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You wouldn't go for the "nearest" candidate, you'd go for the asteroid that has the best combination of accessibility and return - probably 162173 Ryugu, an 850m closely-approaching asteroid which has quite reasonable delta-v requirements to get it here, and contains enough nickel & iron to turn an estimated $30B profit on $50-60B costs. We'll get even better estimates when Hayabusa 2 returns samples from it in 2020.

And of course I understand the money has to be diverted from other productive ventures - but a lot of the ventures people currently spend on are not particularly productive. Entertainment is a good example, and if we can divert even a small percentage of viewership towards a Mars mission then that has little real productivity cost elsewhere.

There's no denying the most compelling reasons to explore our solar system today are largely intangible. You're right that it's too soon to turn a guaranteed profit - but given that companies from Planetary Resources to SpaceX are already pursuing long-term plans to do exactly this, they clearly feel the benefits are sufficiently attractive to start investing immediately.

As long as you don't count this privately funded asteroid mining company... http://www.planetaryresources....

Moreover, my cocktail napkin says that the ore value of a 1000kg chunk of typical nickel-iron meteorite is probably around USD $2000-$3000 at current prices.

So that's worth around $8,002,000 delivered to orbit, based on Falcon 9 launch prices. The point of asteroid mining isn't to deliver to Earth, but to deliver to orbit. Planetary Resources in particular is targeting selling water to NASA at less than launch cost.

There are two copies actively engaged. The one that AFAIK is farthest ahead is Planetary Resources. I think their investors include James Cameron and Tom Hanks. :) I quote from their page on Asteroid Composition:

"One of Planetary Resources targets is an X-type asteroid, and may have more platinum that has ever been mined on Earth to date."

I recall that the head of PR was asked if bringing so much platinum back to Earth would crash the market, and he said he expected it. He thought they could make money at $10 to $100 per ounce (the present price is around $1300 per ounce). Platinum is especially interesting because it is a hugely useful industrial metal but its application has been minimal because of the cost. The catalytic converter in your care probably has an infinitesimal amount of Platinum. If it were cheaper, it could even be used to build catalytic converters for coal fired power plants! So this one item could improve industrial efficiencies and reduce pollution, improving the standard of living on Earth.

PR's first testbed launch is in space now - Arkyd testbed platform launched in July. They're still developing the technology.

PR is also looking strongly at the H2O market. Water in space is valuable as the raw material to make hydrogen for rocket engines. SInce the cost of shipping from Earth is presently on the order of $20,000 per pound, retrieving it in space from the Moon or an asteroid could be very profitable, and would reduce costs.

There is a communications satellite owned by IntelSat that failed some time ago. It was determined that the cause of the failure was that a thermal blanket popped loose on one end, probably due to a fastener failure, and draped across the solar panels. So that $150 million satellite has been moved to a 'graveyard' parking orbit. But if a small robotic satellite could get to it, pull the blanket back away and stick it down with some glue or something, that satellite would be ready to go. That's a trip worth at least $10 million.

These are just a few examples.

If you look into Planetary Resources even a little bit, you'll see that their present goal is water-ice for consumables. NASA will be happy to buy water for $5k/kg. The first page on their 'prospecting' site has a full page header about the H2O mining.

It's Planetary Resources that wants the U.S. to break the treaty. Remember that name. No doubt it will become the Wal-Mart of outer space.

As DSI and PR get up to speed, we're going to have an avalanche of data to process. As long as they're willing to give back, I'm happy to donate some CPU time to their efforts.

But there's a whole 'nuther layer of potential... having amateur astronomers net-link their instruments to the overall effort... what kind of pinpoints could we arrive at by crunching the numbers from thousands of points on our globe?

We're not looking for crystals, we're looking for metals, IMO. Not a single process you mentioned makes metals; need stars for that. If an asteroid simply had concentrations of the most base metals it would be worth mining for nothing more than processed metals being already in space vice conventional rocket fuel lifting them up from Earth. Either way, mining asteroids is an easy way to get materials processed in space without a single environmental concern for our planet.

As to your last comment, how would you possibly know that it is hardly a gateway to the planets or stars in the next century? It's obvious that the process would save effectively trillions of dollars in fuel over dead lifting from Earth. Therefore, you're just wrong in your premise that processing these raw materials in space is not a gateway component to X. All it would take is one good precious metal find to completely disrupt the idiocracy economy we have based upon those products. Metals in asteroids are distributed throughout their body, making them easier to extract. Asteroids contain valuable and useful materials like iron, nickel, water, and rare platinum group metals, often in significantly higher concentration than found in mines on Earth.

