Planetary Resources Kickstarter Meets Its Initial Goal 99
symbolset writes "Most of you know about Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company, and their Kickstarter campaign in the finest spirit of Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon. The campaign has reached its minimum $1M goal to get funded with eight days left to go. In celebration, PR's CEO and Chief Asteroid Miner Chris Lewicki does an interview with Forbes where he discusses the future opportunities, the potential pitfalls, and the unlimited potential of private sector space exploitation. It's well worth the read. Planetary Resources' kickstarter has some worthy stretch goals that are well worth looking at, and the sort of supporter premiums that many Slashdotters will not want to miss. Only $175,000 more and they get a second ground station, at $2M they add exoplanet search capability. Both of these stretch goals are within reach."
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Oh boy, the first recovery of a solid that needs drilled out of the bottom of the sea. Yes cheap and easy energy will surely be flowing soon.
Re:How about sea floor mining also (Score:4, Insightful)
My car has had nothing but scheduled maintenance in its 150k life, but it's probably unreliable because it probably wouldn't survive if it got hit by a semi.
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No, that plant was proven to be very reliable. It survived a severe earthquake and began automatically shutting down before the tsunami hit.
It was designed to withstand tsunamis, just not one as big as actually occurred. When hit by the over design limit tsunami, it suffered damage but did not fail dangerously. No one was killed, and radiation tests show that the only people to be exposed to significant radiation levels were site workers, none of which received a fatal dose.
So, if a nuclear power plant can
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This is odd (Score:1)
Re:This is odd (Score:5, Interesting)
You must be remembering it wrong. Kicktraq shows steady progress over the project, and a surge of backers about three days ago:
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1458134548/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0/#chart-daily [kicktraq.com]
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I've been following since the beginning. They were at 50% of their goal in 48 hours. If you look through the news articles listed on the kicktraq link you can see, through the articles and the dates listed, the climb. I would not be surprised if there was a glitch though. The page tends to have issues with updating the counter some times.
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Why do you think there is a correlation between likes on the oatmeal and how much funding that project gets?
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What's with the exoplanet telescope..? (Score:3)
I don't see the connect between trying to monetise resources in space and building a Kepler 2. They seem like completely divergent goals.
With respect to the second point I'd prefer to see something like the Terrestial Planet Finder [wikipedia.org] but whatever.
Good luck to them, there's a lot of useful stuff up there and you don't need to worry about leaving a mess.
Re:What's with the exoplanet telescope..? (Score:5, Interesting)
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There are a lot of ACs opposed to this idea (Score:2)
Despite what you ACs think (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA thinks it's a good enough idea to send a probe out there.
If Man doesn't leave Earth then it will be our grave. Man will end. That is not in any way controversial, deniable or disputable. ALL the experts agree, not just 97%. If Man does leave Earth our galaxy at least is ours to claim: 200 billion times all the world. That's a lot of upside for the cost, evading the downside of not doing it notwithstanding.
The only argument against this are nihilistic notions that Man needs to end.
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If our spending goals are going to be determined by science fiction movies and the possibility of the earth coming to an end (after a few billion years of chugging along), perhaps we should instead be trying to insert ourselves into alternate dimensions. Like the Mirror-World from Star Trek, where everybody has a goatee.
You could post things like "the only reason not to insert ourselves into alternate realities, is a nihilistic belief that mankind shouldn't outlive our current reality."
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That Man will end if we don't escape Earth is not only a possibility. It is a certainty. It WILL occur. There is no doubt whatsoever about this. The end date is not a billion years hence. It may be only a few thousand. It could be next year, or tomorrow.
Against that, what is money?
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Calculate the odds. The earth is 124,185,000,000 days old (more or less), and you mention the possibility that the earth will end tomorrow.
There's other risks even greater to the survival of the human species. What about environmental catastrophe, or an especially virulent strain of the mumps?
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As a criticism, this is total wank. You could have banged a gong to express that point. It would be more profound. Say something or say nothing.
