The First Secret Asteroid Mission Won't Be the Last (nytimes.com) 60
AstroForge, a private company, wants to mine a space rock, but it doesn't want the competition to find out which one. From a report: For generations, Western space missions have largely occurred out in the open. We knew where they were going, why they were going there and what they planned to do. But the world is on the verge of a new era in which private interests override such openness, with big money potentially on the line. Sometime in the coming year, a spacecraft from AstroForge, an American asteroid-mining firm, may be launched on a mission to a rocky object near Earth's orbit. If successful, it will be the first wholly commercial deep-space mission beyond the moon. AstroForge, however, is keeping its target asteroid secret.
The secret space-rock mission is the latest in an emerging trend that astronomers and other experts do not welcome: commercial space missions conducted covertly. Such missions highlight gaps in the regulation of spaceflight as well as concerns about whether exploring the cosmos will continue to benefit all humankind. "I'm very much not in favor of having stuff swirling around the inner solar system without anyone knowing where it is," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. "It seems like a bad precedent to set." But for AstroForge, the calculation is simple: If it reveals the destination, a competitor may grab the asteroid's valuable metals for itself. "Announcing which asteroid we are targeting opens up risk that another entity could seize that asteroid," said Matt Gialich, AstroForge's chief executive.
The secret space-rock mission is the latest in an emerging trend that astronomers and other experts do not welcome: commercial space missions conducted covertly. Such missions highlight gaps in the regulation of spaceflight as well as concerns about whether exploring the cosmos will continue to benefit all humankind. "I'm very much not in favor of having stuff swirling around the inner solar system without anyone knowing where it is," said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. "It seems like a bad precedent to set." But for AstroForge, the calculation is simple: If it reveals the destination, a competitor may grab the asteroid's valuable metals for itself. "Announcing which asteroid we are targeting opens up risk that another entity could seize that asteroid," said Matt Gialich, AstroForge's chief executive.
Wahh. What A Bunch Of Crybabies. (Score:2)
Give us money but we can't tell you what we are going to do with it, exactly.
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How exactly are they crybabies? This is an absolutely expected outcome where property rules are really unclear. Even the "wild west" during the goldrush had a much more solid legal framework of mining and property claims than we currently have in outer space. And there, you not infrequently saw all sorts of secrecy with respect to where people were mining, and filing claims until the last possible legal moment.
We don't have to (and shouldn't) turn space into an anarchocapitalist free-for-all (though that wo
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Maybe they intend to fire a harpoon into the asteroid
Only after they paint the asteroid white.
Re: Wahh. What A Bunch Of Crybabies. (Score:2)
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We don't have to (and shouldn't) turn space into an anarchocapitalist free-for-all (though that would probably be preferable to a totalitarian regime that worked us all to death as indentured servants in asteroid mines)
Would it? For those of us who can't afford our own means of production the result would be the same, even if you're called an independent contractor company colony resident instead of an indentured servant.
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Who is giving them money? Not taxpayers I assume. It's presumably private investors, who either know which asteroid it is or are risk-tolerant enough to gamble on it.
Re:Give us money but we can't say why (Score:1)
That's not a space company, that's the gov't ;-)
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Pretty sure by the nature of being a space company, you also, by government definition, are an extension of the government. Can't be going around shooting missiles into space without full government oversight, approval, and associated ass kissing.
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Pretty sure by the nature of being a space company, you also, by government definition, are an extension of the government. Can't be going around shooting missiles into space without full government oversight, approval, and associated ass kissing.
I can't drive a car down the street without government oversight and approval either. Is every driver also an extension of the government now?
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Yes, oh great pedantic one.
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If you're not part of the solution then you are part of the problem. As is all government. So many followers.
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Not for long.
Re: Give us money but we can't say why (Score:2)
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For generations
That seems to be an early call. A lot of the people involved with the start of the russian and US space programs are alive and kicking. We're not talking about people from long ago. The New York Times should know better.
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For generations
That seems to be an early call. A lot of the people involved with the start of the russian and US space programs are alive and kicking. We're not talking about people from long ago. The New York Times should know better.
It sounds correct to me. A generation is typically about 20 years and space programs have existed for a few multiples of that. Are there grandparents who worked in the space programs, who had a child that did, and now have a grandchild that does? That's three generations right there, even if the grandparent is still alive and kicking.
So troubling (Score:4, Funny)
I can't decide whether to invest in this or Bored Space Ape NFTs.
The real target (Score:4, Insightful)
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It all sounds so good those questions don't matter. What matters is how quick can they get some of that taxpayer money.
