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Planetary resources in announces ASTEROID MINING venture.

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Joseph Silverman
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Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
Yay! More super cool scifi business ventures becoming a reality.
The inaugural step, to be achieved in the next 18 to 24 months, would be launching the first in a series of private telescopes that would search for asteroid targets rich in resources. The intention will be to open deep-space exploration to private industry.

Within five to 10 years, however, the company expects to progress from selling observation platforms in orbit around Earth to prospecting services. It plans to tap some of the thousands of asteroids that pass relatively close to Earth and extract their raw materials.

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  • nick2730
    minus the private company part. Privatizing space exploration is a dumb concept. When we are actually ready we need to do it as a species not google vs Microsoft in space
  • aesir
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    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    nick2730 wrote: »
    minus the private company part. Privatizing space exploration is a dumb concept. When we are actually ready we need to do it as a species not google vs Microsoft in space

    Yea, same with medical technology. When we're ready to have a cure for cancer, we need to do it with publicly funded money, not when some evil corporation wants to make a buck.
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    We won't do it as a species unless we're on the brink of extinction. We'll do it as nations at war; A nice long cold war right now would be the birth of mankind as a spacefaring species.

    Otherwise this is a cool announcement. About time someone looked skywards at all those metals.
  • Isaiah Sherman
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    Isaiah Sherman polycounter lvl 14
    aesir wrote: »
    When we're ready to have a cure for cancer, we need to do it with publicly funded money, not when some evil corporation wants to make a buck.

    Play Deus Ex, the first game. That's pretty much the premise of it.
  • Lazerus Reborn
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    Lazerus Reborn polycounter lvl 8
    Heh mankind will only ever be united on the precipice mainly since retarded people run the place. *sighs*

    On another note, Yay! Begin the rape of space ;')
  • ScudzAlmighty
    That means their gonna rape Uranus yes?
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    On another note, Yay! Begin the rape of space ;')

    Space Indians better watch the fuck out.
  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    Space is REALLY BIG, there's plenty to go around. Not so for earth!
  • Sandro
    Yay for space exploration!
    Privatizing space exploration is a dumb concept. When we are actually ready we need to do it as a species not google vs Microsoft in space

    Actually could turn out more efficient this way. Moving humankind forward is kind of abstract concept and people might not be so eager to invest their money/time/effort in it. Financial gain on the other hand is entirely different business :)
  • Skillmister
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    Skillmister polycounter lvl 11
    nick2730 wrote: »
    minus the private company part. Privatizing space exploration is a dumb concept. When we are actually ready we need to do it as a species not google vs Microsoft in space

    Privatising it is the way forward while the worlds governments are too busy blowing each other up to unite towards our own future.
  • brandoom
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    brandoom polycounter lvl 15
    Isn't this sort of thing how Aliens started?

    Jokes aside. I'm all for the idea regardless of who's doing it.
  • JordanW
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    JordanW polycounter lvl 19
    nick2730 wrote: »
    minus the private company part. Privatizing space exploration is a dumb concept. When we are actually ready we need to do it as a species not google vs Microsoft in space

    How is it a dumb concept? If no one else is doing it and they want to start a company that does it....should they be stopped?

    I -completely- agree that governments and the human race in general should be pushing for space exploration, but saying privatization is dumb is kind of a strange viewpoint. If someone wants to attempt to make money at exploring space, no one should stop them. Its just like someone sailing a ship and trading goods, only in space.
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Financial gain for pioneers = good for exploration, once every company tries to get a grab at space, introduce regulation.
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    If I started right now a Company for this very venture, how am I being dumb? People are too busy liking stuff on Facebook to do anything, and the Gov't is pretty much dead at this point in all the countries out there.

    So yeah, "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" pretty much fits here...
  • Ferg
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    Ferg polycounter lvl 17
    jordan took the words out of my mouth

    just look at history... government takes the first, most expensive steps in each new phase of exploration. Once the groundwork is laid, private enterprise takes over and pushes it further than any government could afford or be motivated to.