A single water-rich 500-meter-wide asteroid contains 80 times more water than the largest supertanker could carry and could provide, if the water were converted to rocket propellant, more than 200 times the rocket fuel required to launch all the rockets ever launched in human history. ref:

A single 500-meter platinum-rich asteroid may contain the equivalent of all the Platinum Group Metals mined in history. "Many of the scarce metals and minerals on Earth are in near-infinite quantities in space. As access to these materials increases, not only will the cost of everything from microelectronics to energy storage be reduced, but new applications for these abundant elements will result in important and novel applications," said Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc. ref:

So, in conclusion you are simply wrong. The level of effort we have spent mining on Earth is far most costly that asteroid mining appears to be, and the ROI appears extraordinary compared to the issues we deal with now. If rare earths were found in any concentration you would literally remove most of the current mandatory reasons for existing on Earth.

Yet we still spend more on gladiatorial game tax relief in America than space research throughout the entire planet.

Yeah, except that there is a shitload of natural resources in America, which the USA is profiting from to this day. Unless you expect something like asteroid mining, there is no profit in space travel whatsoever. It's just some billionaires paying another billionaire, but that's a zero-sum game.

Right, telecom satellites are totally useless and not needed, so the several billion dollars each year those companies make from those satellites are just imaginary. Ditto for things like Google Maps and other surveying satellites.

BTW, there is a company who is setting itself up for asteroid prospecting too, by the name of Planetary Resources The interesting thing is that they have a business plan that essentially makes them a profitable business just from other space-based activity for equipment they plan on using for their prospecting.

I could name a dozen other space-based activities that make LEO profitable... indeed it is already profitable for quite a few companies. That you seem to be ignorant of commercial activity in space right now, you can continue to have your luddite dreams.

All the stuff could be done for a fraction of the cost with robotic probes in orbit. The ISS and manned spaceflight is pork for Houston.

I would say this is utter bullshit.

Yes, there can be some interesting things done with robotic probes, and it is possible that some of the experiments done on the ISS could be operated remotely and doesn't need constant attention by astronauts (like many of the experiments on the ISS do anyway). Still, I think you take for granted how difficult it is to build a spacecraft designed to meet a specific research objective and also dismiss out of hand what value there is to having astronauts being there with the experiment to get them in working order or to troubleshoot the experiments while they are in orbit. Better yet, you are similarly dismissing observations that can be done by somebody in space that may not be readily apparent remotely.

If you want to go into the manned vs. robotic missions feud, you are really being incredibly stupid and short sighted. Both are needed and both deserve funding. I think Carl Sagan (the guy who introduced this meme) did the whole world a massive disservice by introducing this concept, as he was flat out wrong too. Harrison Schmit performed far more science by his trip to the Moon than all of the robotic geology missions combined and discovered samples that would have literally been impossible to obtain without sending an experienced geologist to the Moon. When asked if he could use some astronauts, the lead researcher for the Mars Science Lab (aka Curiosity) said absolutely it would help.

I'll admit there is some low hanging fruit still left that can be collected by robotic probes, and don't make it seem that I think these robotic missions need to end. Far from it, as they are certainly useful, but sending people into space to perform research is also important. That isn't even touching on the fact that without a manned spaceflight program it is remotely possible that all robotic missions would be cut too, thus their funding depends on continued manned exploration.

If you want somebody or something to blame for the current woes of the robotic missions, blame the James West Space Telescope instead. That is a fiscal black hole that is sucking up nearly the entire robotic exploration budget, and I still have my doubts it will even fly. It isn't even a proper replacement of the Hubble telescope. For the money being dumped into that vehicle, literally a thousand Arkyd 100 telescopes could be purchased by a company more than willing to sell them in that quantity. That would include launch costs for that thousand telescopes too. More to the ponit, don't blame the manned spaceflight program for the problems of massive mismanagement of the robotic missions.

Already used up that excuse on asteroids, alas. Maybe if China says they're gonna do it?

It's not a chicken-and-egg problem, it's a delusion and cluelessness problem.

Several of the worlds most successful businessmen are investing in this.
Take a look at the list of advisers and investors: http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/
Clueless would not be the first word that comes to mind as characteristic for that group.

With plans for permanent lunar installations, probably within the next 10-20 years (China, India and Japan all have plans for permanent facilities on the moon - the US might also enter the race) the market will be there by the time the asteroid capture and mining is up and running. Add the possibility of Mars mission(s) (American, Chinese or private) before 2040 and the mining business looks good.

Any new space station (ISS replacement, moon logistics station at L1 or low moon orbit, mars staging station at Moon L2) would benefit tremendously from having materials available without having to pay the gravity tax.