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It all sounds so good those questions don't matter. What matters is how quick can they get some of that taxpayer money.
Taxpayers or middle class and the slightly wealthy are fine to steal from, but they better stay away from billionaires or they might actually get in some trouble.
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Could be Earth. For all we know, it could land somewhere in Alaska.
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Plus, of course, the necessary heat shield and additional fuel to launch from Earth's gravity well to appear to come back from [Undisclosed Target] - presumably to scam the investors - would seriously increase their launch costs.
The world is full of mining scams. I'd hope their second-generation investors - the likely targets of the scam - would have read some of the science and know how (and where) to validate the origins of the "really juic
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if the mission is purely to go out grab a bit and come back i completely agree - but if it's to send something - to claim a stake in (mineral rights/ownership) then either it or a later probe to shift it's orbit to be closer to earth and more cost effective to mine - sounds like the logical first step for a mining company - pure exploration and surveying.
Re:The real target (Score:4, Insightful)
if the mission is purely to go out grab a bit and come back i completely agree - but if it's to send something - to claim a stake in (mineral rights/ownership) then either it or a later probe to shift it's orbit to be closer to earth and more cost effective to mine - sounds like the logical first step for a mining company - pure exploration and surveying.
I believe I see a potential problem here. Because a for-profit enterprise mucking about with orbits they may or may not fully comprehend can't possibly lead to something silly like at extinction level event.
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while i do agree with you - i have to point out that other than an accelerated timeline - the results aren't much different than the current results of the industrial revolution have been so great for the planet and life here?
The fun one will be, who the hell would insure them? that would be a fun conversation to listen into.....
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This guy gets it. Safety first. I doubt they're targeting something far away, near-Earth asteroid would be most profitable from a delta-V point of view, and the real reason they're keeping their mouth shut.
If it was Russia or Iran sending a secret mission to a nearby asteroid, everyone would be collectively shitting their pants.
If the ownership structure of this corporation is opaque, it may actually be the case.
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This guy gets it. Safety first. I doubt they're targeting something far away, near-Earth asteroid would be most profitable from a delta-V point of view, and the real reason they're keeping their mouth shut.
Well, near earth asteroids have a velocity of something like 15-50kps velocities, there would be no possible way of stopping it short of blasting a big chunk off it and trying to impact the moon, or earth. The moon would be insanely risky and the earth suicidal.
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This guy gets it. Safety first. I doubt they're targeting something far away, near-Earth asteroid would be most profitable from a delta-V point of view, and the real reason they're keeping their mouth shut.
If it was Russia or Iran sending a secret mission to a nearby asteroid, everyone would be collectively shitting their pants.
If the ownership structure of this corporation is opaque, it may actually be the case.
While I have my doubts Russia or Iran would bother spending money to jump up into space to try to find weapons, I don't doubt some bumbling business fool could pull a Mark Rylance (Don't Look Up) and think they can just shove it down to Earth to collect it without a single thought about the size or the decimation it will cause on impact. Or, far more likely, screw up some attempt at nudging toward us that goes horribly wrong.
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People really need to improve the public understanding of orbital mechanics.
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Hmmm, "money people" and engineering. I see your concern.
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Only if they're really incompetent about it.
Hmmm, "money people" and engineering. I see your concern.
MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS!
NOTE: May not be the best idea when discussing the possibility of hosing yourself so terribly you take the entire planet's biomass down with you.
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Can they even claim those rights in space? It's not clear that under current international law that anyone can own any celestial body.
If it turns out to be valuable, or they move it to a more convenient orbit, they could find that others are free to take advantage of their work.
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that's part of the adventures of man kind - if they don't land something on it they for sure can not claim it - if they do, then they have an something to fight for.
Much like the wide west of North America in the 17-1800's at first it was anyone's, and it wasn't till it was mapped that then it was homesteads - now we have property records.
Space is the next frontier, some would even say it's the final frontier.......
Re:The real target (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed - for the foreseeable future, the most valuable commodities in space will be:
1. LOX
2. LCH4
3. LH2
4. H2O
All of those will be far more valuable than gold, silver, platinum, palladium. And even if you figured out a way to cheaply redirect a solid gold million-tonne asteroid to earth, an exercise left to the reader is "How much will that gold be worth, when there's only 200,000 tonnes currently available on Earth (most held as wealth and not traded) and new production is about 2000 tonnes per year?"
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I am flummoxed. Two things I thought were readily available in space were
1) ice 2) electricity
Which all should make sourcing LOX LH2 and H20 easy?