    I think this is the best thing ever, soooo stoked I'm gonna live to see our species start mining asteroids (assuming I don't get run over by a steam roller next year or something)
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    edit2: I broke it! double post, sorry.
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    nick2730 wrote: »
    minus the private company part. Privatizing space exploration is a dumb concept. When we are actually ready we need to do it as a species not google vs Microsoft in space

    Really? Who do you think it going to pay trillions and trillions of dollars to finance decades of research and devlopmment? Some magic future utopian civilization 400 years from now? With no payback?

    If we can make a buck pushing the boundaries of the human race, why not do it. corporations are not inherently evil or bad, everyone is just people!


    edit: I watched the press conference on a live stream, It's pretty insane how big their estimated returns are. "One asteroid half the size of this room will have billions of dollars of retrievable materials".
  • MadnessImport
    Finally, I love space so its great so see more time being invested in it :)

    Out of the blue they just happen to find some kind of weird Alien beacon on one of those asteroids then our technology is bumped up about 200 years worth skipping all the unimportant stuff the Reapers come and a population decrease follows...That'd be lovely!
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    I will be disappointed if Cameron doesn't call his first mining ship the Nostromo.

    Other than that, they need to get up on the moon to mine Helium 3, so we can get cheaper, safer energy than nuclear down here!
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    This is cool - there are people out there who think this would have happened anyway if NASA never existed, those people are fools.
  • Davision3D
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    Davision3D polycounter
    Any idea how the want to do it, mining an asteroid? I mean you cant just hop on a asteroid. And even if they manage that, how long can you mine til the asteroid flys far away from earth? :)
  • aesir
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    aesir polycounter lvl 18
    Davision3D wrote: »
    Any idea how the want to do it, mining an asteroid? I mean you cant just hop on a asteroid. And even if they manage that, how long can you mine til the asteroid flys far away from earth? :)

    There are large asteroid fields orbiting the sun.

    If that's too far there are ways to guide asteroids into orbit around the earth. For example (heard about this on a TED talk) you can park a small probe that weighs just a couple tons right next to an asteroid, not touching it, but still floating in space, and that probes gravity field will exert a pull on the asteroid and move it where we want. It only takes a miniscule amount of power to keep the probe in place. Sure it wouldn't be fast, but these would be long term plans.

    Here's the TED talk if you're interested: http://www.ted.com/talks/phil_plait_how_to_defend_earth_from_asteroids.html
  • Steve Schulze
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    Steve Schulze polycounter lvl 18
    If that's too far there are ways to guide asteroids into orbit around the earth.
    Well that'll be fine and dandy until they let the work experience kid drive the asteroid tractor and he bumps a bit too far and wipes out all life on the planet.
  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    Davision3D wrote: »
    Any idea how the want to do it, mining an asteroid? I mean you cant just hop on a asteroid. And even if they manage that, how long can you mine til the asteroid flys far away from earth? :)

    yes, actually!

    http://www.parabolicarc.com/2012/04/19/new-study-says-asteroid-retrieval-and-mining-feasible-with-existing-and-near-term-technologies/
  • gray
    so i assume this whole thing consisted of James and Eric calling a press conferece in a drunken stupor while in mid flight on someones private jet over the Atlantic. only to realize the next day what they had done. sort of like when you wake up with a hangover and find that the tv is in the pool your car is on the front lawn and half of your furniture is on the roof.

    i hate to be a septic here but it took the the combine scientific research and development effort of the entire world US, EU, Russia, Japan etc over 15 years and and over 150 BILLION US dollars to put what amounts to an over sized trailer into orbit which does essentially noting but sit there so some nerds at NASA can post video clips on you tube explaining how people take a poop with no gravity, fun times i'm sure... o yea and the trailer has a robot arm also :thumbup:

    i think you can say with a good deal of certainty this project can be called "two board rich guys with nothing to do make fools of them selves and want us all to watch".

    do you honestly think these nutters have any idea what sort of effort it would take to mine asteroids?

    cameron-amazon.jpg


    eric-schmidt.jpg
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    I'm sure they're paying people who do know.
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    Didn't Cameron just come back from, oh I don't know, going to the deepest (that anyone else has been) part of the known ocean?

