Planetary Resources Confirms Plan To Mine Asteroids

Matching widespread predictions, The Bad Astronomer writes with word that "The private company Planetary Resources has announced that it plans to mine asteroids for water, air, and even precious metals in the next few years. Your initial reaction may be to snicker a bit, but it's headed by Peter Diamandis — who established the X Prize — has several ex-NASA personnel running the engineering, and also has the backing of a half-dozen or so billionaires. So this is no joke — their plan looks solid, and may very well be the first step in establishing a permanent human presence in space."

Comments

What could possibly go wrong?

[GameboyRMH]

Hopefully they'll be very careful about bringing asteroids into Earth orbit. But the energy and mining industries are pretty safe and responsible right?

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Travco]

"Trying to teach a pig to sing wastes your time and only annoys the pig"
Robert A. Heinlein

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Be nice if people could explain it without the "fuck off and die" part, though. Or the singing pig comment below mine. I have a general understanding of orbital mechanics being in the space biz and all, but I really don't expect it to be general knowledge even in the geekverse.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Fallingcow]

There's so much good music coming out now that it's almost impossible to keep up with it unless you turn searching for it in to a major (10+ hrs/week) hobby or a profession. It's been that way for years, at least, and I suspect decades.

You won't hear it on the average radio station, but find a couple of the better current bands and plug them in to Pandora and a few hours later you'll have a list of dozens of great acts, most of them with releases in the last few years. This is true for just about every conceivable genre of music. Or find a big blog/magazine about your genre of choice and start checking out their recommendations. You won't like them all, but unless you don't actually like music that much you'll certainly find several you enjoy.

You can even find good acts in genres that haven't been huge in years, like surf or 80s-pop (though usually the ones with 80s pop influences are way better than just about all actual 80s pop)

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[LateArthurDent]

Be nice if people could explain it without the "fuck off and die" part, though. Or the singing pig comment below mine. I have a general understanding of orbital mechanics being in the space biz and all, but I really don't expect it to be general knowledge even in the geekverse.

I completely agree with you, and think general politeness goes a long way in making a convincing argument (it doesn't matter how logical and factual your argument is if you've made the other person stop listening to you).

That said, I think I also understand the frustration that causes people to answer so angrily. We're seeing this anti-technology reaction lately, even among geek circles. Every time somebody tries anything remotely innovative, you see the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag pop up and a bunch of people posting about how this new innovative thing sounds great in theory, but in practice it's going to kill and maim people, and generally make puppies cry.

Basically, it's not that I expect people to have a general understanding of orbital mechanics here. It's that I expect people who do not have a general understanding of orbital mechanics to assume that those actually involved in the project know what they're doing. It's alright to ask, "is there a danger here, can someone with knowledge in this area explain to me the risks involved?" It's another thing entirely to say, "I hope these guys are being extremely careful, because I see a danger here even though I know absolutely nothing about the field. In addition, I assume the people who are involved in this project to be completely irresponsible people who care nothing about safety."

I'll believe it

[Black Parrot]

when I see it happening.

Does anyone know what the (plausible) ROI for this is?

Re:I'll believe it

[gurps_npc]

They are not sending metal down to earth.

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

Cheaper for a space station to get water from an asteroid mine than it is to ship it up from earth.

Similarly, if they can get a simple forge up there, they can build the heavy support structures for satelitels and space stations out of metals mined on the asteroid.

This allows bigger construction in space.

Re:I'll believe it

[Baloroth]

Yes, but lower price means more people can afford it, which in turn increases demand. So even if they don't get a trillion dollars for it, they can still make a lot of money.

Re:I'll believe it

[Gnomaana]

Going by this logic the human race should still be confined to some small valley in Africa. Human's do stuff and go places "because it's there." When we stop doing that the clock to extinction starts ticking.

Re:I'll believe it

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Platinum has the advantage of being reasonably intrinsically useful(a brilliant catalyst for a variety of applications(certain fuel cell designs, for one), nice and corrosion resistant, in addition to being pretty and rare); but the price would certainly plummet if supply increased dramatically.

There are relatively few elements that are genuinely without practical applications(some of the shorter-lived radioactive ones are probably too hot to handle but fade too quickly to be useful industrial or medical emitters); but some get bumped into the status of 'financial instrument with a few esoteric applications' by their scarcity.

Re:I'll believe it

[0123456]

Me, I think gold's useless. Outside of plating electrical connectors (something silver's pretty good at too), it's only in my house 'cos my wife like wearing the stuff decoratively.

The odd part is that you have just demonstrated the primary reason why men like to have a big stash of gold while simultaneously claiming that it's useless.

Re:I'll believe it

[BlueStrat]

Do you need heavy support structures if you are building in space?

There are these things called "mass" and "inertia" that remain unchanged regardless of the gravitational field they're in, or lack of one.

This is basic Newtonian physics.

If you wanted to do something like, say, create a space station or ship that uses the centrifugal effects of spin to create a form of "pseudo-gravity" for long-term health of the residents/crew and/or for purposes of performing certain industrial operations that involve separating materials of differing masses, or something of significant mass that must endure acceleration, you still need structural supports with enough strength to prevent it from flying apart from centrifugal forces or collapsing under acceleration due to it's mass and inertia.

