Planetary Resources Confirms Plan To Mine Asteroids 500
Matching widespread predictions, The Bad Astronomer writes with word that "The private company Planetary Resources has announced that it plans to mine asteroids for water, air, and even precious metals in the next few years. Your initial reaction may be to snicker a bit, but it's headed by Peter Diamandis — who established the X Prize — has several ex-NASA personnel running the engineering, and also has the backing of a half-dozen or so billionaires. So this is no joke — their plan looks solid, and may very well be the first step in establishing a permanent human presence in space."
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully they'll be very careful about bringing asteroids into Earth orbit. But the energy and mining industries are pretty safe and responsible right?
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Funny)
Slightly paraphrasing Hubert Farnsworth: "Yes, there's no safer occupation than mining. Especially when you're on a rock whipping through space at a million miles an hour! Whoo whoo whoo whoooo! Safe!"
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
Slightly paraphrasing Hubert Farnsworth: "Yes, there's no safer occupation than mining. Especially when you're on a rock whipping through space at a million miles an hour! Whoo whoo whoo whoooo! Safe!"
Dr. Zoidberg: It's true, it's true. I've never had one asteroid miner come to me seeking medical attention.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, there's always the possibility that some enterprising manager finds that if he provides performance enhancing narcotics to the miners, his quarterly numbers and thus compensation will go up. Then a marshal of Scottish descent will catch on after a miner wigs out on the drugs and opens an airlock without an environment suit on. He'll try to stop the operation leading the manager to send up some thugs to take the marshal out. This will cause a bloody gunfight and some EVA shenanigans; maybe an explosion or two.
Props to everyone who's old enough to get the reference!
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Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outland_(film)/ [wikipedia.org]
It was made 3 years before I was born. But I did catch original transformers & spiderman & gi-joe. (and a-team re-runs) Ahhhh the 80's, could do no wrong..
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's so much good music coming out now that it's almost impossible to keep up with it unless you turn searching for it in to a major (10+ hrs/week) hobby or a profession. It's been that way for years, at least, and I suspect decades.
You won't hear it on the average radio station, but find a couple of the better current bands and plug them in to Pandora and a few hours later you'll have a list of dozens of great acts, most of them with releases in the last few years. This is true for just about every conceivable genre of music. Or find a big blog/magazine about your genre of choice and start checking out their recommendations. You won't like them all, but unless you don't actually like music that much you'll certainly find several you enjoy.
You can even find good acts in genres that haven't been huge in years, like surf or 80s-pop (though usually the ones with 80s pop influences are way better than just about all actual 80s pop)
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Props to everyone who's old enough to get the reference! :)
Get off our lawn, youngster. We had the stories of Kimball Kinnison mining asteroids and chewing drugs long before you were born
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Yes! And who needs asteroids....
"My name is Kimball Kinneson
I lead the Lensman band
Although we're few in number
Our abilities are great..
We play with stars and planets,
Catch comets in a net
And use a supernova
To light a cigarette.
- Poul Anderson
mark
A lot, but (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot could go wrong, but hopefully they're talking about dropping it at L1 [wikipedia.org] and not actually bringing it into LEO/MEO. After all, we already have a rather large chunk of rock [wikipedia.org] in orbit. A fair-sized asteroid at L1 would make a great place for a real space station, especially if it's ice and rock ... water, breathable air, and a place to build, and you don't have to do anything to keep it there. And the moon is a short jump away.
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I think that's part of their real business model here. They aren't going to make money shipping asteroid materials down to earth. Their best sources of revenue are either 1) acquiring vast swathes of asteroid mineral rights cheap and then selling them on markup once the technology matures and 2) becoming the prime supplier for any lunar base that gets built. the one area where they can compete on cost is the cost of lifting mass quantities UP earth's gravity well vs. the cost of lobbing mass quantities DOWN
Re:A lot, but (Score:4, Funny)
I would have thought their best chance of revenue was to sell to the highest bidder the right to nominate which country the asteroid will hit.