    What an amateur! Totally the wrong kind of spirit you'd need at the head of an ambitious project like this.

    /Warning: This post may contain sarcasm.
  • aivanov
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    aivanov polycounter lvl 5
    gray wrote: »
    i hate to be a septic here but it took the the combine scientific research and development effort of the entire world US, EU, Russia, Japan etc over 15 years and and over 150 BILLION US dollars to put what amounts to an over sized trailer into orbit which does essentially noting but sit there so some nerds at NASA can post video clips on you tube explaining how people take a poop with no gravity, fun times i'm sure... o yea and the trailer has a robot arm also

    Have you considered that anything made today with relative ease, and that we take for granted, is the result of years of painstaking research and ridiculous amounts of money being pooled into ventures?

    It always starts slow, but it has to start somewhere. Oh, and whatever you personally have against the people behind this, is no reason to discredit an entire venture. Posting a couple of 'wacky' pictures doesn't work for trashy tabloids, and it sure as hell won't work here.
  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    I'm pretty sure they're on board as investors, ie, they're contributing money with the expectation of a profitable return.
  • gray
    dfacto wrote: »
    I'm sure they're paying people who do know.


    I have no doubt. if you had a dual degree in astrophysics and aerospace engineering and two obscenely rich billionaires called you up on the phone and told you they want to MINE ASTEROIDS!!! then offered you a 5-10 million dollar a year salary to help them what would you do?

    A) calmly explain what illiterate fools they are fallowed by a brief overview how ridiculous something like that would be both technically and monetarily. then hang up the phone and go back to your sad little life.

    B) take a years salary up front, accept the job. when the whole thing falls apart retire on your new 5 million dollar yacht with a big smile on your face!
  • aivanov
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    aivanov polycounter lvl 5
    That's incredibly pessimistic. It's discounting the fact that there are actually people out there figuring out how to solve these problems. What's your *real* issue with this? That someone, somewhere out there is getting paid a lot of money?
  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    gray wrote: »

    B) take a years salary up front, accept the job. when the whole thing falls apart retire on your new 5 million dollar yacht with a big smile on your face!

    I'm pretty sure that's illegal! Anyway, research the recent interest and developments in near earth asteroid mining, dude. Not as crazy as it sounds.
  • gray
    glynnsmith wrote: »
    Didn't Cameron just come back from, oh I don't know, going to the deepest (that anyone else has been) part of the known ocean?

    What an amateur! Totally the wrong kind of spirit you'd need at the head of an ambitious project like this.

    /Warning: This post may contain sarcasm.


    do you honestly think a one passenger sub that's based on 50 years of research and development. that has been produced and tested by basically every advanced nation US, China, Germany, England etc, is even remotely equivalent to the task of MINING ASTEROIDS in outer space?
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    gray wrote: »
    do you honestly think these nutters have any idea what sort of effort it would take to mine asteroids?

    about 500 people have gone into space, James Cameron is only the 2nd person to journey that deep.

    gray wrote: »
    do you honestly think a one passenger sub that's based on 50 years of research and development. that has been produced and tested by basically every advanced nation US, China, Germany, England etc, is even remotely equivalent to the task of MINING ASTEROIDS in outer space?

    You're right, I never considered that they would turn around and throw out over 50 years of space research done by basically every advanced nation, etc. He'll just load his submarine onto a slingshot and launch it into space.
  • glynnsmith
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    glynnsmith polycounter lvl 17
    gray wrote: »
    do you honestly think a one passenger sub that's based on 50 years of research and development. that has been produced and tested by basically every advanced nation US, China, Germany, England etc, is even remotely equivalent to the task of MINING ASTEROIDS in outer space?

    I wasn't comparing deep sea dives to space travel, or asteroid mining. I was pointing out that his dive shows the exact kind of person Cameron is - Not only has he taken something that's incredibly dangerous and impressive further than anyone else has in human history, he ACTUALLY did it, rather than merely investing in it, or sitting in a computer chair, aimlessly hating on people via the internet with bigger boundaries than his.

