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Billionaires and Polymaths Expected To Unveil a Plan To Mine Asteroids
dumuzi writes "A team including Larry Page, Ram Shriram and Eric Schmidt of Google, director James Cameron, Charles Simonyi (Microsoft executive and astronaut), Ross Perot Jr. (son of Ross Perot), Chris Lewicki (NASA Mars mission manager), and Peter Diamandis (X-Prize) have formed a new company called Planetary Resources, and are expected to announce plans on April 24th to mine asteroids. A study by NASA released April 2nd claims a robotic mission could capture a 500 ton asteroid and bring it to orbit the moon for $2.6 billion. The additional cost to mine the asteroid and return the ores to Earth would make profit unlikely even if the asteriod was 20% gold."
A study by NASA released April 2nd claims a robotic mission could capture a 500 ton asteroid and bring it to orbit the moon for $2.6 billion. The additional cost to mine the asteroid and return the ores to Earth would make profit unlikely even if the asteriod was 20% gold."
And when the mission makes a mistake and an asteroid goes plummiting into a major city it will cause trillions of dollars in damage and massive loss of life and potentially create a cloud of dust that will cause an ice age.
I'm sorry, but no, this isn't a good idea. If you don't even have the technology to completely destroy an asteroid yet, then you can't fully control it and shouldn't be trying to "bring it to orbit". Maybe the first team will succeed because they have the smarts, but then when its shown to be profitable, the morons will get involved with fresh VC, etc.
What are they going to find on a rock in space that is not already available on THIS rock in space?
And a shorter distance.
And with an atmosphere.
And so on and so forth.
Do they understand what this would do to the price of gold (not to mention platinum and palladium)? Most of the gold bugs make themselves feel good about their investment with the mantra 'you can't print gold.' It's trading in the stratosphere as it is, and the Wolfram Alpha link in TFS uses the current commodity price of gold.
First, there are other uses for an asteroid in orbit with thrusters on it. Namely, ramming comets or asteroids on a collision course with earth. Second, why bring the resources to earth? They can be used for orbital construction.
Ultor Corporation. or maybe UAC.
- -= Napalm means serious BBQ =-
Ross Perot Jr. (son of Ross Perot)
Thanks for explaining that; we would have never figured it out on our own!
If this does nothing else but push the science of rocketry and space travel further then I'm all for it. If they succeed though, I can't wait to see what comes next. Haters be damned, I love that people still want to explore and see what's out there. You can't move the species forward by taking no risk at all.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
Control of a sufficiently sized asteroid could potentially make the men and women who control it rulers of the entire planet.
The diameter of earth is less than 13'000 km. The distance between earth and moon varies (elliptical path) but even when the moon is at its closest, the distance is more than 363'000 km. That's nearly 30 times the diameter of earth. This picture illustrates it pretty well. I think that a lot of people fail to grasp that scale due to having seen very deceiving images of the solar system (all planets and the sun presented relatively close to each other) at the classroom walls when they were young.
Even factoring in the earths gravity, you need to miss by quite a lot before you accidentally hurl something at earth.
You only make a small part of the money involved in capturing an asteroid on commercially-viable minerals/metals like gold.
What people will pay for a space rock is way more important than what people will pay for gold. A 500 ton asteroid could be 500 tons of rock. But that would make millions of lumps of Space Rock that could be sold by The Franklin Mint in a special collectors set.
The study wasn't talking about mining the asteroid to return the material to Earth! The asteroid mass would be used to generate water, hydrogen, and oxygen (primarily) for use IN ORBIT, where it is far more valuable than returning x amount of minerals back to earth. It would also be used as a test bed for advancing mining tech, becoming more efficient, and driving down the cost of the next operation.