This is the AC who labels anyone not in favour of immediate cessation of any and all above-atmosphere activities as 'space nutters'.
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You really shouldn't base your proposals on science fiction movies then.
In the real world, we have absolutely no reason to believe that mirror worlds exist. Or time travel, which could be (depending on the version of the theory) used to ensure a perpetually branching unlimited existence, say, somewhen in the Paleogene era.
We do however know that our current planet has an expiration date, and that there is a huge number of colonisable planets. And I mean really huge, as technology in only 200 years (compare
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You will die, I will die. Who cares if the human race is still there in a million years?
I care. I would like my children not only to survive me, but to travel. I would like Mankind to persist until we unfurl our fuller potential.
Re:Despite what you ACs think (Score:4, Informative)
And can you find me these "Experts" you are talking about?
Will Stephen Hawking [dvice.com] do?
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we'll have plenty of time to figure out how to get off our planet in the next million years or so.
Famous last words.
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Stephen Hawking's most popular work is "A Brief History of Time [wikipedia.org]", wherein he discusses the birth and death of the Universe and current science's understanding of its potentially cyclical nature. What did you mean by "long term?" because I think he's handled all six ends of that.
Earth has limited resources. Man must find an offworld home he can thrive on before they are used up. Else: the End. That end of resources will be not in the billions of years when the sun swallows the Earth, but before my grand
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The experts may agree, but the vast majority are not experts. Remember that more than half of the population of the US believes the world was created six thousand years ago. Experts don't make decisions, politicians do, and politicians represent the people. If the people are a bunch of uneducated hicks convinced that Jesus is going to descent from on high Any Day Now, why would they plan more than a few years ahead?
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It would be exponentially less expensive, comparatively immediate, and help real, tangible (versus the intangible concept of "man") if we cleaned up a place (Earth) that is already 99.99999% ideal for our speci
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False choice.
We should do both.
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No shortages if we only mine on Earth? Have you ever heard about rare earth metals, and the considerable difficulty to mine them? In addition, the single biggest source for these metals is China. The rest of the world is hoarding rare earth metals as much as they can due to Chinas increased regulation. There are asteroids out there that have enormous amounts of these metals.
In fact, many metals are expected to be exhausted in this century. Sure, you can recycle them, but consider the effect this has on the
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Uh,no. Not even close.
Rare Earth elements aren't "rare", in that there isn't a lot of them. They just don't lump together in easily mineable concentrations. The United States, Russia and Australia (at least) have mega-craploads of rare-earth elements. It is just cheaper to source them from China.
Educate thyself and read paragraph two.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element [wikipedia.org]
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Re:There are a lot of ACs opposed to this idea (Score:4, Insightful)
From the same page:
"New demand has recently strained supply, and there is growing concern that the world may soon face a shortage of the rare earths.[19] In several years from 2009 worldwide demand for rare earth elements is expected to exceed supply by 40,000 tonnes annually unless major new sources are developed. "
"As a result of the increased demand and tightening restrictions on exports of the metals from China, some countries are stockpiling rare earth resources."
Also, I did not say that there aren't many of them. I said there are considerable difficulties in mining them. Which is probably the main reason why China is the supplier no.1 . There is a lot of stuff dispersed amongst the oceans, too, it is just unfeasible to extract it (yet).
There is nothing wrong with pursuing asteroid mining, just like there isn't anything wrong with trying to come up with new technologies to extract rare earths better, or make collection from elements in the ocean more practical. I firmly oppose this view that just because X does not either immediately yield any gains or has no 100% guarantee of suceeding it is pointless. If you think the invested money could be used elsewhere better, why not yank money off yet another weapons development project, which cost orders of magnitude more than three asteroid mining programs?
No, it's not over (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Just because there's no technology to do it now, doesn't mean there won't be technology to do it in the foreseeable future. This is what PR is doing, developing the technology.
3. And who says the developed technology won't be used on earth too, it can benefit both earth based mining and asteroid mining. The material from asteroid is not meant for Earth anyway.