    He hasn't said he's going to be doing this tomorrow. There's obviously a lot of problems to be solved and progress to be made. But the ball's rolling and is in motion. It has to be tried to be accomplished.

    You're talking to me over the internet, most likely from a different continent. How long did it take to develop the technology and implement it for you to be able to do that? Would you have thrown your hands up in the air at the start of that development, too?
  • gray
    aivanov wrote: »
    That's incredibly pessimistic. It's discounting the fact that there are actually people out there figuring out how to solve these problems. What's your *real* issue with this? That someone, somewhere out there is getting paid a lot of money?

    i think its great. the more money the give to people who have the skills to engineer spacecraft the better. because those people i'm sure will not spend one cent of it on MINING ASTEROIDS IN OUTER SPACE!!!. and maybe invest in projects that have a snow balls chance in hell of advancing the science and technology.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    Somebody's cranky!
  • gray
    He'll just load his submarine onto a slingshot and launch it into space.

    after a few years of development and 'massive parties' that probably what the final plan will be. :thumbup:
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    A calmly explain what illiterate fools they are fallowed by a brief overview how ridiculous something like that would be both technically and monetarily. then hang up the phone and go back to your sad little life.
    We've already put objects into orbit around asteroids, so doing so again is hardly impossible. We're talking about NEOs here, not rocks in the asteroid belt. The prospecting phase of the mission is entirely realistic, and you'd have to be the most boring engineer/physicist in the world to turn down an offer to work on such a project. The actual prospecting would be significantly harder, but even if they can't do it in the next 20 years it will still be immensely useful to have a NEO-resource map.

    tldr; it's ambitious, not crazy.
    and maybe invest in projects that have a snow balls chance in hell of advancing the science and technology.
    Like? If anything Cameron's deep sea dive was a waste of cash. Space is the future. The only future. It's the only thing after earth. You can disagree and think the cash should go somewhere else, but you'll be wrong, and in 100 years you'll be considered a hilarious old-timey dinosaur. And that's not an insult, that's exactly how you'd be viewed, same as the people who scoffed at computers, airplanes and automobiles.
  • gray
    Somebody's cranky!


    hehe perhaps :) i'm sorry this thread just made me fall of my chair in a giggle fit. so so silly...
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    Silly indeed. Now pardon me I need to go draw some space marines fighting aliens on Blargon V. Serious business.
  • Sandro
    because those people i'm sure will not spend one cent of it on MINING ASTEROIDS IN OUTER SPACE!!!. and maybe invest in projects that have a snow balls chance in hell of advancing the science and technology.

    Why is MINING ASTEROIDS IN OUTER SPACE so bad? You'll need these ressources anyway after you've excavated every site on earth.
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    I don't care how much money is thrown into space, as long it is actually thrown into space.

    Astronauts taking a dump in zero gravity has done more towards the progress of humans as a species than any other thing.
  • einfopedia
    we cant compare the space with anything because space cover all the thing..there is no reason to cover the space within the earth..so space is so big and it covers all the things.
  • Ferg
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    Ferg polycounter lvl 17
    dont feed the troll, there's no way he could possibly be as lame as he sounds

    For serious, NASA's shuttles run on 286 processors and are fast approaching FIFTY years old. Is it really that hard to believe that if that tech could take humans to space and the moon, that we can't do better with over four decades of advances in hardware and knowledge? Brain think power go!
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    Ferg wrote: »
    For serious, NASA's shuttles run on 286 processors and are fast approaching FIFTY years old. Is it really that hard to believe that if that tech could take humans to space and the moon, that we can't do better with over four decades of advances in hardware and knowledge? Brain think power go!

    To be fair though, those old processors has got the job done pretty fine, it's always been about fuel and propulsion, the cost required to launch something into space.

    Have a more powerful computer (which isn't as easy as slapping any new computer into the craft), would not improve that situation at all.

    New satellites are built with these special-built $200000 per unit 200mhz computers while we down on earth have sloppy machinery that is astronomically more cheaper and vastly more powerful. But for a good reason.
  • Bibendum
    Yep. It's a rather ironic problem because in order to launch something you need a lot of fuel, which adds to the weight, which means you need even more fuel to make up for all the weight the fuel adds.

