Company to Settle and Mine Mars

Rutgersen writes "Wired is reporting that a new startup is planning to colonize and mine Mars by 2025. From the article: 'The new company, 4Frontiers, plans to mine Mars for building materials and energy sources, and export the planet's mineral wealth to forthcoming space stations on the moon and elsewhere.'"

More like it

[phaetonic]

This is the kind of news I expect to read in 2005. Cool.

The company is using futuristing computing also

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear this company is using the following computers:
6.8GHz 1TB RAM and 2TB HDD Laptop

Numerials!

[Tachikoma]

Something about companies that have numerals in their names just makes them seem so reputable and trustworthy! I'm gonna sell my house and buy a butt-load of stock in them!!

Late Breaking News:

[TripMaster Monkey]

Today bleak despair swept across our fair world when it was revealed by the Council that the invaders from the evil blue planet have formalized their invasion plans, and may arrive in force in as little as ten years.

K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:

"Noble Citizens, I tell you that the disgusting inhabitants of the evil blue planet will not find us easy prey. We will never surrender. We will never give up. We will fight them on the dunes. We will fight them on the plains. We will fight them in the cities. We will fight them in the canals. We will fight them to the edge of the empire, but we will never, never, Never, Never, NEVER SURRENDER!"

During the hyper-patriotic riot that followed, several Citizens were trampled. In its infinite Wisdom, the Great Council has posthumously decorated them as war heroes.

Ooooh - Aliens!

[tygerstripes]

mine Mars for building materials and energy sources

Proof of an extinct alien life form then - fossilized bricks and dynamos.

pesky humans..

[abes]

Great, there goes the neighborhood!

NASA

[xlr8ed]

Someone should inform NASA so that they can remove any of their probes on the Martian surface. They cost a lot of money and I'm sure NASA would want to know if they are in danger.

Reak site

[pr0nbot]

Hmm... their real website seems to be slashdotted:

http://www.ua-corp.com/ [ua-corp.com]

Looks good.

[Rob T Firefly]

This is one of the better ideas for a startup company I've heard, but then again I've spent the past 15 years or so on the Internet.

Wow..

[angst7]

Welcome to BS day on Slashdot. Although by 2025 they may well have a 6 gHz laptop with 2TB of disk space to take along.

Re:Numerials!

[Bearpaw]

Something about companies that have numerals in their names just makes them seem so reputable and trustworthy! I'm gonna sell my house and buy a butt-load of stock in them!!

It's safer to diversify. May I suggest that you invest half in them and half in our company -- 69ers Incorporated?

(It's a mining company, of course.)

Re:Numerials!

[Proaxiom]

I myself am a bit wary of investing in a company whose business plan consists of collecting lots of cash and taking off to Mars with it.

Re:How?

[Transdimentia]

What did you say? I didn't read your response.

Re:More like it

[Anonymous Coward]

What news? All I can see is "You need Macromedia Flash to view this shite.".

1. Learn what a website is.
2. Colonize whatever
3. ???
4. Taco's a fag!!!

Re:How?

[Guysmiley777]

I DID read the article. Someone please tell ME how they are going to achieve this.

Calendar Check

[yimitz]

Anyone got a Martian calendar? I bet it says "April 1st."

I've got an even better idea!

[Nevtje(hr]

if they actually make it there, they should skip mining. instead, spray-paint Mars grey! ...so that by the time space-tourism really catches on, the first tourism site will be.... dum dum dum

the death star!

Re:How?

[Alystair]

Rumour has it that a little known company, Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), is also funding the project! Even then Budget was too minimal, so HTSC (harsh terrain survival kits) and duct tape were cut off the budget.

Planning office

[OzPhIsH]

C'mon guys, this news is WAY old. All of the plans have been on display for fifty years at the local planning office on Alpha Centauri.

What a coincidence...

[vertinox]

I had planned to lead a Miners Revolution on Mars in 2026. That and deformable terrain ;)

funding...

[number6x]

For funding we will leverage our current investnments in the golden gate and brooklyn bridges, which we just bought off some guy.

Re:Right

[RevengeOfPoopJuggler]

They have all that beautiful orange dirt. Our current technology cannot produce orange dirt. There is a huge market here for orange dirt, we just need someone to go to Mars and mine it.

Yes! It's the wrong year!

[Agarax]

Why are they going to start colonizing other planets the same year I start to hit a midlife crisis? I'll never make it off this rock at this rate!

Re:In CORPORATIONS we trust

[dragonp12]

I hear RedPeace are going to be heading out to Mars with them.

Re:Yeah, and I will cure cancer in 2045

[geomon]

It really doesn't matter, because they've already developed and implemented a method to make a profit by seperating the bond between a fool and his money.