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Everyone seems to talk about L1 being somehow a "nirvana" of space locations, but L1 (and L2) are unstable points. Sure you've balanced the earth and moon gravity, but any large pertubation (say like a explosion or meteor hit), will knock whatever you put there away from this equilibrium point and probably with more energy than you have to correct for. Of course if the direction happens to be towards the earth (bad juju). Even w/o large pertubations, you probably need continuous adjustments (thrusters)
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You either learn from history or you don't.
This isn't learning from history - it's being paralyzed by irrational fear of the future. Can't build nuclear plants because our only lesson from Chernobyl, Three-mile-island and Fukushima is to be afraid of nuclear. And we're afraid of the waste. Can't use natural gas or coal because we're afraid to have too much CO2 in the atmosphere. Can't have windmills because they kill birds and spoil the view. Can't build homes because there's a puddle on the land. Can't mine uranium. Can't develop land. Can'
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck off and die -- it's not scary, because there's almost no conceivable way you can mess up popping an asteroid into Earth orbit that doesn't either leave it on a slow (LEO-like), grazing path through the atmosphere, easily burning/breaking up before it hits ground, or cause it to miss the Earth entirely. Orbital mechanics just don't work the way you alarmists seem to think, and the only way you'll get a weapon-like trajectory is if someone actually tried for that.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Funny)
the only way you'll get a weapon-like trajectory is if someone actually tried for that.
And there is my next movie idea. A rogue non-union group of asteroid miners, sick of lousy pay, blue gruel, and malfunctioning sexbots, actually tries to get an asteroid into a weapon-like trajectory in order to hold to Earth ransom for one bazillion, no wait, one gazillion dollars. Cue Dwayne Johnson to get Bruce Willis out of retirement for one last Earth saving "Hurrah!" Call it "Die Hardest Mega-Impactor Go Joe Go".
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You forgot Hyper-Monkee. And are rogue 'roiders led by Christopher Walken, still pissed that the Rock messed up his gold mine on Earth?
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It may be that you are an expert in Newton's Laws, but I am an expert in Murphy's.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Robert A. Heinlein
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Be nice if people could explain it without the "fuck off and die" part, though. Or the singing pig comment below mine. I have a general understanding of orbital mechanics being in the space biz and all, but I really don't expect it to be general knowledge even in the geekverse.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
Be nice if people could explain it without the "fuck off and die" part, though. Or the singing pig comment below mine. I have a general understanding of orbital mechanics being in the space biz and all, but I really don't expect it to be general knowledge even in the geekverse.
I completely agree with you, and think general politeness goes a long way in making a convincing argument (it doesn't matter how logical and factual your argument is if you've made the other person stop listening to you).
That said, I think I also understand the frustration that causes people to answer so angrily. We're seeing this anti-technology reaction lately, even among geek circles. Every time somebody tries anything remotely innovative, you see the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag pop up and a bunch of people posting about how this new innovative thing sounds great in theory, but in practice it's going to kill and maim people, and generally make puppies cry.
Basically, it's not that I expect people to have a general understanding of orbital mechanics here. It's that I expect people who do not have a general understanding of orbital mechanics to assume that those actually involved in the project know what they're doing. It's alright to ask, "is there a danger here, can someone with knowledge in this area explain to me the risks involved?" It's another thing entirely to say, "I hope these guys are being extremely careful, because I see a danger here even though I know absolutely nothing about the field. In addition, I assume the people who are involved in this project to be completely irresponsible people who care nothing about safety."
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Thing is, they won't be aiming for us, they will be aimed at low orbit. If they miss orbit, one possibility is to come down in some sort of impact event, but even a miss is only likely to do what happens to most natural misses: either miss the planet entirely, bounce off the atmosphere with a glancing blow, or break up harmlessly in the upper atmosphere. And if you are aiming for an orbit, you are much more likely the be starting off in a trajectory that is glancing to begin with. The only thing that will be different from a natural miss is that we are directing an extra rock at the Earth, which given the number of rocks that hit us every day, is probably going to be a mere statistical aberration for the foreseeable future.