    If you take a shuttle launch for example, shuttles are a worst-case-scenario because it's manned which makes it inherently heavy since it has to be filled with junk to keep the crew alive. Almost 95% of the weight being launched is just the fuel needed to get the remaining 5% (the actual shuttle) into space.

    It's unfortunate but while processing power might have improved tremendously, we still have no real efficient way of getting shit into space.
  • gray
    eld wrote: »
    To be fair though, those old processors has got the job done pretty fine, it's always been about fuel and propulsion, the cost required to launch something into space.

    Have a more powerful computer (which isn't as easy as slapping any new computer into the craft), would not improve that situation at all.

    New satellites are built with these special-built $200000 per unit 200mhz computers while we down on earth have sloppy machinery that is astronomically more cheaper and vastly more powerful. But for a good reason.

    you are correct. that is precisely the point. it is not even remotely commercially viable to mine anything in space. its about as commercially viable as sending satellites into orbit to make ice cream. it would require a totally new and radical as yet undiscovered propulsion system. that has been the goal of the greatest minds in astrophysics and engineering for the past 60 years.

    people have been dreaming of mining asteroids and calculating the cost for 60 years or more.

    does anyone seriously think that some hollywood film director and guy who worked at a internet search engine have found some key to the puzzle that the most serious brainpower of the 20th century could not figure out and has yet to figure out?

    the reason why you have not seen anyone else start a company with the intention of MINING ASTEROIDS in space is because they would be immediately discredited and laughed out of the building down the street and into the nut house. and no one with serious scientific credentials or a serious aerospace company would commit suicide like that.

    there's a saying that gos "if it sounds to good to be true it probably is".

    commercial space and space travel is great, space science is great. Eric Schmidt and James Cameron MINING ASTEROIDS IN OUTER SPACE for precious metals as a commercially viable enterprise is completely and utterly ridiculous.

    they say they will have a "fuel depot"??? in space by 2020. huh? if they manage to put an orbiting craft up that can dock and refuel satellites and other spaceships??? in 8 years i will perhaps take this seriously. until they do they look like complete nutters.
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    gray wrote: »
    commercial space and space travel is great, space science is great. Eric Schmidt and James Cameron MINING ASTEROIDS IN OUTER SPACE for precious metals as a commercially viable enterprise is completely and utterly ridiculous.

    Because once again, no matter how unviable it is, it'll push more money into space sector, and in the very end when we have more viable sources of fuel we will be mining places that are more rich in obtainable minerals than earth.
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    you are correct. that is precisely the point. it is not even remotely commercially viable to mine anything in space. its about as commercially viable as sending satellites into orbit to make ice cream. it would require a totally new and radical as yet undiscovered propulsion system. that has been the goal of the greatest minds in astrophysics and engineering for the past 60 years.

    It says they're going to mine platinum group metals. Platinum is around $50,000 per kilo. Launch of a falcon 9 rocket (which would be the likely platform) is around $27 million per flight for 9500 kilos. 9,500x$50,000 = $475 million if you can recover one payload' worth of platinum, and it will be even bigger earnings if you create a system that can operate out of space instead of requiring a launch every time you need to mine a new rock. And lets not forget that the platinum group is not one metal, and others (for example Rhodium) are even more expensive and rare.

    Obviously the research, development, materials, engineering, and other costs will add up to huge amounts, but with the resources up there you could recoup loses. It would take a while, but it's doable, and once you break even you'll be making big money with no other real competition.

    There is obvious risk involved in this venture, but saying it's crazy is just ignorant. But to be honest I don't think they'll manage to hold to their timetables at all. Lets say asteroid mining by 2040, not before, and by then other players might well overtake them. However if commercial launch platforms become more ubiquitous it could happen earlier. Falcon is taking a big step for the commercial market, and it should be joined by a few other companies in the next decade. All in all things are looking up for space travel, so don't count Cameron and co out (primarily because they're investors, not the people doing the legwork).
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