New Asteroid Mining Company Emerges 148
coondoggie writes "A new company intends by 2015 to send a fleet of tiny satellites to mine passing asteroids for high-value metals. Deep Space Industries Inc.'s asteroid mining proposal begins in 2015, when the company plans to send out a squadron of 55lb cubesats, called Fireflies, that will explore near-Earth space for two to six months looking for target asteroids. The company's CEO said, 'Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent space development. More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century — a key resource located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy.'"
The funniest thing would be... (Score:5, Interesting)
if after they made their own mine tailings, they noticed that there were already mine tailings there.
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if after they made their own mine tailings, they noticed that there were already mine tailings there.
Be even funnier if they find a lot of methane stored in these asteroids, under a layer of dust.
"hey, we could pipe oxygen up from Earth and run big space engines!!!"
Meh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Meh (Score:4, Funny)
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Or Union Aerospace Corporation.
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Or by Yoyodyne.
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Or Universal Exports
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I was thinking Earth Company, or its ASTEX subsidiary...
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If we're talking robot miners, Post Terran Minerals Corporation is most likely. :)
This is a joke. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a joke. (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, Slashdot summary is wrong. They're not starting mining in 2015, they're sending out their "scout" sats to find potential candidates. You'll find that information in the second sentence, neatly contradicting the first sentence.
Re:This is a joke. (Score:5, Informative)
No, now you're being deliberately wrong. They plan to send out scouts (Fireflies) in 2015. In 2016 they plan to bring back very light samples (Dragonflies). They don't even give an estimated time to begin production mining (Harvesters).
Deep Space Industries asteroid mining proposal begins in 2015 when the company plans to send out a squadron of 55lb cubesats called Fireflies that will explore near-Earth space for two to six months looking for target asteroids
Then in 2016, Deep Space said it will begin launching 70-lb DragonFlies for round-trip visits that bring back samples. The DragonFly expeditions will take two to four years, depending on the target, and will return 60 to 150 lbs of asteroid materiel. ...
A much larger spacecraft known as a Harvestor-class machine could "return thousands of tons per year, producing water, propellant, metals, building materials and shielding for everything we do in space in decades to come.
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I mean if it's not actively mining an asteroid, is it still an asteroid mining satellite?
Is a car door really a car door if it has no involvement in the drive train? Mining is more than extraction.
An asteroid may have precious substances, but we could spend more resources by far trying to tap them. Does that seem right to you?
Yep. Because like most technological developments, it's an initial investment. Getting the first kilo of iron ore from a satellite will cost billions of dollars. Getting the next 5 million tonnes down will cost a fraction.
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I'm not thrilled with the idea of someone bringing 5 million tonnes of iron ore down from orbit onto my head. What could go wrong?
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I guess you're currently hiding under your desk, desperately worried that a jumbo jet's about to land on your forehead.
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Why yes, I am. How did you know? Oh shit I have a TrendNet Webcam, don't I?!
Re:This is a joke. (Score:5, Interesting)
How much do you know about Asteroid Mining?
Quite a lot, actually. It's part of the space systems engineering textbook I'm writing
What I do know is that 2015, two years from now, is a totally and completely unrealistic goal.
That is not an unrealistic goal to launch prospector spacecraft. Coondoggie's article summary mangles what they intend to do, and you misread it further. Their actual website lists three stages: Prospecting craft to find the asteroids, assay missions to bring back ~20 kg samples, and only then trying to actually mine. This is a sensible plan.
In the mean time, I hope to start building prototype "seed factory" hardware this year. A seed factory is the minimal starter set of machines to start building *other* machines, which in turn becomes your industrial base. Think of it like a bootstrap compiler for hardware. Feed it plans for other machines, it starts making parts. I'm aiming for making 85% of the 2nd generation machines, because 100% is too hard a goal. The other 15% you just buy.
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Aren't minerals concentrated by water? (Score:2)
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How would you do the actual mining? My best bet is controlled demolition on asteroids to turn them into rubble piles, then come back in a few years when the dust has cleared as it were, before feeding the bits into a solar furnace/centrifuge for refining/seperation.
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That's definitely an interesting question. I did some engineering for an asteroid sample and return mission, and the challenges involved are not trivial. Many of the asteroids we've looked at for missions are already just rubble piles, and have surface escape velocities of less than half a meter per second. So any type of demolition to break something more solid apart will definitely blow away significant mass. Would a drill even work if you didn't have a thruster on it, pushing toward the surface? I do
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How much do you know about Asteroid Mining?
