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NASA Offering Contracts To Encourage Asteroid Mining
An anonymous reader writes "Two private companies, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, have received contracts from NASA to study asteroid redirection and will pursue their plans of asteroid mining. From the article: "Deep Space Industries is planning to build a number of dense spacecrafts called FireFlies, and they plan on sending the satellites on one way missions to gather information about the density, shape, composition and size of an asteroid. They also have plans to build a spacecraft called Dragonfly, which has the purpose of catching asteroids. The asteroid material will be collected and returned to Earth by 'Harvesters'. Planetary Resources, on the other hand, plans to build a number of middle sized and small telescopes that will be capable of examining asteroids near the planet Earth for economic potential. They already have the telescopes Arkyd 300, Arkyd 200 and the Arkyd 100, each having its own specific systems."
We got that big ol' moon out there doing nothing but moving the oceans around... And we chase after pebbles
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Why is the US government, through NASA, funding projects to mine asteroids when the legal status of such objects places them in them as international heritage???
I never knew that NASA was exempt from felony theft...or does the US government have plans to reimburse everyone on the planet forever???
The bottom line here, this is not something that can be negotiated by governments, each individual has a stake in this.
So tell me please, how are we going to be able to affords say gold a 20,000,000.00 an ounce or iron at the very same price? sure I believe mining will be a necessary but not for anyone here on earth. As earth is going to burn to a crisp. We can drag them behind our starship we will have Bethlehem Steel starships and all for the lucky "Maybe not so lucky?" ones looking for a new planet to live on
Jack of all trades,master of none
but are long duster coats optional?
Anything obtained will be overpriced and just a general novelty for quite a few years. I could see asteroid mining to be relevant for rare-metals once we improve the cost-effectiveness of venturing into space. But for now, the price point is just too high. And what are these "companies" even doing in the meantime? Hmmm...
I hope I'm alive when we get a space elevator and this stuff can really kick into gear.
"A good compromise leaves everyone mad." -Calvin
Thank you!
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
TFA in the summary doesn't have any useful information and no additional links. The only thing I can find on NASA's website is an announcement back in June that eighteen studies were funded. Has something happened recently?
Obviously the spacecraft should have been called Serenity.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Just remember I told you so when Elon Musk is holding the Earth for a ransom of one MILLION dollars or he'll smack us with an asteroid.
Also, could one of these new asteroid mining companies get whatever's left of Atari to sponsor them so they can fly under the Atari logo?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Science fiction authors have totally solved this problem a zillion different ways. They all share certain features. First you go to the asteroid. Second, you set up some sort of mass driver on the asteroid or ion driver, ideally one that uses solar electricity or heat and not imported fuel, but if you don't mind a bit of radioactivity, propulsion by nuke is OK (Orion).
Depends on the mass of the asteroid as well, and how long you want to wait to get it home, and how much of it you want to have left when you get there. If you don't mind waiting a VERY long time, you could even use an angled light sail for propulsion. Third, you drive it home, or rather, have your fully automated computer tools do it for you. Fourth, you get it into Earth Orbit and then use it to threaten the hegemony running Earth, insisting that they send you dancing girls and exotic foods or you'll drop it on their heads -- it makes you way more money than actually selling the metal.
Optionally, you can have your robots smelt the asteroid in place first, using large mirrors to concentrate solar energy to melt the asteroid rock into slag plus metal, perhaps even collecting the slag (with a thin metal coating) to use in your linear accelerator or solar heated rocket as reaction mass. Some asteroids are really comet heads and might be covered with solid gases and ice and might support making real fuel on the spot as well. And fusion would no doubt shift the plan a bit as well.
But the final stage is always to drop them on Earth, not use them for good. Otherwise there isn't any real plot. Sometimes they don't even bother dropping them per se, they just fall by accident. But nobody can resist an umpty teraton-of-TNT explosion: not invading space aliens, not Dr. Evil, not the asteroid mining company's board of directors, not even the grizzled old asteroid miner whose sainted mother was put out onto the street to starve during the housing riots of 2057.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
The goal isn't to bring the resources back to Earth.
Sure a astroid made out of solid gold might surpass the break even point at current prices you'd only have to bring back more than 50 pounds of gold per million dollars spent to break even. But there are also diminishing returns, too much new gold and the price will crash.
