When people think of space travel, they usually picture majestic rocket launches, gleaming satellites and brave astronauts. Yet the path to the stars does not begin on the launch pad in Cape Canaveral or Baikonur, but deep underground—in the world’s mines. Without a handful of highly specialised metals, our dreams of Mars colonies and global satellite internet would quite literally never get off the ground. In an era in which the “Space Race 2.0” between the US, China and private giants such as SpaceX is in full swing, strategic raw materials are becoming the true currency of power.
The “ingredient list” for rockets and satellites includes many strategic metals, because a spacecraft is essentially a highly complex metal cage that must withstand extreme conditions. For example, during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere it must be able to endure extremely high temperature differences within seconds. The fluctuations expected go far beyond what we humans on Earth experience as “severe” temperature swings.
From the searing heat of re-entry to the absolute-zero cold of the vacuum, it is a proverbial stone’s throw in space. This is where the “heroes of the periodic table” come into play. Particularly critical for aerospace engineering are: titanium, aluminium, lithium, nickel and rare earths such as neodymium.
Titanium is indispensable for the structure and engines, as it is lightweight and extremely heat-resistant. Aluminium-lithium alloys are the current standard when it comes to manufacturing fuel tanks. Nickel superalloys are essential in space technology to handle the enormous pressures in rocket engines. Last but not least, rare earths such as neodymium are also indispensable, because without them there would be no miniaturised electronics and no precise control systems either.
Affected companies: Who is worried about supply bottlenecks?
What applies to a car on Earth also applies in space travel: no customer will accept a vehicle that is not fully functional, and no one drives a car off a dealer’s lot if the boot lock has not been installed because it was not available at the time. Car buyers are even more sensitive when it comes to parts relevant to driving safety. No customer gets into a vehicle without good reason if the brakes do not work or the steering suddenly fails.
Customers in space travel are no less demanding. On the contrary: their requirements are generally even higher due to the heavy loads in space and the associated risks. No one is therefore willing to settle for second-rate materials. The technically best solution is always chosen, and the metals required for it must be procured on the world market—no matter what.
If, however, the procurement of the required strategic materials fails, the dream of flying into space bursts long before launch. Supply difficulties and bottlenecks in sourcing the required strategic metals therefore affect not only companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, AST Space Mobile or NASA. European players such as ArianeGroup and satellite manufacturers such as Airbus Defence and Space or OHB also depend on global supply chains.
If China, for example, restricts exports of gallium or Russia—a giant in titanium production—is sanctioned, projects and schedules in the West can quickly be thrown off course. A modern satellite consists of thousands of components—if even a tiny amount of a specific metal for semiconductors is missing, then, analogous to a missing boot lock in a car, the entire production line can come to a halt very quickly.
The bottleneck: the geopolitics of supply chains
The problem is not necessarily the scarcity of the metals themselves, but their concentration. China controls almost 90% of rare earth processing. If Western companies want to go into space, they therefore paradoxically first have to examine—and, if necessary, eliminate—their dependencies on Earth. Only then can they seriously consider a flight into space. The Ukraine conflict, for example, has shown how fragile access to titanium is, and tensions in the Indo-Pacific are currently threatening the supply of high-tech minerals.
Conclusion: Strategic raw materials are the invisible backbone of space travel. Humanity’s future in space is being decided today in negotiations over mining rights and trade agreements. Whoever controls strategic metals also indirectly controls the path to the stars. China knows this and has positioned itself accordingly for years. The West, by contrast, has culpably neglected these strategic implications over recent decades.
