2014: Planetary Resources To Launch Their First Satellites

symbolset writes "Planetary Resources wants to mine asteroids for their sweet, sweet minerals and make a business of it. The sparky little company has been writ up here on Slashdot numerous times. With the backing of such billionaires as Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, James Cameron, and many others, and such luminaries as major NASA project managers, engineers and scientists, you have to think they might have a good shot at it. Recently they picked up a huge engineering, procurement and construction partner: Bechtel. Their operations are already cash-flow positive by selling tech invented to pursue their goals, so they're a legitimate business running lean and intending to make good. Yesterday they announced the plan to launch their first space missions — the Arkyd Series 100 LEO Space Telescopes — as soon as next year. Beginning in 2014 their satellites will be scanning the skies from Low Earth Orbit for lucrative rocks that happen to be heading our way, and incidentally doing for-pay work to keep the lights on. For a reasonable fee they'll sell you the right to retask one of these telescopes to take a picture of anything you want that it can see, for a fair price. The plan is to follow up with harvester craft to go get these asteroids, mulch them, and sell their bits for profit. Some talk has been made of selling what are uncommon terrestrial minerals like gold and platinum, refined on orbit and deorbited at great expense as a business plan, but frankly that's absurd. 'Extraterrestrial Asteroid Bits' ought to go for a higher price on the collector market than gold or platinum ever would, and the temporal preeminence should draw a premium price. 'This 69 mg specimen (769 of 10,000) was one of the first commercially harvested bits of asteroid returned to Earth. Lucite embedded for permanent display, with case. Certificate of authenticity included.'"

Comments

collectables have a limit.

[gl4ss]

platinum and gold have practical uses. it would freak out the goldbugs though if it became financially feasible to get them from space and to land them.

so yeah asteroid bits maybe for one de-orbit test batch.. after that the collectible value would crash.

Re:collectables have a limit.

[bugs2squash]

No you crush the asteroid and leave the parts in a stable orbit then charge the government to clean up the mess. Or the government pays you to leave the debris field in the path of any ICBM launched from N Korea.

Re:collectables have a limit.

[PeterPiper]

There are 2500 tons of gold mined each year on earth with a total supply of 165,000 tons already mined. It will be quite a while before asteroid mining will make any appreciable dent in this supply, and until it does, it won't have much of an effect on it's price.

Meanwhile, the most money to be made from asteroidal material won't be their importation to Earth. It currently costs $10,000. a pound to put material into orbit. I expect virtually everything mined off planet will actually be used for off planet construction and manufacturing, including gold.

Re:collectables have a limit.

[larry bagina]

There was a time that table salt - NaCL - was a valuable commodity worth it's weight in gold. Personally, my demand for salt exceeds my demand for gold. Anyhow, today salt is a commodity. Hell, the Bloombergs of the world think there's too much of it.

Food for thought. Take with a grain of salt.

Berlin Wall

[NEDHead]

I have a small piece in a plastic case, with a certificate.

It looks like concrete rubble from, oh, anywhere.

Fortunately I got it at a discount.

Not gold [Re:collectables have a limit.]

[Geoffrey.landis]

platinum and gold have practical uses. it would freak out the goldbugs though if it became financially feasible to get them from space and to land them.

Gold?? Who's suggesting getting gold from asteroids?

On Earth, gold veins are produced by aqueous processes. You wouldn't expect that on asteroids.

Platinum, and platinum-group metals, on the other hand-- these are siderophiles, and hence depleted in the Earth's crust. Good elements to look for in asteroids-- in fact, iridium is the very signature of an asteroid impact.

Re:All ingredients for a spectacular fail

[0123456]

No-one in their right mind is going to mine asteroids in space and bring the materials down to Earth, unless you really do find Unobtainium out there. We'd be mining them in space to use the materials in space, which is why it doesn't make much sense today to anyone other than billionaires with money to burn, but probably will in a few decades.

If we did really, really need asteroid resources on Earth, we'd just crash them in a remote area and mine them on the ground.