However, long term, it could very well end up being economical to return materials to earth. If any initial effort at mining of materials that are useful in orbit succeeds, then there will be an existing industrial base for mining asteroids, and the incremental cost of the next one will be less. As mining methods are refined and become more efficient and the industrial capacity in orbit expands, it becomes possible to create more and more of what you need in orbit instead of launching it from earth (which is where much of the expense comes from). Then, when all you have to do is turn the less valuable parts of an asteroid into shipping containers, load it with the more valuable stuff, add an electric propulsion system, then it might be worth returning stuff to earth.
But the bottom line is that mining asteroids is going to be most useful for getting lots of useful material in orbit (be it lunar or Lagrange points or whatnot) without having to go through the process of getting out of earth's gravity well.
To use lunar resources you have to land and take off in a gravity well. Distance matters much less than delta-V for space operations.
Asteroids are differentiated. Some are mostly pure nickel-iron. Never heard of that being available on the moon.
Great, now we're going to have an asteroid arms race. The U.S. and India will be threatening to crush Germany with a huge rock if it doesn't capitulate to their demands and cease "construction" of its own "weapon of mass destruction" aka their own huge orbiting rock.
Welcome to the brave new world of tomorrow....
Insightful point. To process all that metal, we would need some way of heating and melting it into containers, then some way of fabricating rocket and space station parts from that metal. If there is water, that could be split into hydrogen and oxygen.
Sounds like the perfect way to build a ring world. Send out one mining ship to the asteroid belt. Mining ship fabricates and builds more mining ships. This continues until there are mining ships all along the asteroid belt. The mining ships then proceed to start forming segments of the ringworld which are then sent on a trajectory to intersect with the other ringworld parts.
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I think the most valuable thing to do with this asteroid would be to cut it up into chunks and sell it to spacegeeks for a ridiculous amount of money per kg...
A committee has asked Michael Bay to make a film depicting the worst case scenario of this project.
We've launched objects more massive than 500 tons into space before (2,030-ton space shuttle). Some of those objects have crash-landed. Humanity wasn't wiped out.
Even under the most strict (and asinine) interpretation of international property claim laws, this would fall under salvage rights. The rocks are unowned and set adrift, and nobody can make a decent claim to ownership. Therefore any person who reaches them first is entitled to collect whatever salvageable goods they wish.
The real question will be whether they're allowed to make a claim to the asteroid to keep someone ELSE from mining it once they do the gruntwork of getting it in orbit. That could become a real barrier to growth in this area, given that current international laws prohibit any nation from laying claim to an astral body.
I suspect without a change in laws we'll start seeing wild-west style ownership take place in space, in the form of jammers and guns. "It's ours, because if you send a spacecraft here to take it we will shoot you down or disable your probe."
This is to prevent a new ice age. We simply mine big chunks of ice off of Halley's comet and drop it into the ocean every 75.3 years. That should keep us going until 3003.
Sadly, people aren't very good at taking a long-term view, in general.
Apparently some are. And they have enough money to see this through. This project is going to actually happen. It's going to be privately funded, so it's not subject to NASA budget cuts.
The people involved stand to make a lot of money doing it, too. Huge money.
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when we discover it's already been done.
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Let's look at the real numbers.
The asteroid belt is over a THOUSAND times further from the Earth than the Moon is. It's over 200 million miles away.
The asteroids in the asteroid belt are about SIXTEEN times further BETWEEN THEM than the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
What that means is that going from asteroid A to asteroid B is about the same distance as going from Earth orbit to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the Moon
and back to Earth orbit.
And that's just between TWO asteroids.
Getting to the asteroids in the first place is the same as going from Earth orbit to the moon ...repeat 1,000 times
and back to Earth orbit
and back to the moon
and back to Earth orbit.
To quote Douglas Adams:
If you haven't hollowed out the Moon before mining Mars before mining the asteroids then you do not have a grasp of how far away the asteroids are.
I thought he WAS the starving guy under the bridge. Where else do trolls live?
Haven't you seen the movie where we mine the moon and it ends up breaking apart and crashing down on our heads?
that lead to stagnation, decline and extinction if humans don't get sufficiently wise and active about mitigating them.
_Wish upon A Star_ works in Disney movies. Mother Nature is unimpressed.