In short, if one of them does blast us, it will be more of a hit to our pride (because we aimed it at us) than anything that was impossible before.
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Umm, for starters, dinosaurs didn't roam the planet in the Pliocene (which only started 5 million years ago, give or take).
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There. Fixed that for you. In the name of humanity, please refrain from writing science-fiction. Otherwise, you'll get hired by Hollywood, bestowing upon us horrors like "A Sound of Thunder" or "2012".
The top my all time stupidest sci-fi movie has to be Earth's Final Hours (2011), where the Earth's rotation is stopped by a few dozen golf-ball sized meteorites hitting the planet in a mid-western farm field. Luckily for us, there was an abandoned cold-war satellite with a laser beam thingy that was activated at the last minute to restart the Earth's rotation. Phew!
Re:What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Informative)
Finally, let's keep in mind that an asteroid the size that is being looked at for mining in orbit reentered the atmosphere over the weekend and exploded over California without hitting the ground. And it was on a parabolic course, moving a lot faster than orbital speed. They estimated a 3.8 kiloton airburst from it, with no damage to the ground, no EMP, no radiation.
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And the steel in your car? And the coke to make the steel? And the equipment to mine the iron ore? And the power for all that heavy industry?
Your ignorance of the vast toolchain behind that biofueled car is astonishing.
just in time (Score:4, Funny)
Re:just in time (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't you be out feeding the poor or something?
I'll believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
when I see it happening.
Does anyone know what the (plausible) ROI for this is?
Re:I'll believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Their first step is to mine water and air and other materials to sell to NASA in orbit..
Cheaper for a space station to get water from an asteroid mine than it is to ship it up from earth.
Similarly, if they can get a simple forge up there, they can build the heavy support structures for satelitels and space stations out of metals mined on the asteroid.
This allows bigger construction in space.
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They are certainly a convention in art and film; but if you are interested in modest acceleration(eg. solar sails, ion engines, and other stuff where fuel weight doesn't kill you) in a nearly total vacuum you enjoy considerable freedom to build massive structures out of toothpicks and mylar, with structural concerns only kicking in in pressurized sections of the craft or anything designed to re-enter a planetary atmosphere...
Re:I'll believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you need heavy support structures if you are building in space?
There are these things called "mass" and "inertia" that remain unchanged regardless of the gravitational field they're in, or lack of one.
This is basic Newtonian physics.
If you wanted to do something like, say, create a space station or ship that uses the centrifugal effects of spin to create a form of "pseudo-gravity" for long-term health of the residents/crew and/or for purposes of performing certain industrial operations that involve separating materials of differing masses, or something of significant mass that must endure acceleration, you still need structural supports with enough strength to prevent it from flying apart from centrifugal forces or collapsing under acceleration due to it's mass and inertia.
Strat
Re:I'll believe it (Score:4, Interesting)
Their first step is to mine water and air and other materials to sell to NASA in orbit..
Actually, from their website [planetaryresources.com], their first step is to create a fleet of assembly-line space-based telescopes, which will start launching in 18-24 months. In addition to scouting for asteroids, the telescopes will be licensed/sold for both astronomical and ground observation for a few million each. Over time they'll be producing incrementally-upgraded versions with the capability to chase down asteroids, survey other locations in the solar system, and eventually perform sample return missions. Even if the company never reaches the point of asteroid mining, their Arkyd series of telescopes/probes looks like a big (and potentially profitable) game-changer for planetary exploration and orbital monitoring.
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This allows bigger construction in space.
Which is needed for ... ?
Orbiting whore-houses for the miners?
Space stations, moonbases, interplanetary travel... for starters?
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Just because you lack imagination...
Space stations and moon bases would provide wonderful opportunities for high-purity industrial development. Or maybe build a microwave station and beam down collected solar power. Or computer-controlled telescopes on the far side of the moon. Or a ton of other things you lack the vision for.