Quite a lot, actually. It's part of the space systems engineering textbook I'm writing
I'm quite curious. Do you know of any good websites or books that talk about it?
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Most likely, utter failure.
But, if it works, insanely profitable. It's like betting on "0" at roulette, only more so.
Why? Because the plan is not to bring materials back to Earth! Any material is insanely expensive if it has to be hoisted out of earth's gravity well. If you can provide the material, already in space, even materials that are cheap on earth are ridiculously valuable. Tin, copper, nickel, iron, aluminum, all are worth more in orbit than gold, platinum, or palladium, etc are on earth.
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Are "seed factories" even possible with current levels of tech? I thought we needed molecular manufacturing to build credible devices.
The way I see it, currently we lack the "pre-requisite" technology to do practical space exploitation like this. If we had molecular manufacturing, we could mass produce rocket components autonomously in giant automated factories on earth that can self replicate the parts used in themselves. We could build true von neuman probes and spacecraft that could go out and build r
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Are "seed factories" even possible with current levels of tech? I thought we needed molecular manufacturing to build credible devices.
The way I see it, currently we lack the "pre-requisite" technology to do practical space exploitation like this. If we had molecular manufacturing, we could mass produce rocket components autonomously in giant automated factories on earth that can self replicate the parts used in themselves. We could build true von neuman probes and spacecraft that could go out and build real seed factories, etc to really do it.
Large space stations with thousands of inhabitants, etc would all be possible.
But step 0 is R&D in developing molecular manufacturing, which requires an enormous research effort. Right now, there's a few scientists poking around with simulations of a method to covalently bond carbon to other carbon on a surface. This should be where all the research dollars go.
You don't. What you need is clever optimization of your tooling - basically finding out the minimal expected life of all your components, so you can launch something which can produce X number of sub-machines before breaking down and needing replacement.
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Duh. Do you even have a clue how one gets "real world experience"? By going and doing it. And almost inevitably the first few times they'll do it wrong, that's inherent in exploring any new technology. How many locomotives blew up before they had enough "real world experience" to build out the world's rail system? Our engineers and procedures are better today, we should be able to minimize the number failures, but there w
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No shit Sherlock. Nothing in my post said otherwise. What obvious thing will you point out next? That water is wet or that fire is hot?
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What's the best that could happen? A mitigating effort towards Earth's looming resource problems?
However shitty the odds of the latter happening, consequences of both are staggeringly different.
DON'T PANIC
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There's no petroleum in an asteroid. Nor can their mining platforms bring back enough clean fresh water to make a significant difference. Other than that, we don't have any looming resource problems.
Don't listen to the Club Of Rome, or their philosophical descendants, they fail badly at math and economics. ("Currently uneconomical to recover" != "shortage".)
Not economically possible. (Score:2)
I don't understand how asteroid mining could be profitable with current technology. What is the delta-V budget for sending engines+fuel+mining equipment to a near-earth asteroid and returning it to earth? I'd imagine the per-kg cost exceeds the value of whatever you could possibly return, even if you found an asteroid made of solid gold and all you had to do was de-orbit it.
Gold = $50k/kg
Delta-IV Heavy = 9000 kg to Earth escape velocity [wikipedia.org] @ $250 million = $28k/kg
If the delta-V requirement to bring a NEO back
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Getting stuff from Earth to even low orbit is extremely expensive, you have to deliver a huge delta-V in a very small time window, but that's mainly a technological problem - the actual fuel consumption is only ~5% of the total cost. Once in free-fall delta-v gets vastly cheaper, especially as we move towards extremely high specific impulse systems like ion drives.
As for bringing things down to Earth, the other high-energy, time-critical operation, that's much cheaper since a heat-shield+parachute reentry
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Yes, sending the equipment out is likely to be expensive, but it presumably stays out as a long-term investment, harvesting multiple asteroids and sending the rare minerals back to Earth as "loot" while using the rest as raw materials for it's 3D printer, so its cost relative to the value of harvesting a single asteroid is largely irrelevant, especially since with a metallurgical 3D printer it will likely be envisioned ad the "seed ship" which will produce the stuctural components of its sister-ships from a
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1) Ion drives consume very little fuel and even current low-thrust versions are suitable for moving non-perishable resources where transit time isn't terribly important. And I'm betting even chemical thrusters deliver a very impressive kg fuel/kg payload ratio when all you have to do is nudge the orbit of a big block of gold/whatever so that it drifts out of its Lagrangian orbit and collides with Earth in a year or two.