Well, I see that I'm outvoted by incurable, irrational techno-utopians.
I too am optimistic, as it happens. But only cautiously so – not recklessly, like you people are. Given humanity's past, there is no reason to believe that we can't rise to the current environmental challenge. But we're taking our time seeing the problem, as evidenced by this frivolous chat about mining asteroids. Right now the world a half-century hence is looking a scary place, and even in the best-case scenario a lot of permanent damage is going to be done to the biosphere. If and when we solve this problem – mitigating the effects of consumption rather than finding resources for more of it – then we can perhaps start thinking about mining asteroids. Until that point, you are putting the cart before the horse.
I have a strange feeling you don't even know what I'm talking about, that we're not even on the same page here. That's sad, because I'm talking hard science, and the solutions will come largely from hard science too. They include energy tech, biotech and all kinds of innovation in farming, town-planning and architecture. They don't include mining asteroids.
Also, the water content of those meteors is worth a fortune in and of itself. Ice chunks + solar powered electrolysis = rocket fuel worth a minimum of $10,000 per pound by virtue of not needing to be launched with the ship.
The economics are nowhere near that simple. Let's say you have a big store of rocket fuel up there and ignore (for a moment) the cost of obtaining it. Then what? You still need payload which mostly has to come from Earth and the key processing equipment which also has to come from Earth. You haven't escaped the cost of the launch, you've simply added to the complexity and thus the cost.
Then there is the problem of actually developing the technology to mine and process these resources. We don't have industrial scale factories that are space worthy. Even if we did, they still have to be launched into space. We don't even have anyone working on them because there is no reasonable prospect of a return on investment. To get financing you have to have a product you can sell back here on earth and there is very little prospect of an economic return in the reasonably near future. Most of the economic benefits to the private sector are indirect ones (spinoff technologies, etc) for the foreseeable future.
There have been many instances where satellites in orbit have changed ownership with money transferred here on earth. Bringing things back to earth is not needed.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
The problem with the Earth and moon is that yes, they're big and there are lots of resources in them, but all the ones we're really interested in are heavy and thus concentrated at their cores. It's tough to get down there.
Asteroids, on the other hand, are small and their cores are readily accessible, not that you need to do that because they're not differentiated like planets and big moons are. Although if you do mine one from the inside out, when you're done you have an awesome space castle.
How would the UN enforce that treaty? Does anyone think they could get the Security Council to vote for enforcement? Anyway, the treaties do not say what some people think. Space resources can be developed and owned, just not as real estate or unmined minerals.
The "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies" allows in Article 1: "Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States...". Article 2 prohibits national appropriation, but not individual ownership. No other article of this treaty prohibits individual ownership, either.
Article 1 Section 1 of the "Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies" is a loophole one could drive a starship through: "The provisions of this Agreement relating to the Moon shall also apply to other celestial bodies within the solar system, other than the Earth, except insofar as specific legal norms enter into force with respect to any of these celestial bodies." That can be stretched as far as needed with existing or later national laws, judicial decisions or international treaties. Also the treaty mostly only applies to "States Parties", leaving individuals, corporations and non-signatories unbound. Even if they act under authority of a State Party, however, under Article 6 section 2, they can bring back as much moon rock as they want and not share it with anybody. By Article 1 Section 1, the same is true of asteroids.
Article 11 Section 3 is the one that causes confusion, purporting to bind all organizations and people: "Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place, shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person." This actually only apples to real estate and unmined resources on celestial bodies claimed by signatories and the people and organizations under their control. Otherwise Article 6 Section 2 would be meaningless. In the context of other parts of the treaty, it is also clear that any structures and craft on or in such bodies can be owned. Finally, treaties have a hard time binding non-signatories, even when they try.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Stupid.