Re:I'll believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yup, never try anything new, it'll most likely fail and anonymous people on teh internets will point and laugh. /Eeyore the Donkey voice
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Wouldn't bringing large amounts of Platinum to Earth cause it's price to plummet?
Re:I'll believe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Conflict Demands^H^H^H^H^H Diamonds (Score:3)
Much more profitable just to threaten to destroy the Earth unless everybody pays them. And they can do it again -- and again.
After all, it's not just the price of platinum that may plummet... it could be the platinum itself.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'll believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
Me, I think gold's useless. Outside of plating electrical connectors (something silver's pretty good at too), it's only in my house 'cos my wife like wearing the stuff decoratively.
The odd part is that you have just demonstrated the primary reason why men like to have a big stash of gold while simultaneously claiming that it's useless.
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There isn't any for the first trip. Still, how much would you pay to put 100 tons of iron, or water, or oxygen into earth or lunar orbit? $10,000/lb is a round figure, and bulk launches could probably come in at as little as $500-$1000/lb. A million dollars a ton is a pretty hefty sum of money.
Re:I'll believe it (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone know what the (plausible) ROI for this is?
Most people are just going to babble nonsense in this article, but I'm going to try to actually give you numbers.
You can orbit a Kg for about "ten grand". However asteroids are already in orbit, and it takes a hell of a lot less fuel to deorbit than to orbit. So to a VERY crude first approximation the delivery expense is perhaps a buck per gram. Precious metals from the ground cost around one to two orders of magnitude more. So the delivery cost seems high in an absolute sense, but its not really a significant fraction of the cost of the metal.
Its kind of like complaining that you can't mine gold in South Africa because a 747 cargo plane costs $50M and $50M is a lot to spend for a little gold. Well, yes $50M is a lot of dough but you'd find that the cargo capacity of a 747 in gold is worth a whole hell of a lot more than $50M, so suddenly the airplane cost doesn't matter much.
The ROI killer is going to be the mysterious and unclear latency from when the $ are spent until the capsules of solid gold hit the earth. I would postulate that you're trading the risks of international and national politics (nationalization of mines, strikes, government delaying regulation, etc) for technology risks.
I think the ROI/risk is about as bad as opening a gold mine in South Africa. Much riskier than a diamond mine in Canada. Not as risky as a rare earth mine anywhere on the African continent. Its a plausible realistic investment.
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Does anyone know what the (plausible) ROI for this is?
If you bring enough precious metals back to make huge profits then the price of the precious metals will drop because they won't be as scarce as the were before you sent your miners into the heavens on a fool's errand.
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And then since it is now cheaper there is a larger demand for the materials.
Yea, they might not be selling the platinum at $1500 an ounce, but instead at probably $500 an ounce and still have a nice profit.
Seconded. (Score:2)
And not just happening but turning a profit.
Those guys have enough money to throw at something like this and never show a cent profit ... for a while.
I think the fascination on /. with this is more driven by bad science fiction than by an understanding of the science behind it.
From TFA:
Its the in-orbit/lunar infrastructure ... (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone know what the (plausible) ROI for this is?
5 year, 25 year, 100 year?
The real return will not be from delivering things to earth, rather it will be delivering things to orbit and the moon to further orbital and lunar construction and habitation. Lifting metals and waters from the earth to orbit or the moon is very expensive. Getting those resources "locally" (local in terms of gravity well not absolute distance) is the way to go and someone will get very rich doing so. The problem is that a profitable mining enterprise is optimistically many decades in the future, more likely something for the next century at our current pace.
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the potential returns could dwarf the US national debt
If you take the current price of platinum and multiply it by the amount that you could obtain from asteroid mining.
However, what is going to happen to the price if you bring that much to the market?
And for that matter, is there that much of a market for it? Will we all be wearing platinum belt buckles in 50 years?