2) *Re-entry* is the high-energy concern here, the return trip doesn't care about escape
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You've got it all backwards. When they said they will be "bringing ore down for the highest bidder", they meant the highest bidder gets to decide where the target is. A million tons of iron raining down from orbit onto wherever the highest bidder says it should go.
Re:This is a joke. (Score:4, Insightful)
I was initially concerned about damage to the (Score:2)
Fireflies (the exploratory satellites), but then I remembered if there were any danger of a collision, they could simply make the jump to hyperspace [wikipedia.org]. Seems to work consistently well if I remember right...
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Or, if they make the same modifications as Serenity, they can pull a Crazy Ivan if there's a convenient atmosphere nearby.
Atari SA declares bankruptcy (Score:2)
And now this... coincidence?
New Asteroid Mining COmpany (Score:2)
NAMCO? :)
Seems like (Score:2)
Hugely cool, 3d-printing in space a bonus (Score:5, Informative)
Also cool was this blurb near the end of the article on zero-g 3D Printing
Deep Space's construction activities will be aided by a patent-pending 3D printer called the MicroGravity Foundry, officials said. "The MicroGravity Foundry is the first 3D printer that creates high-density, high-strength metal components even in zero gravity," company co-founder and MicroGravity Foundry inventor Stephen Covey said in a statement. "Other metal 3D printers sinter powdered metal, which requires a gravity field and leaves a porous structure, or they use low-melting point metals with less strength."
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Re:Hugely cool, 3d-printing in space a bonus (Score:4, Interesting)
I really get annoyed when people describe something they've thought of (or something they've found) as something they've invented.
Then be prepared to get bent: When I was 10 years old I independently invented masturbation. I tried to keep it secret for almost a year, but only while I studied the effects because I thought I'd be rich beyond dreams someday after I patented the process... I even let a few of my close friends in on the revolutionary discovery, contingent upon their swearing to not reveal the technique.
It was their own fault, but still you could imagine my parent's consternation: "Mom, Dad, I need $375 to file a patent... I figured out a new way to, um, touch... things that is really amazing! You're not going to believe this..."
Now, when I look back I'm not embarrassed, I'm angry that the information wasn't readily available.
The point is: Perhaps your annoyance is aimed in the wrong direction. I mean, either A) Everyone knows about 3D printing tech, and they're just describing for completeness, or B) They think they're Wanktomus Prime and can't wait to tell everyone about being the first wankers ever... Would you really be annoyed in either instance? Life's too short to be pissed off all the time; I suggest substituting humor in place of annoyance and sarcasm in place of outrage.
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Outrage is not what I experience, annoyance at having wasted the time to read about someone claiming something they didn't actually do... that will probably always annoy me.
In this case, there are 3D printing systems which don't rely on gravity the way he claims... but this guy's company doesn't have them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYbw1oSzPVA [youtube.com] is one example.
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Not that there isn't plenty of depressing stuff going on:
Political gridlock? Can't get enough of that.
US Debt ceiling? Nope, sky is the limit, keep printing money.
Oil? The hell with global warming, we have this swell fracking thing that will let us out-produce Saudi Arabia. Carbon footprints be damned. Come on, what could go wrong?
Oh, Global Warming is just too hard of a problem... we can't do anything about it
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If they've actually developed a 3D printer with the capabilities described... But I can't even find a website for the company [that produces the printer], only blurbs related to this asteroid mining venture.
That alone raises a red flag.
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Oh please! (Score:2)
Well (Score:2)
Try to think about this solution with a blank slate view for a moment. Don't assign qualitative values as to whether an approach is "good" or not.
Mining for resources ultimately comes down to (resources gained)/(labor + energy + fixed costs + materials).
There are very huge amounts of resources available deeper in the earth's crusts, in the oceans, in the wilds of undeveloped countries, etc. All of them require somewhat more of one of the variables in that equation than mines that are open today.
Consider
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Your missing the true end-game : Building things in space. Everything they have planned thus far is just foreplay.
Adjust your equation with the final step of moving those resources into LEO or beyond. How much extra energy do you expend to lift your moon base off and break free of the gravity well known as Earth? According to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], it costs roughly $10,000 to lift one pound of material into space. Bring that into the equation, and space mining suddenly seems a lot more worthwhile
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Now, there is one advantage to space mining : no one has legal claims that can be enforced on any of those celestial bodies.
Actually, there is another advantage to space mining: It is IN SPACE.
Value of a kg of aluminum on Earth's surface: $3.
