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The Financial Future of Space Travel
gurps_npc writes " This CNNMoney story discusses the financial future of space travel. In particular it gives some nice names and numbers, such as Bezos, Musk and 3554 Amun. 3554 Amun is an small metalic asteroid that crosses Earth's pass (not on collission course) and contains over 20 trillion US dollars worth of precious metal. It is a great fact to know when trying to explain to flat-earth types that don't understand why we waste money on space travel."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard note the last line of the third paragraph: "The gold standard is no longer used in any nation, having been replaced completely by fiat currency." "Sweden abandoned the gold standard in 1929, the US in 1933, and other nations were, to one degree or another, forced off the gold standard." So, in summary: "1933 called, and they want to redeem their dollars."
We might actually be able to pay off the national debt!!!
No Sigs!
(I am joking...:-)
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
I'm gonna start launching "ME" flags at all the nearest celestial bodies.
And as soon as you do, you can expect a visit from SCO's lawyers.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
That's the idealistic response, but this is the kind of thing that will get NASA out of the space business and get people into it who know how to turn a profit on it. In the long run, this is what can make space travel widely accessible, not a government agency.
And the brethren went away edified.
And exactly does one come to own an asteroid? Is planing a flag good enough?
Space property rights are a very murky and ambiguous area, but one which should get resolved if we want to have any hope of expanding out there permanently. An article by Sam Dinkin in the Space Review on Property rights and space commercialization has a fairly nice overview of the issues. A quote:
Space property rights will probably not spark a space transportation boom that will rival the railroad boom, the airplane boom, or the automobile boom. But there will be no boom if there are no property rights. Leaving the regulatory regime the same is a recipe for continued sclerosis.
If we do nothing, space will look a lot more like Antarctica than Alaska. Without property rights there will not be adequate investment and space resources will be underutilized. Establishing property rights in space will cost millions, not billions, and can be done decades ahead of any commercialization or colonization. It's time to set the stage to break out of the exploration mode of Columbus and get on with establishing the regulatory regime to lay the foundation for the next Plymouth Rock.
Bullshit. You'd need a micrometer to measure its tidal effect.
Moon: mass = 7x10e22 kg, distance= 360,000 km
Asteroid: mass about 2x10e13 kg, distance (say) 100 km
ratio of gravitational forces:m1/m2* (r1/r2)e2 = roughly 1/270.
No. Rockets "push against" their exhaust, not what they launch from. However, if they used a mass-driver to accelerate the payloads, the asteroid would be pushed back. But it's a simple calculation.
I read a lot of negative comments on NASA on this board. It's now fashionable to complain that this agency has become a huge inefficient cesspit of wasted opportunities and money. Since the last shuttle disaster NASA is not looking very good for sure.
People assume that things will fare better if profit-driven private enterprise runs the space exploring show.
To a great degree I think it's not as simple as it looks. First the obvious cheap routes to profit from space are already taken : putting satellites in LEO and geosynchronous orbit. There is already a lot of competition on that market between the US, Europe, Japan, India and China. Unless someone comes up with a space elevator that works or similar disruptive technology, this is not likely to change much.
Essentially private space exploring enterprises is now at the level NASA was at in 1950 or so. It took a huge financial effort and a large dedicated team of incredible people to go to the Moon in 1970 or so (and bring back small samples of rock). While not all of this is lost, and I believe it is possible to repeat the feat, I can't see much profit in that particular endeavour. Colour me doubtful with respect with space tourism. It will be a while before this is safe enough for companies to ship people for small leaps above the atmosphere without getting sued out of existence at the first accident.
Getting to the Moon and the asteroids and mining them has been a mainstay of science fiction since it has existed. Everyone knows many asteroids are metal-rich and could turn a nice buck if they could be exploited. Everyone knows the Moon is littered with He3, and theoretically achieving sustained nuclear fusion might be easiser there. However various governments have known this as well, for decades. In contrast to starry eyed reporters and somewhat naive slashdot users, they have run the numbers and found that with current technology their exploitation is simply not economically feasible. Again we need disruptive technology and it's not there yet.
While I'm not a particular big fan of governements either, and not particularly the US's, I'd like to remind everyone here that so far, in spite of their failings, it is them who have driven investments, research, exploration and exploitation. They are so far ahead of any and all private space exploration outfits that it's not funny.
Even with the help of billions and indeed, trillions of dollars of private funds it will take a very long time for private enterprise to catch up, let alone leap ahead. I don't doubt that if Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined their wealth they'd be able to build a Saturn V equivalent in a small number of years, but I can't see anyone succeeding in convincing them it would be a good and sound business proposition.
It may happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath. While private enterprise is busy gathering investors with nice sounding business plans and pooh poohing all that we learned in the last 50 years or so of actual space exploration because, you know, gov't did it and that's not relevant, NASA and the others are still exploring the solar system, last I checked. Apparently there's a plan to go to Mars, or so I heard.
Really all that NASA and others require is a sound plan, a clear worthy goal that has some chance of succeeding. What many people seem to be missing here is that in spite of searching and thinking hard that plan was never found. The rest followed.
"The Apollo era was heroic, but beating the Soviets to the moon never provided a compelling economic reason to return. (We didn't even get Teflon or Tang as spinoffs--both were invented before 1960.)"
I may be nitpicking here, but the premiss is plain WRONG.
America's leadership in the semiconductor industry in general and the CPU industry in perticular is direct result of the space race and the arms race. I prefare the former rather then the latter. The challange of making apollos on-board computer directly influenced the development of ICs, and later the CPU. intel would'nt have been if it were not for apollo (or at least would have come much later).
That's 20 trillion US dollars worth of precious metal at current prices
You can guarantee that if you manage to mine this rock, prices would go down. Supply and demand.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog