Mark’s career spans high school science teaching, then 6 years teaching Physics at University of Papua New Guinea, then studies in Medical Physics, and Occupational Hygiene and Industrial Hazard Management, then 40+ years in planning permitting and implementing radiation and safety management in uranium and rare earths projects worldwide.

After departing his role as Corporate OHS Manager WMC in 1995, Mark started his Radiation Safety Consultancy, and studies into asteroid resources, with a sabbatical at the Univ of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Lab. His resulting 1997 thesis, The Technical and Economic Feasibility of Mining the Near-Earth Asteroids, is still-widely-referenced in the space mining literature.

In 2012 Mark co-founded (with Rick Tumlinson and others) Deep Space Industries Inc, where he authored a Concepts and Scoping Study for a generic asteroid resource project. After leaving DSI, he founded an Australian start-up, Off Earth Resources Pty Ltd.

Over the last 5 years, OER has ‘pivoted’ from generic asteroid resource project studies to focus on a specific highly prospective and highly accessible target, and a specific near-term, low capex, risk-minimised project to initiate space resource commercialisation.

If you wish to learn more, contact me at mark.sonter@asteroidenterprises.com.