Value of a kg of aluminum in NEO: $10000.
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Now, there is one advantage to space mining : no one has legal claims that can be enforced on any of those celestial bodies.
Actually, there is another advantage to space mining: It is IN SPACE.
Value of a kg of aluminum on Earth's surface: $3.
Value of a kg of aluminum in NEO: $10000.
Only if you can find a customer for that. And it may be that the customer doesn't want to buy raw aluminum, but fuel tanks and pressure vessels. OUTFITTED and tested fuel tanks and pressure vessels. These may be worth $10000/kg, but good luck producing them for this kind of money there. You'll need much more than raw metal and 3D printers for that, you'll need an actual aerospace factory in space.
Besides: There isn't much aluminum to be found on asteroids.
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Homeworld? (Score:2)
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Heh, yeah. The one downside I see to near-Earth asteroid mining beyond the low-mass experimental proof-of-concept phase is that kinetic weapons are the *easiest* thing to build from a large asteroid, and potentially the most valuable. Who could possibly stand against someone with an arsenal of megaton to gigaton bombs that would leave no radioactive fallout to deal with? The threat of mutually assured destruction would perhaps keep governments in line, provided the major powers are all in on the game, but
How to evaluate a space related venture... (Score:2)
Step 1: Evaluate how much of the projected funding requirements they have actually secured and have banked
Step 2: For those from step 1 who have all the funding already in hand, evaluate where they will get the additional funding they didn't project that they'd need, that they'll actually end up needing. Disregard the rest.
Step 3: For those from step 2 who have a very plausible source of additional funds, then begin to consider their business plan, the TR
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I really just don't get... (Score:2)
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How this could possibly be cost effective?
Simple: Consider the huge gravity-well tax on Earth mining efforts. Asteroids are relatively tax free.
Mineral Rights (Score:2)
Regardless, I could see the very real scenario of them being underwritten by someone with very deep pockets (ahem-China-ahem) in exchange for exclusive use of the minerals.
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The right they have is getting there first.
What right does someone have to claim rights on something out in space? There is no point creating laws on earth to start allowing companies or countries right's to space stuff. Even if some paper on earth is written up its not going to stop someone from building a space ship and getting there first to actually mine it.
If you can plant a flag on it, its yours, period. If you can put gun turrets onit to protect your stake, then you win.
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I am being serious here: what rights do they have to those minerals if by some miracle this actually 'gets off the ground'? Is international law really Finders Keepers? Hard to believe. Regardless, I could see the very real scenario of them being underwritten by someone with very deep pockets (ahem-China-ahem) in exchange for exclusive use of the minerals.
Hmmm...perhaps not "Finders Keepers" per se, but possession being nine-tenths of the law, I would wager that exploiting mineral resources is the same thing on or off of the Earth. Once a claim is made on some off-planet resource, it can be challenged and it will either be successfully defended or not, just like it is here on Earth. The framework of the challenge is pretty much irrelevant -- you can use lawyers or you can use guns, but the "rights" go to the guy who can successfully defend the claim. NB:
Controlled descent? (Score:2)
.
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It would probably be a lot cheaper to bring an asteroid to Earth first and then mine it, rather than send robots up to do it.
That's true of the first asteroid, but after that, you get too much loss from having to send out the scouts and sample collectors from the Earth's surface. The advantage with this system is that once it's set up, they can build their spacecraft in space. That saves the energy costs of a ground to space launch.
It's also worth noting that energy is cheap in space. On the ground, you either have to worry about radiation (fission reactions) or atmospheric loss (solar power). In space, solar panels are effec
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The advantage with this system is that once it's set up, they can build their spacecraft in space.
The question then is how much of the spacecraft can be fabbed strictly from asteroid material. Converting the raw materials on the asteroids - metals, silicates, carbon, water - into the polymers, alloys, carbon fibers, ceramics, semiconductors, and the host of other processed materials to create more spacecraft isn't trivial. Not saying it can't be done, but still a tall order.
.
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I imagine initially it would initially be relatively "simple" metal components that would be created in space - if you could take your almost-pure chunks of asteroidial iron, aluminum, etc, grind them up, and 3D-print strong arbitrary structures then you've got a *massive* cost advantage for the most expensive part of the ship/robot/whatever to get from Earth - all the heavy structural stuff. All the complicated stuff can then be brought up from Earth, at least initially.
I'd expect synthesis of some sort
Rogue Drones (Score:2)
Just what we need, Rogue Drones.
