbing an asteroid would cost around 2.6 billion dollars.

Most likely, the technological and financial tresholds to start with asteroid mining are not that high, it will be more of a psychological barrier that we have to cross. How do we justify spending billions of dollars on space missions while there are still problems on Earth to solve? Some people would argue that we should wait until all those problems are somehow fixed, before we start looking up. Pure nonsense, if you ask me, but it could be a constraint if the opposition gains enough of a foothold.

This is also not an operation that can be taken lightly. Although you could start with one asteroid-grabbing mission as a trial run, it is unlikely that this will give you a significant profit. So, to truly kick this off, you need to increase the scale of the operation and improve the efficiency, like Elon Musk has done with Tesla and SpaceX.

That means orbital stations, mass production of probes capable of grabbing asteroids, and possibly bases on the Moon and Mars for refuelling. Regarding the latter, it may be possible that another trillionaire will be whoever controls the poles of Mars. The ice that is present there, presents a unique potential source of water in the solar system and could be the catalyst of human expansion into the Solar System.

Thus, the first trillionaires will likely be seen in a similar light as Elon Musk. There will for sure be critics. There will be plenty of people who do not understand space exploration. There will also be people with legitimate reasons to be skeptical, for example, people who are afraid of a technological singularity and intelligence explosion (the creation of a machine superintelligence). This can be illustrated by looking at our long-term world GDP:

The rate of growth is increasing exponentially to the point where it becomes impossible to predict what the future will look like. In 5,000 BC, just after the Agricultural Revolution, it took 909 years for the world GDP to grow by 100%. Nowdays, this is about 6.3 years. With an intelligence explosion, the world economy could double in size every two weeks. This is currently beyond our comprehension or prediction models. If you are interested in this subject, I recommend the book Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom.

Regardless, despite the inevitable presence of critics, I believe the first trillionaires will mostly be heralded as pioneers of the human race. They are the ones who can supply us with minerals after our modern food industry has exhausted them - which could happen in 50–60 years[4] - saving millions of lives. They are also the ones who can finally uplift the human race into space where we can, perhaps, transcend what it means to be human and mortal, and get rid of rampant disease. Whether it will be worth it and if we won’t all be turned into machines remains to be seen, but isn’t it worth trying?