Slashdot Mirror
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."
Hopefully they'll be very careful about bringing asteroids into Earth orbit. But the energy and mining industries are pretty safe and responsible right?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Because we're just about running out of problems to solve here on Earth
when I see it happening.
Does anyone know what the (plausible) ROI for this is?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Wise choice. From TFA:
I asked Lewicki specifically about how this will make money. Some asteroids may be rich in precious metals — some may hold tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars in platinum-group metals — but it will cost billions and take many years, most likely, to mine them before any samples can be returned. Why not just do it here on Earth? In other words, what’s the incentive for profit for the investors? This is probably the idea over which most people are skeptical, including several people I know active in the asteroid science community.
I have to admit, Lewicki’s answer surprised me. “The investors aren’t making decisions based on a business plan or a return on investment,” he told me. “They’re basing their decisions on our vision.”
These guys aren't even making excuses, they're throwing money down a hole for the lulz. And if this is one of Elon's "playing the long game" ideas he's going to be really disappointed that this will never be profitable as long as spaceships are being pushed from A to B. The only material that could possibly be profitable to bring back to Earth would be He3 from the Moon for use in fusion power.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
Solid as a rock?
IGMC
Oh no... it's the future.
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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Everyone wondering how they could possibly make money on this forgets that in 2036 or 2040 there is a decent chance that the fattest multinational government contract ever awarded will go to whomever knows how to capture an Asteroid. AG5 or Apothis or some other yet undiscovered rock will need to be moved sometime in the future, we know this.
It actually is possible that a few billionaires actually do want to keep the human race from going extinct, as far-fetched as that sounds.
I really kind of like this. A group of rich guys with a bent towards science fiction are doing a proof of concept mission that is - quite honestly - to risky for a big organization like NASA.
This is such a phenomenally more interesting use of their money than a huge yacht or a private island or buying a baseball team. I say go for it.
FWIW, I believe the target asteroid size is 500T, which is the same order of magnitude (barely, factor of 7.5) as the one that re-entered and blew up with apparently no ground damage over the US west coast last night.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Men, flying through the air!? Ridiculous! I won't be investing in that "enterprise".
As if you had the means or the opportunity.
Does anyone know what the (plausible) ROI for this is?
5 year, 25 year, 100 year?
The real return will not be from delivering things to earth, rather it will be delivering things to orbit and the moon to further orbital and lunar construction and habitation. Lifting metals and waters from the earth to orbit or the moon is very expensive. Getting those resources "locally" (local in terms of gravity well not absolute distance) is the way to go and someone will get very rich doing so. The problem is that a profitable mining enterprise is optimistically many decades in the future, more likely something for the next century at our current pace.
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.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Jim Benson's baby, SpaceDev, had the same business plan in the mid-90's. They were players in the X Prize and the NEAR satellite, with custom satellite launches to fund their asteroid mining plan. Sadly, Benson died in the mid-2000's and his dream went too. [But not after I made lots of money trading small fluctuations in SPDV shares for 5 years (paid for my student loans!)]
Of course, he originally claimed there could be cobalt asteroids out there worth a quadrillion dollars. (No citation, but I remember the quadrillion # clearly.)
I really hope this new venture works, I think it is a feasible idea.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
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.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
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.