Above Cloud Storage (Score:2)
Should crowdfund this (Score:2)
I am sure millions of people will happily throw money into this without any hope of return or success.
aah, yes....the old asteroid mining trick (Score:2)
...the fact that her father was a stellar cartographer, and in 2340, he conducted a full spectrum mineralogical analysis of the Vlugta asteroids. He never had the means to follow up on what he found. Alsia's plan was to carry out her father's dream.
Wow has /. gone down hill, this article is a day old and I don't see one comment about ST:DS9 Rivals episode.
Link, to a website I googled to get the summary, couldn't find this mining reference on the Wikipedia page for the episode, was really a sub-plot, I can't
Re:I dont see this working (Score:4, Informative)
The cubesats are to explore, not mine. First you need to find likely targets. If you bothered reading the article you'd see they will be using slightly larger vehicles to bring back small payloads.
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Nothing. If you read the article (I know, this is Slashdot), then you will discover that the first satelites are scouts. In 2016, they want to launch larger satellites to retrieve small samples. Ultimately, they want to build a 3-D printer in space, as well as create rocket fuel for space gas stations. As far as I could tell, the funding for this endeavor is a bit of a question mark.
Re:I dont see this working (Score:4, Interesting)
> the funding for this endeavor is a bit of a question mark
Unless and until they discover an asteroid, in a favorable orbit, that has large deposits of rhodium, or palladium, or platinum, or gold. (Or even copper.)
That will bring in the speculative investors.
Once they demonstrate that they can bring these minerals back to earth at a profit, then they will have screaming investors climbing over one another to put up money for it.
I was arguing years ago that we ought to be doing this. I'm TIRED of the whiny, "only one Earth and we're running out of resources" bullcrap. If they can make this work -- and I give them an even 50/50 chance -- it'll be as revolutionary as the invention of the wheel.
Re:I dont see this working (Score:4, Interesting)
50/50 chance? You're talking about the original investors and original staff, I take it.
Given that they are almost as likely to fail as they are to succeed, what happens when they go under? Someone buys up their assets, right? They will have left some valuable tools up there, and someone will want to claim them, maybe for pennies on the dollar. That someone will have a somewhat different plant, and succeed where the first team failed. Or, something like that.
Bottom line, for me, is that they are accumulating experience and knowledge in the attempt. We, mankind, will build on that, and eventually succeed.
Everything needed for exploration and colonization is already out there. All we need do is figure out how to use them. Success depends only on our initiative.
Two thumbs up for initiative!
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> 50/50 chance
I personally think (hope) the odds are better than that. It depends on how smart they are. (And by "they," I include Planetary Resources in that.) What's really interesting about their proposal is the use of small, inexpensive satellites and telescopes to do the initial searches.
Some skeptics point out that NASA will spend about a billion dollars just to bring a couple of ounces back to Earth. They conclude that this isn't even worth the try. My answer would be, first, well, NASA. The gover
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Maybe I've just been lucky, but I haven't run in to many people who whine about a shortage of the sort of resources we could mine - we have plenty of most resources if they're recycled when no longer used, and for a lot of it recycling is actually more cost-effective than mining. The things we have to seriously consider shortages of :
Clean water - sure we can make this if there's dirty water available, but it's expensive to do so.
Arable cropland - maybe GM crops can drastically increase yields in a safe ma
Re:I dont see this working (Score:4, Insightful)
> the funding for this endeavor is a bit of a question mark
Unless and until they discover an asteroid, in a favorable orbit, that has large deposits of rhodium, or palladium, or platinum, or gold. (Or even copper.)
That will bring in the speculative investors.
Once they demonstrate that they can bring these minerals back to earth at a profit, then they will have screaming investors climbing over one another to put up money for it.
I was arguing years ago that we ought to be doing this. I'm TIRED of the whiny, "only one Earth and we're running out of resources" bullcrap. If they can make this work -- and I give them an even 50/50 chance -- it'll be as revolutionary as the invention of the wheel.
If it was gold the 'speculators' would be paying you a fuckton of cash just to forget you ever saw it and destroy all record of it. Or, failing that, pay very expensive hit men to get rid of the asteroid prospectors.
There could be enough gold come from asteroid mining to completely destroy its value. That would be hilarious and I'd love to see it happen, but the wealth of the gold cartels is, well, astronomical and they'd like to keep it that way.
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> There could be enough gold come from asteroid mining to completely destroy its value.
Of *ALL* key minerals, not just gold.