Re:I'll believe it (Score:4, Informative)
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Gold is actually not as good a conductor as copper. It is used in plating contacts because it does not corrode and can make better contact at microscopic scales due to its malleability.
Platinum is a bigger deal because it is used in all sorts of catalysts, not just in exhaust systems but in making drugs and plastics. It is also needed for durable high-temperature dies such as those used to make glass fiber, electrical conductors passing through glass (same tempco), coatings on cutting instruments and turbin
Re:I'll believe it (Score:5, Insightful)
There are relatively few elements that are genuinely without practical applications(some of the shorter-lived radioactive ones are probably too hot to handle but fade too quickly to be useful industrial or medical emitters); but some get bumped into the status of 'financial instrument with a few esoteric applications' by their scarcity.
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Hard to say, but imagine your car chassis was platinum rather than steel - lighter, stronger more corrosion resistant.
With its high temperature stability there's dozens of places that would welcome a strong corrosion resistant material that is comparatively light.
Platinum is NOT lighter than steel. It is much, much, heavier. It is more dense than lead. More dense than gold. Only iridium and osmium are (slightly) more dense.
There are many good uses for platinum if it was cheaper, but car frames are not one of them.
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There are no environmental restrictions on mining asteroids to my knowledge.
And no restrictions on advertising! You can show someone actually drinking a beer or even pretend to be a nutritional expert [slashdot.org] and no one can make you stop :-)
More valuable if they keep it in space (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not to mention construction materials. This is what NASA should have been working on for the past 30 years instead of the ISS
Re:More valuable if they keep it in space (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, they should have constructed a research facility on orbit so they could research chemical processes and materials handling on orbit, in zero G, so we have the basic knowledge to proceed with developing in situ resource processing.
Oh, wait. That's exactly what we tried to do. But because of people who don't see the value in doing the grunt work, we're years behind where we could be. You want to mine the asteroids or go to Mars? You're going to have to wait until the basics have been worked out.
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This is exactly where they get the long term payoff! And parking everything in orbit around the moon is even smarter. The absolute worst thing they could do is bring resources down into our gravity well just so they can take them out at a later date.
Man-made Asteroid Human-Extinction event (Score:2)
How ironic that the predicted Asteroid Human-Extinction event would be man made?
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How ironic that the predicted Asteroid Human-Extinction event would be man made?
Yes, but how are they going to accomplish it by the end of the year?
Methinks the Mayans were overoptimistic about technology development. But then again "billionaire" probably sounded like a rather lot of money to them.
Wait, what? (Score:2)
This telescope will be used both to look for and observe known Near-Earth asteroids, and can also be pointed down to Earth for remote sensing operations.
"Remote sensing operations" being what exactly? /spideysense
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you know, looking for hidden ruins, catching some boobs, a few terror-tits and that stuff. of course. what else?
"their plan looks solid" (Score:5, Funny)
Solid as a rock?
IGMC
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That's what their plan is
That's what they've got. Oh, mmmm.
The thrill is still hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot
Gosh (Score:2)
Amazing how many things are the "first step in establishing a permanent human presence in space".
You'd think by now we'd actually HAVE one.
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Problem is that we keep on doing those "irst step in establishing a permanent human presence in space" things and never get around to the "second step...".
and (Score:2)
As long as they are willing to pay fro damages if an asteroids destroys some property, I have no problem and wish them luck.
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No worse than a rogue satellite causing damage.
Long term investments (Score:4, Interesting)
It actually is possible that a few billionaires actually do want to keep the human race from going extinct, as far-fetched as that sounds.
A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies! (Score:5, Interesting)
I really kind of like this. A group of rich guys with a bent towards science fiction are doing a proof of concept mission that is - quite honestly - to risky for a big organization like NASA.
This is such a phenomenally more interesting use of their money than a huge yacht or a private island or buying a baseball team. I say go for it.
FWIW, I believe the target asteroid size is 500T, which is the same order of magnitude (barely, factor of 7.5) as the one that re-entered and blew up with apparently no ground damage over the US west coast last night.