Water and plutonium, which is what the article says they are focusing on, are worth far less than gold.
Having water and plutonium already in orbit means missions can be designed to use those resources without the ramifications that arise from transporting them out of Earth's gravity well.
I average 10.8m isk per hour. Please consider me as your operator. I only require one main with max anchor and drone op, and at least four alts for hauling. What sec are these rocks located? Thank you.
We shall find out....
Instead of trying to mine it in space, why not strap a parachute to it and redirect it straight at Earth? Before it starts immense friction against the air, there will be enough air to fill the chute. Then you can mine it on the ground.
Can you say pork? How about, complete waste of taxpayers' money? If the mythical free market wants to speculate on the profitability of asteroid mining, fine, but make them do it on their own fucking dime.
We got that big ol' moon out there doing nothing but moving the oceans around... And we chase after pebbles
99% of Near Earth Asteroids take less fuel to reach than the surface of the Moon. That's partly due to the lack of a deep gravity field, partly due to being able to use the Moon itself to slingshot vehicles towards the asteroids, and partly because with a shallow gravity well you can use all electric thrusters, which are ten times more efficient.
I'm not saying to ignore the Moon, it has it's uses. But we should not ignore an easy to reach resource that is *differentiated* into different minerals and ores. The Moon has a blended surface due to repeated impacts throwing stuff around. It doesn't have the same kind of concentrated metals that a Type M asteroid does.
That beacon is a warning.
There are three reasons. The first is the main use for asteroid materials is in space, where they already are. Radiation shielding and fuel are the easiest products to make at first. To get anything from Earth into space is expensive, and gets more expensive the farther you go. The second is certain elements sank to the core of the Earth along with the iron, and are therefore very rare. Asteroids can contain hundreds of times higher concentrations. Even though asteroid mining isn't going to start out cheap, these minerals may be worth extracting, as a side effect of the bulk uses like shielding. Thirdly, the Earth has an average thermal gradient of 25C/km. So if you go down 8 km (5 miles), typically it will be 200C, which is really hard on the mining equipment. Some oil wells go that deep, but the drilling equipment stays on the surface, only the cutting bits are at the bottom.
I wonder if they are going to use Mining Barges or skill up to Exhumers first.
Nope...no military applications for that area of research and engineering.
And in other news, NASA's proposed asteroid missions have just been fully funded in perpetuity.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
> Imagine the utility of a programmable satellite factory.
I don't just imagine such things, I'm working on building them ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/S... ). Instead of trying to launch a whole space refinery and chemical plant, you send a starter kit (a "seed"), and use it to progressively build the rest out of local energy and materials. Since the laws of nature are the same everywhere, the Seed Factory concept works just as well on Earth, so our first generation design is for here. Later versions will be for more hostile environments like the oceans, deserts, ice caps, and space. Where it gets really interesting is using an expanded factory to make new starter kits. This is very similar to how biological plants reproduce. An acorn doesn't make another acorn directly. It grows into an oak tree first, then produces more acorns.
So what you're saying is that sci fi writers have not only solved asteroid mining, but also overpopulation and the productive employment of psychopaths. Win-win-win all the way around.
certain elements sank to the core of the Earth along with the iron, and are therefore very rare
Huh ? Iron is the 4th most abundant element in the Earth's crust with 5% concentration.
The amount of solar energy that passes closer to us than the Moon is equal to the whole world's fossil fuel reserves every minute. That's not just energy independence, that's a superabundance of clean energy, as long as the Sun lasts. I think that is worth a small amount of R&D funding. Tapping that energy is easier if you can use equipment made locally in space, rather than hauling it all up from Earth. We have no production capability in space at the moment. If we can reach the "bootstrap point", where equipment in place can make more equipment, then we can realize whatever goals we set. The taxpayer's investment will be paid back many times over from higher economic activity.
If we mechanize the process, we don't have to worry about concentrations. The only issue, if it is one, would the amount of time required to process the goods. I am aware of the difficulties. I only wonder if anybody has done the math. Sending tons of machinery up to an asteroid sounds very expensive.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We don't need no stinking permission from NASA to mine any moon or asteroid...
The sentence you quoted and object to can be (and should be) interpreted as follows: "...certain elements sank to the core of the Earth and are therefore very rare..." The clause, "along with the iron", only says that they sank along with the iron, the clause involving "very rare" still only applies to the object of the sentenc, "certain elements".