I hope they didn't try to patent their method. I think Enron has prior art.

Re:Profit?

[Anonymous Coward]

It will never work! You need three ??? in step 3. Everybody knows that! sheesh! :P

Re:The company is using futuristing computing also

[visgoth]

You must mean these things [atomchip.com]... my bullshit detector is going apeshit right now.

Re:How?

[Rei]

First, their CEO is going to declare himself King of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat. Then he's going to take a ride on a magic carpet to see the King of the Potato people, and beg for a pickaxe. Then, he will dig around endlessly until he finds the vault with a teleportation trap that leads to Fort Ludios. After slaying Croesus and a half dozen dragons, he'll take the money and invest it in a biotech company; that money will generate large amounts of biodata, which he'll exchange with Trade Master Greenish for a ride on the Inevitably Successful In All Circumstances to Mars.

On the surface of Mars, he'll carefully scour the surface, dodging renegade robots and flesh-eating insects. Eventually, he will find Torg, the robot that kidnapped Santa Claus, and use him to mine the planet. Naturally, the rock will need to be loosened first with the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator. Piling it up, he'll take the return trip through a Gate Corps gate, reenter Earth's atmosphere in a spaceship shaped like a Galleon, (insert missing step here), and profit.

Re:The company is using futuristing computing also

[DrJimbo]

This is actually a great idea because the laptop will have a dual use as the heat source for the ignition of their fusion drives.

Re:Numerials!

[WeenaMercatur]

XXX Companies seem to do pretty well as well...

Re:More like it

[Joe Random]

Sure thing. We'll see you for the interview next week. My secretary will fill you in on the details. Oh, and one minor point, you're responsible for your own travel arrangemnts to and from the interview.

I look forward to meeting with you.

Sincerely,
Mark Homnick, CEO

Re:Late Breaking News:

[Rei]

Official Statement of the Unified Resistance Front of Mars (QKTLM):

Ah, K'Breel, I see that the cowardly gne'el spawn still lives. How is that prosthetic forelimb serving you? Doesn't have quite the senation that your real one did, didn't it? Let me assure you, we still have dozens more martyrs-to-be waiting in your security services, many of whom are better shots. I swear on this beloved red soil, the QKTLM shall wrest control from you and your sycophantic toadies!

K'tah nrglah tn hk'tah ginr'l Marstv'k qa!!
Laaq n'tl Marstv'k qa!!

Re:The company is using futuristing computing also

[kaellinn18]

my bullshit detector is going apeshit right now

Wait, I thought that bullshit and apeshit were inherently incompatible. Is there some new framework available that allows easy portability between bullshit and apeshit? If so, has the company that created this masterpiece gone public? I would like to invest.

Re:First Person To Mars... OWNS IT.

[Anonymous Coward]

Put me on the second colony ship of homesteaders.

That would be the B Ark, right?

Re:More like it

[Cat_Byte]

There has been plans (even written down to level of details, like methods of aquiring methane and converting it to water

OMG thank you so much for that info. I'm showing that to my g/f tonight to explain the streaks in my underwear.

Minor problem, UPS charges are a bitch

[Ancient_Hacker]

So you get to Mars, somehow, and start digging up "valuable" minerals for the space stations. Only one glitch-- how do you deliver the goods? You think UPS Air is expensive, try UPS Vacuum. At least $10K a pound, and what if they're not home?.

Didn't this company used to be called

[okvol]

the Virginia company? I bet the only way they will turn a profit is by Martian slave labor.

Re:If it's too good to be true...

[quarkscat]

"How exactly is "intellectual property" going to be enforced once you leave the confines of our planet?"

Don't you think that 10 years (2015) is quite long enough for the RIAA, the MPAA, Sony, and Microsoft to attain space travel -- combine MSFT's bankroll, **AA's militant in-your-face attitude, and Sony's robotics, and I would say that that represents one heck of a potent capability (almost Borg-like.)

Of course, by 2015 the USA government itself will be an ineffectual basket-case, having wasted all its resources on the continuing war in the Middle East (Kansas, Nebraska, etcetera) against rising sea levels, as global warming proves to be all too true. The USA's (in)ability to handle natural disasters and civil engineering projects will be legend by then.

Re:If it's too good to be true...

[dangitman]

So help me, if I finally get my dream to explore space, I'm going to be very upset if its in a ship with "Tampax" painted on the side )~\

Oh come on, it's not that bad. At least you'd be relieving Mother Universe's menstrual flow. Thousands of women would adore your bold symbolic mission in the name of sanitary products, and throw panties at you. Which would be fresh and lack blood stains due to the miracle of Tampax.

We're all in this tampon-spaceship together. Don't forget that. This is not a time for pulling strings, it's a time for serious application of one's self.