An entire planetoid of high-grade nickel-iron, or a vein of rare earths might be too expensive to recover for terrestrial industry to drag home and exploit successfully, but some alien bugs would be the key to an entire new biochem or genetics industry. Even fossils of alien life might be of great value: consider that petroleum is a fossil, and it can be refined into all sorts of useful products. Complex molecules can be altered and reassembled into new compounds, and the products of an alien biochemistry might have totally unexpected properties. We wouldn’t even need to bring them home in bulk quantities, if we found something really interesting we could always synthesize it here on earth.

The only thing I can think of more value than an alien biochemistry would be an artifact from an alien civilization, perhaps a wrecked probe or derelict spacecraft from another stellar system. But that’s a long shot. Space germs are a lot more likely and a distinct possibility.

The most viable option, according to Dr Tucker, is to mine an asteroid “locally” by nudging a near-earth asteroid into the gravitational grip of the Earth, moon and sun, which will keep it hovering above the Earth.

Essentially, mining asteroids.

The Australian Asteroid Mining Project formed in August and has ambitions of getting a prototype mission off the ground by mid 2020s.

As a nation experienced in mining and on the verge of getting its own space agency, Dr Tucker said this could be Australia’s opportunity to make its mark on space.

“If asteroid mining becomes successful, it will be the only time in human history when we have an infinite supply of resources,” he said.

“This has the potential to change the global scheme and how mining is done and it is not that far away.”