Strat

More valuable if they keep it in space

[robot256]

The last article on asteroid mining said it wouldn't be profitable even if the asteroid was 20% gold. That was based on the ludicrous assumption that the material would be brought back to earth. Going to all the effort of capturing and mining an asteroid in space just to get a bunch of air and water seems silly until you look at just how ungodly expensive air and water are *in space*, after launch and storage costs. Producing life support materials in situ is the holy grail of space exploration.

Re:More valuable if they keep it in space

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate the back of the book calculations they use to do these profitability estimates. This will vary wildly from asteroid to asteroid, propulsion system to propulsion system, and (most importantly) timetable to timetable.

As someone who has had to simulate asteroid rendeavous missions, I know I could make a gravity-tug-style asteroid moving spacecraft that would have individual mission costs on the order of tens of millions per asteroid, and that's with today's available satellite busses that aren't even specifically designed for this kind of spacecraft.

The real issue is where do you want to smash your asteroid and how long do you want it to take to get it here? Fuel optimal flight paths can take years, but can also enable incredibly cheap transportation of materials.

Re:More valuable if they keep it in space

[DerekLyons]

Not to mention construction materials. This is what NASA should have been working on for the past 30 years instead of the ISS

Yeah, they should have constructed a research facility on orbit so they could research chemical processes and materials handling on orbit, in zero G, so we have the basic knowledge to proceed with developing in situ resource processing.
 
Oh, wait. That's exactly what we tried to do. But because of people who don't see the value in doing the grunt work, we're years behind where we could be. You want to mine the asteroids or go to Mars? You're going to have to wait until the basics have been worked out.

Re:Best of Luck

[Black Parrot]

Actually, I think this is worth doing on a "because it's there" basis. If you've got the money and want to spend it that way.

For my values, it beats buying a football team or a casino.

Re:Best of Luck

[Sperbels]

These guys aren't even making excuses, they're throwing money down a hole for the lulz.

The money put forth into space endeavors is NOT packaged up and shot into space. It's spent right here on earth. It employs people here on earth. It uses infrastructure and resources here on earth. It's not being thrown down a hole. Even if they are doing it for lulz, it employs people.

Re:Best of Luck

[Baloroth]

Yeah, throwing money down a hole for the lulz. Just like space travel always was!

Seriously, are you so short-sighted that you cannot see how useful mining asteroids for water, air, and eventually precious minerals is? I'll give you a hint: absolutely, 100% vital to the continued development of the human race. This has nothing to do with doing something "for the lulz." It is all about advancing the state of the human race. Not for profit, but because humanity can and should expand. Asteroid mining is one step forwards in our expansion towards other planets, and if we intend to not go extinct, we need to do that. We may not need to now. We may not need to in a hundred years, but we will in a thousand, or a million, and we are only going to get there if we start at some point. Might as well do it now.

To quote from the article: "[Planetary Resources] want to make sure there are available resources in place to ensure a permanent future in space." Our future, eventually, is in space. Whether from global warming, resource exhaustion, or nuclear war, Earth will eventually not be enough. When that day comes, we will be glad some billionaires chose to spend their money on space expansion, instead of building/buying shiny new toys, or hookers and blow.

A lot, but

[oGMo]

A lot could go wrong, but hopefully they're talking about dropping it at L1 and not actually bringing it into LEO/MEO. After all, we already have a rather large chunk of rock in orbit. A fair-sized asteroid at L1 would make a great place for a real space station, especially if it's ice and rock ... water, breathable air, and a place to build, and you don't have to do anything to keep it there. And the moon is a short jump away.

Re:just in time

[EnsilZah]

Shouldn't you be out feeding the poor or something?

Re:Best of Luck

[Curunir_wolf]

While money is fairly unlimited, resources are not. In particular, the fuel used to send a rocketship into space isn't ever coming back.

The alternative is to burn up all that earth-bound fuel moving people and resources around on the earth for just a little longer until it's all gone anyway - and you have no way to get off the earth for more supplies. Because those resources are only limited ON EARTH.

Re:A new life awaits you in the off-world colonies

[tgd]

IT' is NOT too risky for NASA. IT's too politically risky for congress.

Its not politically risky, its just simply not possible. The timespans are out too long to fit into a single term of office. The moon happened for one reason, and one reason only -- a pissing match with the USSR. The space shuttle and ISS only survived 30 years for one reason -- it was strategically important to the US to keep a broad set of aerospace contractors in business and developing new technology, even if the waning years of the cold war wouldn't support them on their own.

The government has *never* been about space exploration for exploration's sake. Why do you think large-scale robotic exploration missions keep getting cut? If you take too much longer than a single term in office, you risk being cut, especially if you can't burn enough money fast enough to make it appear cheaper to finish than to stop. The missions that "work" these days are strategic to someone's congressional district, cheap, and fast to implement, so they avoid the congressional axe when their original supporter leaves office. (And even some, like the Webb, barely sustain on life support...)

Same reason we couldn't finish the SSC, why fusion research is faltering, and a hundred other examples.