4. The extraordinary claim is not we'll be
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My guess: either a troll, or a guy with a very narrow view of things incapable of long-term thinking. Unfortunately, there are many of the latter.
These are the people who regularly say that research without a clear and easy-to-understand goal is useless, completely ignoring the fact that especially basic research often cannot have a clear goal (usually that happens in applied research).
Likewise, here, if a project does not immediately deliver a nice spaceship with which you can zip comfortably to an asteroi
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In space the rocket fuel is an energy carrier, not an energy source. Just like here on earth.
The energy cost in space is negligible compared to the cost of transporting the fuel out of earths gravity well.
"water is rocket fuel once..." (Score:2)
Sure.
"Once Hydrogen atoms have been separated from the Oxygen".
Which is why I store water to fuel my car. For I'll then become a millionaire,
"Once Hydrogen atoms have been separated from the Oxygen".
Ah yes, and also :
"useful as a source of breathable air".
Of course,
"Once Hydrogen atoms have been separated from the Oxygen".
Separated miraculously, with for instance a small solar panel, which will create fuel at such a rate that it'll recover the actual fuel that was needed to just bring it on location in less than two or three years.
"Once Hydrogen atoms have been separated from the Oxygen".
How can you be so naive? /...
And you are both a "friend" and "friend of friend" here on
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Rocket fuel is not a source of energy, it's an energy carrier.
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Exoplanet observations involve both high resolution and timing. You have to steadily observe a star in order to observe the "dips" in light that it projects to "see" a planet transit. You have to image the star frequently at high resolution to observe the "wobble" that implies a heavy planet. While imaging the same spot is also a useful goal in finding and categorizing asteroids - particularly distant and small ones - adding the goal to the project involves extra work that must be funded.
If it were a si
Billionaire Investors Say Thanks-a-Million! (Score:2)
Hey, you didn't expect billionaire Planetary Ventures investors [bloomberg.com] like Larry Page [forbes.com] (net worth $23 B), Eric Schmidt [forbes.com] ($8.2 B), Ross Perot Jr. [forbes.com] ($1.4 B), K. Ram Shriram [forbes.com] ($1.65 B), and Charles Simonyi [wikipedia.org] ($1 B) to foot the bill, did you?
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How many satellites do you think you get for one million dollars?
You're supposed to say that with your pinky held to your mouth: [dramatic pause] "One million dollars!" [youtube.com]
Making property rights in Space legal is very impo (Score:4, Interesting)
While (I believe) current space treaties prohibit any COUNTRIES from claiming planetary bodies, it is not clear if a an individual or company can claim the resources on them.
The U.N. should allow (and someday protect and enforce!) property rights.
This might open up a huge wave of investment and exploration. Say (perhaps like shipwreck salvage rights) one could claim the exclusive mineral rights to a (piece of a) celestial body. Even if it weren't permanent, like only a 100 year lease, many people might be tempted (look at what the British did with Hong Kong; their administration help turn it from a fishing port into one of the world's great cities even though they knew they'd have to give it back to the Chinese. So a completely regulation/tax free environment on an asteroid might be useful (once prices to LEO become more reasonable, go Space X!).
This has been mentioned as one of the possible ways to help get Africa out of its misery, if property rights could be accurately (right now it's a complete mess) determined and assigned it would become a source of capital that their people could buy and sell; in short it would open up a huge source of capital. Along with the proper controls (I know, that's the big problem) it could permanently stimulate their economies in a big way. (I understand the Chinese, in order to lock down property boundaries in their rural districts have been using google maps and satellite photos. Once properly recorded the villagers and make transactions confident in knowing that they have enforceable contracts).
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Re:Making property rights in Space legal is very i (Score:4, Interesting)
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That's work if you can live in space long-term. But this isn't a space colonisation scenario (we can but dream), it's a space industry scenario. If you break the law in space, there's nothing to stop law enforcement from seizing your assets back on the ground.
Re:Making property rights in Space legal is very i (Score:5, Funny)
If you break the law in space, there's nothing to stop law enforcement from seizing your assets back on the ground.