...Since the laws of nature are the same everywhere, the Seed Factory concept works just as well on Earth, so our first generation design is for here. Later versions will be for more hostile environments like the oceans, deserts, ice caps, and space. Where it gets really interesting is using an expanded factory to make new starter kits. This is very similar to how biological plants reproduce. An acorn doesn't make another acorn directly. It grows into an oak tree first, then produces more acorns.
Good for you! You are proposing to build an actual von Neumann machine. Such things are obviously possible (given the evidence of living things) - but I have never seen a proposal to actual build one, or even a defensible estimate of what would be required to build Humankind's first one.
Any estimate on when we will see this is more than just an electronic document? Currently the WikiBook about this flys at such a high level that it is impossible to tell whether there really is anything here.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
The asteroid material will be collected and returned to Earth by 'Harvesters'.
Ha, then I say onto you: "Send men to summon worms!", and let us go to New York Mercantile Exchange to collect.
There are things called lathes and other machine tools that can reproduce themselves. Without that capability, the Industrial Revolution would have never happened. The real question is how many of these kind of tools together with a good smelter do you need before you can be self-sufficient and keep making your own sets of tools out of raw materials?
This is a big deal because it would be nice to get a set of these kind of tools into the hands of people in 3rd world countries, or for that matter have a few of them cached in a bunch of random places on the off chance that our current technological civilization will collapse completely. It is also something important to know about if you are planning on building a colony on Mars or the Moon, as such a set of tools that make tools can help such colonies grow much easier.
In general the idea is that your primary market is in space, and competes with Earth-launch costs. (Such as fuel.) Then incrementally grows as what is essentially a waste product from the first production becomes a product in the second, then the third... say bulk shielding, then simple bulk metal components, then dishes/antennas/etc, then manufactured products like solar arrays. Each competes only with the cost of sending up that product from Earth into space, but eventually you have enough industry going on up there that dumping a shipment of PGMs or even nickel all the way back to Earth is a small side trip that is worth the extra income, even though it can't possibly justify all that infrastructure in the first place. At that point, you are just starting to become competitive with Earth-side mining, and the development should increase exponentially after that.
The initial process of getting from here to that first product is also, by coincidence, the same requirements as doing interesting science.
It might not ever be economical. But the process of finding out that it's not economical is just relatively low-cost science. Unless we're stupid, we don't have to commit any more than that to find out that it is or isn't worth committing more.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
The Moon has a blended surface due to repeated impacts throwing stuff around. It doesn't have the same kind of concentrated metals that a Type M asteroid does.
However, those same impacts (and the lack of oxidation) means that the lunar regolith contains several percent metal powder/filings from M-type asteroids, which can be separated from the regolith using just a magnet, and sintered into basic shapes using just a microwave emitter.
Combined with the high likelihood of a thick layer of water-ice at the poles (for fuel) and its nearness to Earth (allowing teleoperated robots, and much easier human presence), makes the moon a reasonable place for us to get started than an asteroid.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Bet the project gets cancelled after the first year only to have sub-par missions pop up after it it.
Precisely! In fact, I'm thinking of rewriting Plato's Republic except replacing all instances of Philosophers with Science Fiction Writers. Think of the advantages! Instead of neurosing over healthcare and global warming we can have replacement organs, dinosaurs and space aliens! We can build our own space habitat! The Stars are Ours! No longer will mankind be limited by silly little things like physical law and economics, not with SF writers in control.
Best of all, SF writers tend to be pretty nerdy and (if we carefully exclude the horror contingent and zombie squad) inclined towards epic-heroic monumental happy endings. Life could never be boring with them in charge.
On to the asteroids! Don't worry about cost or whether or not the risks are worth the benefits! Damn the space torpedos! So what if another million or two of small children die of easily preventable causes this year! It helps reduce the rate of population growth, and how can that be a bad thing?
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Am I the only one who finds NASA's presumption of ownership and control a bit presumptive?
Iron in the form of minerals is common in the Earth's crust. Iron in the form of metal isn't. Some other metallic elements mix well with molten iron, and sank to the core along with it.