If the stupid rock might contain trillions USD of rare earths (or rare whatever), then the private sector will step forward and fund the mission. It looks like some are organizing to do just that. Meanwhile, NASA should spend taxpayer money on broader goals (keeping in mind that the asteroid mining may be a failure), such as reducing the costs of human space travel and determining human capacity for travel to/living on planets w/o atmospheres.

http://www.planetaryresources.com/ is one of them.

it is possible that several thousand metric tons of gold could be found in some asteroids or extra-terrestrial sources that would also significantly change the value of gold here on the Earth.

I've seen this said before.

Is there anyone here (perhaps an astronomer, astrophysicist or geologist) with an understanding of the distribution of elements in the solar system who can say how probable that is?

You might want to look up these guys:

http://www.planetaryresources.com/

They have some pretty serious backers and have some big name mining companies who are working with them in terms of trying to turn it into a business. They've even put into their business plan that their mining efforts are going to be driving down the price of "Platinum group metals", which includes gold and silver from their viewpoint (even if it isn't in the same periodic table group).

There are other groups looking to do the same thing as well, so I would say this is no longer abstract thinking but a group of people who seriously think that large amounts of extra-terrestrial minerals are going to be found. The main resource they are targeting right now is ordinary water, as it can be used as rocket fuel in a number of ways and is easily processed with current extraction techniques. Still, they are thinking that by the next century this may be a very real possibility that tons of gold and silver will be coming to the Earth from off-planet.

- Total worldwide box office revenue for Avatar

Maybe we could ask James Cameron. Hum. Wait a minute. He is already taking part in a similar project http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/

Not a stable currency for long.

http://www.planetaryresources.com/

Meh.

Asteroid miners hunt for platinum, leave all common sense in glovebox

thinking all the stupid articles about bitcoin have stopped.

You want a real currency? they're called gold and silver. They have lasted thousands of years, and will last thousands of years more, short of us figuring out a way to create them in the lab.

Not a stable currency for long.
http://www.planetaryresources.com/

The probe in question is Voyager 1 and was launched in 1977. Let's not call it modern. It was designed in an era when there was no such thing as a personal computer. A high end cellphone probably has more battery-powered computing power in your pocket now than all of the compute resources of NASA back then. Imagine what those engineers could achieve with this. Materials science has progressed also. But the biggest gift of days is in our understanding the rich resources available in the space around us. Water is abundant everywhere from Mercury to the edge of the solar system. We didn't know that back then. Almost all stars have planets in the habitable zone. We didn't know that either.

It's unlikely a mission to Vega would launch any sooner than 2037, or 60 years after the launch of the first Voyager. We have learned a lot of things since Voyager 1 was launched, and will have learned more. That none have gone faster is an artifact of 30 years of neglect of space operations, but not space science. At the moment Vega is too far to a man to reach in his span of years with the science we have, though another star might be. There is no reason to expect that this will always be so.

With VASMR 200KW thrusters entering service on the ISS in a few years, and the development of suitable power plants ongoing, we still would need fuel - LOTS of fuel - on orbit or somewhere near zero-G to make a go of it. Fortunately in 26 months the NASA Dawn mission will arrive at Ceres and find there a practically unlimited supply of Xenon, Argon, Hydrogen and Oxygen ready for mining as well as a surface amenable to easily building human habitats on. You may schedule two years from now for the space Gold Rush to begin.

Ceres is not only the perfect source for interstellar fuels: it's also the perfect launchpad as it should be possible to build a railgun there 1000KM long capable of launching interstellar probes with solar system escape velocity that don't require any fuel at all. It's also the only minor planet so situated within easy reach.

Planetary Resources, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and others are all over this. The people behind these efforts are some of the brightest, most successful minds the world has ever known. Elon Musk. Sergey Brin. Larry Page. Eric Schmidt. Richard Branson. These are but a few. They know something you don't know.

There have been attempts to smelt metals in space, and in fact such efforts may even be beneficial for terrestrial applications. So successful that it may even be possible to suggest an economic role for shipping ores and elemental feed stocks from the Earth into orbit, perform the smelting and manufacturing in space, and then shipping finished products back to the Earth again for use here.

That you might be able to extract those elements in space even cheaper than you can ship them up from the surface of the Earth seems to be icing on the cake. Certainly whole new classes of materials are likely going to be created in space simply because a major factor that influences all manufacturing process here on the Earth will be removed.

As far as finding materials and devices that can work in space, of course it is something that takes time to discover and to work out all of the issues. It should be pointed out that we as a species has been working and doing stuff in space for more than 50 years, and that materials as well as equipment to be working in space has been developed. This isn't even really new technology in a great many cases.

