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Planetary Resources To 'Claim' Asteroids With Beacons
kkleiner writes "Planetary Resources last year boldly claimed that they would build a futuristic business out of mining space asteroids. To that end, the firm recently completed the Arkyd-100 satellite prototype. The satellite will use its telescope to look for suitable near-Earth asteroids from low-Earth orbit. Later expeditions will rocket out to prospective real estate, do spectral analysis, and if the asteroid contains valuable resources, lay claim with a beacon."
Not legally enforceable, which in many ways is a shame. Until money can be made through space travel, it will never "take off"...
Mod informative, flamebait or funny
Not only not enforceable: I always thought that there were treaties against this, as in no private company from any country can claim anything outside the atmosphere without some sort of international agreement. See Outer Space Treaty.
Ezekiel 23:20
So I know whose asteroid crashed into my house.
Just because you choose space as the place to do something shitty doesn't mean you won't have to answer for it here.
Mighty big talk from someone sitting at the bottom of a gravity well.
Two reasons. The first is that the volume of materials in orbit is really, really tiny. The second is that each of these different types of space junk would require (potentially) different processing techniques, equipment and so forth. Even discounting property issues, those simply make the idea financially insane. So I expect some national government somewhere will certainly try it at some point.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Curiously enough, yes: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2282/would-a-gun-work-in-space
On the one hand, mineral claims have a long history and seem to have worked decently.
On the other hand, how do we prevent an unscrupulous company from doing just enough work to *claim* these asteroids, with no intention of actually following through and mining them. Then, acting as a rent-seeker when another company actually does try to mine the resources?
Look, I don't care if you plant a flag or a beacon on some asteroid, if I can actually build a spaceship that can go and grab it and mine it before you do, your shit out of luck. I'll just kick your little beacon off, or move it to something else that has no value. What are you going to do about it?
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The first shot will be even better than the one you'd get on Earth. The power already contains the oxidants the combustion needs, and there will be no air resistance.
The rest of the shot are trickier. If the gun is an automatic, and has not been modified, you may need to chamber the rounds manually, because the lack of air resistance may mess up the automatic action.
If the gun is a revolver, you will be able to fire all chambers as usual, but the gun will be only cooling by radiating heat AND through the contact with your gloves. That may become uncomfortable rather quickly.
And of course, you may have problems with recoil. Unless you have anchored yourself rather well, you will start moving in very complex way, especially if you do not fire the bullet along a line passing through your center of mass and the end of the barrel.
No good deed goes unpunished...