Re:A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies (Score:4, Insightful)
IT' is NOT too risky for NASA. IT's too politically risky for congress.
Its not politically risky, its just simply not possible. The timespans are out too long to fit into a single term of office. The moon happened for one reason, and one reason only -- a pissing match with the USSR. The space shuttle and ISS only survived 30 years for one reason -- it was strategically important to the US to keep a broad set of aerospace contractors in business and developing new technology, even if the waning years of the cold war wouldn't support them on their own.
The government has *never* been about space exploration for exploration's sake. Why do you think large-scale robotic exploration missions keep getting cut? If you take too much longer than a single term in office, you risk being cut, especially if you can't burn enough money fast enough to make it appear cheaper to finish than to stop. The missions that "work" these days are strategic to someone's congressional district, cheap, and fast to implement, so they avoid the congressional axe when their original supporter leaves office. (And even some, like the Webb, barely sustain on life support...)
Same reason we couldn't finish the SSC, why fusion research is faltering, and a hundred other examples.
Old and busted: mining asteroids (Score:2)
Them rich rocks gotta pay their fair share. I heard they're Dick Cheney fans, anyway, so to rubble with 'em.
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Aaaah! Outland revenue.
Interesting question, how long after the first permanent space residents appear that we start to have governments on Earth demanding that taxes are paid?
I can imagine a phase where the old Earth governments are chasing the miners through space, not for being pirates but for not paying their taxes on what they owe Earth for their work.
After all, what have the Earthlings ever done for us?
The water purifiers
Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true
And the sanitation!
Oh yes... sa
what could have been, from 1979 (Score:3)
Retrieval of Asteroidal Materials [1979]
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790024063_1979024063.pdf [nasa.gov]
BRIAN O'LEARY, MICHAEL 1. GAFFEY, DAVID 1. ROSS, and ROBERT SALKELD
Earlier scenarios for mass-driver retrieval of asteroidal materials have been tested and refined after new data were considered on mass-driver performance, favorable delta-V opportunities to Earth-approaching asteroids with gravity assists, designs for mining equipment, opportunities for processing volatiles and free metals at the asteroid, mission scenarios, and parametric studies of the most significant variables. We conclude that the asteroid-retrieval option is competitive with the retrieval of lunar materials for space manufacturing, while a carbonaceous object would provide a distinctive advantage over the Earth as a source of consumables and raw materials for biomass in space settlements during the 1990's. We recommend immediate studies on asteroid-retrieval mission opportunities, an increased search and followup program, precursor missions, trade-offs with the Moon and Earth as sources of materials, and supporting technology.
insignia for this program? http://www.flickr.com/photos/45676693@N03/6959137824/in/set-72157629163524738/ [flickr.com]
RIP: SpaceDev, hello newcomers! (Score:5, Interesting)
Jim Benson's baby, SpaceDev, had the same business plan in the mid-90's. They were players in the X Prize and the NEAR satellite, with custom satellite launches to fund their asteroid mining plan. Sadly, Benson died in the mid-2000's and his dream went too. [But not after I made lots of money trading small fluctuations in SPDV shares for 5 years (paid for my student loans!)]
Of course, he originally claimed there could be cobalt asteroids out there worth a quadrillion dollars. (No citation, but I remember the quadrillion # clearly.)
I really hope this new venture works, I think it is a feasible idea.
Re:Best of Luck (Score:4, Informative)
Wise choice. From TFA:
I asked Lewicki specifically about how this will make money. Some asteroids may be rich in precious metals — some may hold tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars in platinum-group metals — but it will cost billions and take many years, most likely, to mine them before any samples can be returned. Why not just do it here on Earth? In other words, what’s the incentive for profit for the investors? This is probably the idea over which most people are skeptical, including several people I know active in the asteroid science community.
I have to admit, Lewicki’s answer surprised me. “The investors aren’t making decisions based on a business plan or a return on investment,” he told me. “They’re basing their decisions on our vision.”