Recommended reading: "The Man Who Sold The Moon" by Robert Heinlein. Harriman(sp?) wasn't even interested in profits. He just wanted to go to the moon.
Your point about cartels is well-noted. For that matter, I've read that there are already enough diamonds on this planet to give everyone at least 1 carat each. I have no idea how accurate that figure is, but hey; diamonds are simply
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It costs more to safely de-orbit platinum than it's worth. Mining anything in orbit for use on Earth just isn't in the cards. The sane business plan is to create an orbiting refueling point, since fuel is so very expensive to lift into orbit, and CHON asteroids are common.
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Then in 2016, Deep Space said it will begin launching 70-lb DragonFlies for round-trip visits that bring back samples. The DragonFly expeditions will take two to four years, depending on the target, and will return 60 to 150 lbs of asteroid materiel.
Re: I dont see this working (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fairly certain that, in microgravity, with my feet strapped down, I could take a 5000 kilogram dumbell sitting at my feet with my hands and lift it up over my head. I couldn't do it very quickly, due to inertia, and I would have to start working against my initial movements at about the halfway mark to stop it from yanking itself out of my hands (or yanking off my hands) at full extension.
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Nope. You could *move* the dumbell sure, but the motion would not be lifting because lifting implies "moving upwards", i.e. working against gravity (or pseudo-gravity). As such it's an irrelevant term in a free-fall environment.
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It would be upwards relative to my personal notion of up. Anyway, I said "microgravity" not zero gravity. For the sake of argument, my feet are strapped to a small asteroid, with 1/1000th the surface gravity of Earth. Or, I'm on a space station, but I'm at one of the far ends, with 90% of the mass of the space station in the direction of my feet. Or there's a slight spin to the space station. Or who cares. The point is that the statement "In space (you probably meant "in orbit") you have to be exactly as st
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You were right about the mass a 55 lb sat could bring back, of course. There's no food reason a smaller device couldn't bring back many times its own mass. Realistically these cubesats won't, of course and the devices that follow them almost certainly won't be able to bring back much for a while. But there's nothing in principle that stops them from being able to move around very large masses in low gravity. Even here on Earth, the principle is easily observed with relatively small tugs moving around very l
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Do not try this at home, if your home is an orbiting space station. Given the very slow scale of this, by applying "upwards" force on the dumbell you'll be shifting its orbit realative to yours, and it will drift "sideways" as much as "up", which could get awkard with your feet strapped down and all. (If you move stuff very fast relative to your orbital period, you don't much notice this effect, but moving a 5-ton weight won't be fast.)
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It wouldn't need to be that slow. 5000 kilograms is a lot more than I would be able to lift on Earth, but it's not some unimaginable amount. I can easily deadlift 50 kilograms in Earth gravity to a height of 1 meter without that much strain and let's call full extension of my arms 2 meters (can't actually be bothered to measure it right now). So, I can provide at least 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration to 50 kilograms, which means that I can provide at least .098 m/s^2 to 5000 kilograms and reach 1 meter in about 5 se
Re: I dont see this working (Score:4)
Tragedy has a much better grasp of "strength" than you seem to have. You must overcome inertia in space, but not gravity or friction. Hence, much less strength is required to move an object. Picking up a quarter ton on the moon is about as easy as lifting a hundred pounds on earth. With even smaller microgravities, you might pick up two or three tons. But, inertia might get you killed, unless you're experienced in those microgravities. Pick up a ton, without planning how you're going to stop that mass moving, and it may very well crash through your sunroof, inducing explosive decompression in all the occupants of your habitat.
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This is a violation of International treaties and amounts to conspiracy to commit theft.
This is a federal crime under US law.
They're a corporation. You must not live in the U.S. or you'd know that laws don't apply to corporations unless they fail to pay their brib^H^H^H^H Freedom & Democracy Support Fees.
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Also, why is it a violation of international treaties to mine asteroids (if it is at all)? What morons would make a treaty that says 'nobody can mine asteroids'?
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Nobody owns fish on the high seas (outside the 200 mile EEZ), but it's still legal to catch them - the taking of fish (or minerals) doesn't require a claim of sovereignty.
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So they don't own those asteroids? Who does, a bunch of ethically-bankrupt politicians claiming to "represent" the people of Earth? Great job they're not doing so far. I say if somebody has the guts to get out there and bring back the wealth of the void instead of open-cut mining our biosphere like the rest of the leeches, go for it.
The ability to mine asteroids also means the ability to avert that same risk. Be a shame if there's already an an asteroid out there on a collision trajectory with Earth and we