It's more like several tenths of a percent native iron in the Lunar regolith, and typically the particles of iron are cemented to blobs of glass created by the heat of impact. You *can* separate the iron bits magnetically, but then you need an additional melting step to separate the slag from the iron. Other than that, I agree that native iron will be a useful product on the Lunar surface.
A chondrite type asteroid contains carbon and water (as hydrated minerals). These can be extracted and reformed into hydrocarbons and oxygen, which are an excellent fuel for *landing* on the Moon. Also asteroid rock brought back to a Lunar vicinity orbit can be in sunlight ~100% of the time, whereas a region at the Lunar pole which traps water ice would also have low sun exposure.
Rather than thinking of Moon and Near Earth Asteroids as competitors, think of asteroid rock placed near the Moon as a literal stepping stone. It would be a place to fuel your lander on the way to the surface. By lowering the total mass ratio to reach the Lunar surface, it makes it *easier* to get there. Now, if you can extract water ice, that helps you get back to orbit from the Moon's surface. Ideally you want to do both. The rocket equation imposes an exponential mass ratio based on delta-V. If you can refuel at multiple points instead of bringing it all from your point of origin, it changes the exponential into a linear problem. That's way way better.
> Good for you! You are proposing to build an actual von Neumann machine.
The idea of a Von Neumann machine assumes 100% automated and that it copies 100% of it's parts exactly. We don't make those assumptions. Human labor is allowed in the Seed Factory concept, whether hands-on, or by remote control for space versions. Some parts will be too hard to make internally, like computer chips. Other parts will require rare elements that are not available locally. So those items are simply bought instead of trying to make them in-house. We think a reasonable goal is 85-98% internal production by mass, depending on location. Lastly, we don't replicate (copy our parts exactly), we expand by making parts for new machines not in the starter kit, or by building larger versions of existing machines. If you want to, you can eventually produce a copy of the original starter kit, but that is after a period of growth from the seed to the fully mature factory.
> Any estimate on when we will see this is more than just an electronic document?
Our Seed Factory Project [ http://www.seed-factory.org/ ] has purchased a 2.67 acre (1 hectare) R&D location in the Atlanta metro area. We are starting to install a conventional workshop, with the intent to build prototypes of the starter kit machines. We plan to collaborate with local area Maker groups and hopefully institutions like Georgia Tech. Our designs will be open-source, which is why we are using Wikibooks and similar sites to document things.
> the WikiBook about this flys at such a high level that it is impossible to tell whether there really is anything here.
You are quite correct. We need to get to detailed designs and calculations, and prove the ideas work in practice. That's why we are setting up a physical R&D location.
> There are things called lathes and other machine tools that can reproduce themselves.
Not unaided. Machine tools can indeed make parts for more machine tools, but they need a source of power, and a supply of stock metal shapes to do that (and eventually fresh cutting tools)
> The real question is how many of these kind of tools together with a good smelter do you need before you can be self-sufficient and keep making your own sets of tools out of raw materials?
We phrase the R&D question a little differently: What is the best starter kit, and best growth path from the kit to a fully expanded factory? We have a draft starter kit list at https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/... , and it includes a lathe, mill, and press, which are basic machines, but there are several others in addition. The starter kit emphasizes flexibility by using attachments to do different tasks. The expanded factory can add more specialized machines as needed, since your starter machines can only do one thing at a time.
> it would be nice to get a set of these kind of tools into the hands of people in 3rd world countries
Providing starter kits for under-developed areas is one of the project goals.
> It is also something important to know about if you are planning on building a colony on Mars or the Moon,
If you can build 85-98% of your stuff from local materials, it dramatically reduces how much you have to bring from Earth. That has huge leverage on what projects are feasible. However, helping people on Earth is a more immediate and larger need. So space versions will be 3rd or 4th generation Seed Factories. The first generation design is for ordinary people right here on Earth.
Iron is the commonest element in the core of the Earth at around 70% v/v or w/w, with some 10+% of nickel (much, much rarer on the surface), around 10% of oxygen and sulphur combined (the exact proportions are unsure), several percent of potassium (several times it's concentration on average on the surface, but concentration varies considerably between rock types ; responsible for about a half of the radiogenic heat budget) and traces of others. Gold, for example may be as high as a ppm, some thousands of times it's concentration at the surface.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
In addition, most of the minerals haven't escaped into space, so are still there on the rock -ready for re-use or recycling.