These guys aren't even making excuses, they're throwing money down a hole for the lulz. And if this is one of Elon's "playing the long game" ideas he's going to be really disappointed that this will never be profitable as long as spaceships are being pushed from A to B. The only material that could possibly be profitable to bring back to Earth would be He3 from the Moon for use in fusion power.
Re:Best of Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I think this is worth doing on a "because it's there" basis. If you've got the money and want to spend it that way.
For my values, it beats buying a football team or a casino.
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While money is fairly unlimited, resources are not. In particular, the fuel used to send a rocketship into space isn't ever coming back.
Re:Best of Luck (Score:4, Insightful)
While money is fairly unlimited, resources are not. In particular, the fuel used to send a rocketship into space isn't ever coming back.
The alternative is to burn up all that earth-bound fuel moving people and resources around on the earth for just a little longer until it's all gone anyway - and you have no way to get off the earth for more supplies. Because those resources are only limited ON EARTH.
What fuel? (Score:3)
Liquid Oxygen and Hydrogen were burned by the shuttle engines and can be recycled over and over again by introducing sunlight into the perpetual motion device.
No need for precious hydrocarbons to be wasted on space.
Re:Best of Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
These guys aren't even making excuses, they're throwing money down a hole for the lulz.
The money put forth into space endeavors is NOT packaged up and shot into space. It's spent right here on earth. It employs people here on earth. It uses infrastructure and resources here on earth. It's not being thrown down a hole. Even if they are doing it for lulz, it employs people.
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True nothing wrong with doing this as rich guy entertainment, but any investors who are expecting a return are going to be disappointed.
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Re:Best of Luck (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, throwing money down a hole for the lulz. Just like space travel always was!
Seriously, are you so short-sighted that you cannot see how useful mining asteroids for water, air, and eventually precious minerals is? I'll give you a hint: absolutely, 100% vital to the continued development of the human race. This has nothing to do with doing something "for the lulz." It is all about advancing the state of the human race. Not for profit, but because humanity can and should expand. Asteroid mining is one step forwards in our expansion towards other planets, and if we intend to not go extinct, we need to do that. We may not need to now. We may not need to in a hundred years, but we will in a thousand, or a million, and we are only going to get there if we start at some point. Might as well do it now.
To quote from the article: "[Planetary Resources] want to make sure there are available resources in place to ensure a permanent future in space." Our future, eventually, is in space. Whether from global warming, resource exhaustion, or nuclear war, Earth will eventually not be enough. When that day comes, we will be glad some billionaires chose to spend their money on space expansion, instead of building/buying shiny new toys, or hookers and blow.
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I said the same thing in the latest poll but from a business standpoint it's still throwing money down a hole. If they're not doing it for profit it's strange that they set it up as a business.
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"If they're not doing it for profit it's strange that they set it up as a business."
There is the concept of limited liability as a business. i.e. if they screw up chances are people will sue the business, not them. the business goes under sure, but unless it is proved they themselves were incompetant they should get away with it.
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Never mind that in many ways, it will be easier
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Besides, if you're going to be filthy stinking rich, you might as well spend your money on projects like this instead of gaming the commoditie
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And that, BTW, is the awesomest thing ever. Fuck markets and fuck government subsidies: people want to do things. This is how progress really happens. Sometimes.
Re:Best of Luck (Score:5, Funny)
As if you had the means or the opportunity.
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The machines may be doing the mining themselves, but once things are underway there will probably still be maintenance and operations stationed in space not too far from the asteroids. The raw materials mined from the roids can be used elsewhere in space as well - such as a permanent lunar settlement.
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Eventually we'll have to declutter our orbit and we might just find a way to recycle most of it, although I'm sure there's a lot that's just easier to nudge into the atmosphere to burn up. But like you said, the amount of material up there is insignificant from the perspective of reusing it for something is. Some of the low cost ways to get it includes nets, inflatables and lasers so you don't need to catch up to every little piece.
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Look what the did to Europe!