I thought the point of this mining was to bring the material back to earth?
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It is very difficult to get mass into orbit, a bit more difficult to get it to move somewhere else after that. If your mass is already in solar orbit, you don't have to harness a lot of energy to lift it off the planet. Mass makes great shielding. Mass allows you to create habitable volume.
Essentially, being able to mine an asteroid is step one, with step two being 'build stuff in space'. You want giant space stations with nice thick walls to protect against radiation? There you go. Or maybe you just
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For various values of "readily available".
If you want large quantities of ice in space without hauling it up from Earth, you better be prepared to go out to the rings of Saturn to get it. And yes, if you have a huge chunk of ice available to you, you can melt it into H20 and then crack it into O2 and H2, which means you can then make CH4.
It's obtaining it that is a problem - you either need to go pretty far out there to get it, or somehow redirect a large-mass object that is already in motion to where you
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A distinction without a difference.
When we show even the slightest capability to capture a free-orbiting asteroid and push it somewhere that orbital mining could even be feasible, then we can worry about where we can find water outside of Earth's biosphere.
For reference: the largest spacecraft we've sent anywhere near or beyond the asteroid belt is less than 6,000kg. We have a whole lot of work to do if anything even remotely useful will come of these efforts.
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Ice is pretty rare this side of Mars. There's lots around, but it's a long way away.
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Only where the Sun doesn't shine.
Sure, with solar panels, which only work in the sunlight.
This presents... problems.
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I completely agree,
Lifting these expendables from earth is a HUGE expense.
If these molecules can be sourced in near earth or even a smaller gravity well. Then all of a sudden industry in space becomes feasible. And industry in space leads to exploration and migration into space.
If a source of these molecules exists on the moon. Then a lot of things get a lot easier. Gravity is an essential component of most refining processes. ( Yes you can use spinning. But this is a lot of extra complexity. ) Lift
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Copper. The meth heads will do all the work for free.
Or perhaps catalytic converters.
So they're going is going to a near-earth asteroid (Score:2)
I'm guessing the secret will be out shortly after launch.
Also, there's a whole lot of wiggle room in the phrase "may launch". I suspect that, as with many startups, they're more focused on a hoped-for buyout - and an actual launch is pretty unlikely.
Private enterprise is taking over (Score:1)
What did you think would happen?
The same thing happened with the internet: when it was an academic thing, everything was public and open. And then private concerns moved in and it immediately started enshittifying it.
Space was a publicly funded venture. Now it's a venture capital affair. Enshittification and petty "space wars" will immediately ensue.
That's just how this shit always goes. I'm not even sure there's any other way of going about it, or if any other way is even desirable. It seems to be the leas
Some one might grab it's resources (Score:2)
That we *know* of.... (Score:2)
Nobody's heard of our secret asteriod...
goddamit.
Even Einstein was stumped by this (Score:1)
> "I'm very much not in favor of having stuff swirling around the inner solar system without anyone knowing where it is,"
So that's where my missing sock pairs are going.
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> "I'm very much not in favor of having stuff swirling around the inner solar system without anyone knowing where it is,"
So that's where my missing sock pairs are going.
Probably hanging out with the teapots.
Mine (Score:2)
AstroForge, a private company, wants to mine a space rock, but it doesn't want the competition to find out which one.
I'll mine, yes, all mine!!
Super secret. (Score:2)
Only the top five KSP nerds have even heard of it.
Big mistake to announce an asteroid mission at all (Score:2)
It's all up for grabs (Score:2)
No, really. Who owns the solar system and all the resources in it? Nobody but those who use them. Like, Earth is only receiving a minuscule part of solar energy, the sun is just wasting energy all over the place. It's free for any takers. Same with the carbon and the iron and the water out there.
Nobody uses it yet, it't just there, waiting.
And don't come up with things like "pollution" and "exploiting". Our system has been through much worse than us and it's all just matter and physics, as we are too. As lo
Just use an expedition frigate. (Score:2)
Isn't it fairly simple to track the spacecraft? (Score:2)
The launch date and location will probably not be hard to find out for their competitors. Tracking the spacecraft afterwards can't be that hard I think. You also only need to track it for a few days to calculate the orbital and from that the rough area of its destination.
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If they wanted to keep it's destination "secret", they'd probably be best to launch into a peri-Lunar insertion orbit on chemical, high-delta-vee thrusters, then depart Lunar orbit from somewhere on the far side on a low thrust (and so, low