Ask the 1% what they would do with $2.6 billion and they'd say "invest in some hedge funds, HFT companies, etc." These guys want to do something that a) generates more actual wealth and b) advances our capabilities as a species.
sjbe sneered:
No, instead you have to lift all the (non-existent) processing equipment instead. Are you under the impression that a steel mill is somehow not very heavy? Of course none of this technology is being developed because even if you did get it into orbit, you need a product to return to earth to make the financing possible.
Man, do you think small.
First off, judging from the composition of meteors found here on Earth, iron asteroids should mostly be composed of nickel-iron alloys. The percentage of nickel in the two most common components, kamacite and taenite, is MUCH higher than that found in most steel manufactured on Earth. Meteoric iron is highly corrosion-resistant and extremely durable, and it needs NO smelting to turn it into construction materials - it's pure enough to build stuff with straight from the sky.
It WILL need to be MELTED, so that it can be formed into girders, sheets, pipes, and so on, but that's actually trivial. The Earth/Moon orbit receives more than enough sunlight to use as a heat source. Simple parabolic mirrors made out of aluminized Mylar will do the trick. Yes, presses, rolling mills, stampers, and crucibles designed to work in microgravity environments will be necessary, but the hardest part of the task is the Bessemer process - and that's a skippable step.
As for needing to deliver a product to Earth to make a profit - nonsense! Why send it to Earth, which already has lots and lots of iron, when you can use it in space to construct stuff like an orbital shipyard and drydock facility, true SPACE ships (i.e. - ships designed to operate only in space, and never to touch down on a planetary surface at all), orbital habitats, factories, and labs, and so on? How much do you think Planetary Resources can charge for building a spacecraft capable of reaching Mars?
Finally, everyone in this discussion seems to have fastened onto NASA's 500-ton asteroid thought experiment as the size of the rock PR will attempt to lasso. I think you're all thinking too small, again. If they can capture a 500-ton asteroid, why can't they grab a 5,000-ton asteroid? It'd take a little longer to coax it into a useful orbit, but the same technology that would allow capture of a 500-tonner should be scalable to one 10X that size - and that would provide a helluva lot more raw material for in-space construction purposes.
PR is a MAJOR braintrust with some extremely big bucks behind it. I suspect they've thought this through a lot better than you or I have.
Regardless, we'll find out exactly what they're proposing to do on Tuesday.
Check out my novel.
I'm pretty sure that right now it's 100% Unobtanium.
Just 6 years ago, many 'experts' claimed that SpaceX would never get off the ground. Likewise, if they DID get off the ground, they would have higher launch costs than all of the other subsidized nation's launch systems.
Yet, here we are.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Both you and the article authors are making the assumption that they want to return the ore to earth, which is ridiculous as there's already plenty of iron ore on earth. The fact that one of the team members is NASA's Mars mission planner should be a clue. Mining an asteroid with robots and sending the ore to Mars is the cheapest way to get concentrated iron ore in one spot on Mars. It's more efficient than sending it from earth or mining it on Mars.
This iron could then be used for the construction of a large Mars base. These guys are planning a lot further ahead that you give them credit for.
cokane.com
We have plenty of resources on earth as it is... where we lack them is in high earth orbit. Move the asteroid to high earth orbit and keep it there. Mine it there to build things in orbit for orbital use. That way they don't need to be launched.
We need a source of resources off planet that are closer then the moon. A stepping stone. If we start moving asteroids into high earth orbit, cracking them for their resources, and turning them into the fuel for our space industry we can eliminate a lot of problems we're having with our gravity well. For one thing, we can use the waste material that we have no particular use for to insulate a better space station... one that doesn't allow so much radiation into the habitat.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Are you done?
The reason it's valuable to have a billion pounds of iron ore in orbit is because...well....if you want to build something, it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper (in the long run, when we invest the initial money required to develop the technology) to work with an asteroid than to ship the refined material piecewise into orbit!
Just why the hell is this so difficult for someone to understand? Oh, I know--because you actually have to be thinking progressively about moving forward into the future, not spending all your energy and thoughts trying to keep things exactly as they are and naysaying every ambition plan someone comes up with.