The largest problem seems to be simply somebody having the will to go up and bother trying. Luckily there are several different companies who are willing to put up or shut up on the prospect as well. They are putting their money where their mouth is at and really try. I would even dare to suggest that other companies are going to show up eventually with this emerging industrial sector.

The largest problem they are facing right now is that these places in space are on the frontier of human endeavors. This means they are still trying to design the tools which make the tools producing the tools needed for those environments. Those working toward developing the resources in space still need to design the things that are the equivalent of the machine screw, lathe, and drill press that are so necessary for making so many other kinds of tools and being able to harvest resources in an extra-terrestrial setting.

Still, I agree with your basic premise that the best way to open up the Solar System and get humanity out there is to simply turn people loose and to let them try thousands or even millions of different ideas and let the successful ideas come forward as well as forget the millions of mistakes that didn't work. Trying to force everything through some sort of committee who is going to make a grand plan for how everything will work and get clearance before even acting is real silly.

Then again, for some time I've suggested that CNN will cover NASA astronauts landing on Mars for the first time by having one of their reporters on site filming the landing and interviewing the astronauts when they arrive.

Space is cold, and dry. It can be pretty hard to find water out there, and gas stations are far between.

Planetary Resources is a company in Seattle set up to mine asteroids. The big deal at first is asteroid-borne water, which comprises up to 30% of some asteroids. They are going after asteroids that pass near the Earth at first.

The big deal is what potentials this opens up for expoloration of our solar system and the stars. With energy water can be converted into LH2/LO2 fuel. The problem is that lifting up the fuel from our deep gravity well makes this prohibitively expensive.

Ceres may have 200 million cubic kilometers of water ice, almost all of it relatively pure and on the surface, 100km thick. That's more water than all of the fresh water on Earth. Ceres has a surface gravity of 0.03 g, so getting the ice or fuel away from there is no big deal. There may be other volatiles there as well - Xenon would be a great find. We've found water on the moon and Mars, but getting the water away is nearly impossible because the gravity on these bodies is just too high. Small asteroids aren't plentiful enough for a huge explosion of exploration and manned habitation in space.

Abundant water and energy are the two essential keys to human and robotic exploration of the solar system. If we can somehow with robots bring energy and equipment to this ball of water we can bring back enough fuel to scoop much larger payloads out of much cheaper near Earth Orbits and move them anywhere from there. That enables larger habitations with centrifugal simulated gravity, water ice mass shielding from radiation, million-kilo LH2/LO2 rockets that start in microgravity and so don't have to spend 90% of their fuel lifting up out of our gravity well.

Ice makes a great construction material too, so if we found a way to put humans on Ceres they need not worry too much about radiation or building materials. It's also a great thermal insulator, and we've learned how to carve habitats out of ice in Antarctica.

In short if that water is really there it is the key to humans establishing a permanent occupation of space, and maybe the fuel we'll use to send the first probes to nearby stars. We'll know in about 30 months.

What if one or two of the objects it spots has a near approach to earth that requires a low delta-v to reach for mining? Knowing the composition of an asteroid is important for knowing how to deflect or destroy it, but it's also important for gathering any materials of value. Planetary Resources should put up some of the capital for access to its data.

Done, http://www.planetaryresources.com/ no gravity well problem because all resources collection occurs outside the well. Just have to lift people and food and even the latter could be done in space.

Granted they may not be ready with supplies soon enough for his timescale. It's merely a question of priorities. If, as a species, we decided this was a useful expense we could do it. The money spent planet wide on military in the last decade would be more than enough.

Their first step is to mine water and air and other materials to sell to NASA in orbit..

Actually, from their website, 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.

Well the 10:30AM PDT webcast is coming up so no need to guess.
http://www.planetaryresources.com/

It is a fabulously wonderful thing they are doing and it will profit themselves and the human race.
Maybe only these guys could do it.
I just had another thought for the naysayers of whom there are even some on slashdot.
Can you imagine a safer investment than strategically placed caches of air, water and refined platinum group metals, in a nonreflective wrapping, where only YOU know its exact location? And when YOU are the only people with an advanced swarm of lightweight explorer bots in space? Really any number of disasters, wars, political swings, bank imposions, plagues, tidal waves are as nothing to this. There is literally nothing that could wipe it out, even an asteroid could only bump into one of them. 100 years from now it will still be valuable, diamonds stored in a cold vault in the sky. Anyway its real value is in enabling manne missions and inhabitation of space and they will do that too.