"Nice city you have there, lots of friendly people. Be a pity if someone de-orbited a four ton rock on it, wouldn't it?"
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Then you'd better have a sustainable life support system, because you're never coming back down, and they won't be letting any supplies go up. If you want to play supervillain, make sure you have enough handy rocks to terrify the whole world. And failsafe deorbiting rockets, so they won't be tempted to sneak a bomb onto a supply rocket and blow it after docking.
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If a corporation threatens to blow up a city, just how limited do you think the liability will be?
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Because the corporation may be a fuzzy collective, but it is still made up of people. People who would have to give the ultimatum, people who would design the WMD. People can be arrested. It takes a lot to puncture the shield of corporate liability, but I think terrorist threats should prove sufficient.
Do you imagine that if Al Quida were to incorporate formally, Osama would have been allowed to go free after 9/11?*
*Ok, there is still an element of doubt about just how involved he was personally, but you ge
Same as it currently is (Score:2)
Property rights are no different in space than on Earth - you may claim anything you want, but you may only hold what you can defend. The twist here is that asteroids are currently not claimed by a sovereign nation, and very few have any capability to even attempt to take or defend property in space by force.
Re:Making property rights in Space legal is very i (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry about the mini-rant, and a little off topic. But it is a whole new world up there that is full of opportunities; and to sully it with a dirty thing such as heavy government is such a bad idea. Even you yourself admit that a regulation/tax free environment is a good thing for some reason, yet fail to make the connection with government. Government is the one that sucks productivity with regulations and taxes, for very little, waste-filled gain.
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Technically, the 1979 Moon Agreement prohibits private persons and corporation from claiming ownership of celestial bodies. The problem is that the agreement is generally ignored, with few signatories, which include none of the space powers, and therefore it has negligible impact.
It would actually be interesting to see how the arrival of private companies to spaceflight and space resource extraction changes the legal regime: the 1967 Outer Space Treaty is badly outdated, and needs to be updated at the very
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It's also not clear why an agreement signed by any nation would be binding on an individual who would (if they happenened to be a citizen of such a nation) be free to change their nationality to that of a non-signatory (and I don't think you'd be hard pressed to find a non-signatory that would be happy to welcome the citizenship of somebody who owned a siginficant portion of a celestial body).
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That part is actually a bit more complicated than that. And since there have been no cases in this topic before (and likely won't be in the near future), one can only guess.
One important point, though, is that the neutrality and non-sovereignty of space is a ius cogens norm of international law by now: it actually doesn't require a treaty to be upheld, but it's still a good thing to have one. Therefore, I think welcoming such a person would be only slightly less riskier than holding a welcome party for Osam
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Except - that's not even remotely how shipwreck salvage rights work.
Again, seriously discon
The problem with asteroid mining is ... (Score:2)
It's the main problem of private sector space exploration - the companies need to make their money "on earth", but mine the resources "off earth".
Of course, if you had another company with assets in space that you could sell your stuff too, the problem would be greatly diminished. That would require a criticial mass of private space activites that would sustain an exchange of resources "off
Re:The problem with asteroid mining is ... (Score:4, Interesting)
there's no market for the mined resources in space, and it's too expensive to transport them back to earth.
Not really, it's easy to transport stuff from space back to earth. The expensive part is getting things up from Earth to space, which is the problem asteroid mining is trying to solve.
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I used to imagine that NASA would invent asteroid mining to support construction of a station or vessel.
Now I imagine that China will invent asteroid mining just to come up with enough metal to let everyone have a car
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Junkyards are FULL of already refined metals.
Actually, they turn those over on a regular basis. But while you probably could make two Japanese cars out of one American one until recently, that shit is over. Recycling doesn't make more steel. Indeed, it makes less.
Antimatter (Score:1)
Antimatter could be collected on the moon as there is no atmosphere we could use solar panels more effectively and then antimatter, which is very small could be transported back to earth.
A Longer interview (Score:1)