Asteroid Mining Company's First Satellite Launches From Space Station

An anonymous reader writes: Planetary Resources, the company trying to jumpstart an asteroid-mining industry, has launched its first spacecraft. Its 90-day mission is to boldly... test avionics, control systems, and software. The Arkyd 3 Reflight craft was launched from the International Space Station after being delivered there in April. (They had intended to test earlier, but their first craft was lost in the Antares rocket explosion last October.) "The spacecraft is small, but mighty: At just 12 by 4 by 4 inches (30 by 10 by 10 centimeters), it will test key systems and control schemes that will allow later craft to land on asteroids to extract water and minerals. Eric Anderson, co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources, said in the statement that the mining technologies could also help monitor and manage Earth's valuable resources. Later this year, once the satellite completes its 90-day mission, Planetary Resources will send up another satellite: the Arkyd-6, which will be twice as large and will test even more systems needed for the asteroid-mining process, representatives said."

Comments

HRMPFF!

[no-body]

Has anyone done an environmental impact study on this brain fart?
Would be interesting to see if they aren't too ashamed.

Re:HRMPFF!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Notice governments of Earth are already chomping at regulating who gets to mine asteroids.

Power gots ta power.

don't look now

[turkeydance]

commodities in general, and precious metals in particular, suck.

Re:don't look now

[ShanghaiBill]

commodities in general, and precious metals in particular, suck.

In space, all metals are precious. It costs $5k to put a kg of steel into LEO. Even more for GSO or deep space. The trick is to keep the mined materials in space. They are worth far, far less on earth's surface.

Re:don't look now

[turkeydance]

ok. i agree. now make it pay.

Re:don't look now

[Irate Engineer]

The cost of commodities in space is currently driven by the cost to put it on a rocket to put it into space. A kilogram of steel? $5000. A kilogram of water? $5000. A kilogram of oxygen? $5000.

If a company can mine asteroids and prepare usable materials (water, steel, etc.) in space, they can basically sell it all to customers for $4990 per kilogram. The alternative is for the customer to pay for a rocket to get it off of Earth at $5000 per kilogram.

Re:don't look now

[Rob Lister]

Yea, they can sell it for $4990 ... but to whom? Visit

http://howmanypeopleareinspace...

As of this post, there are Three people in space. Sometimes it's nine.
It doesn't take a rocket science to realize that there is not enough current demand for anything to make it cost effective.
Even if we increase demand 100 fold, it still isn't going to be worthwhile.

And I don't think they're going to do that. Frankly, having even three folks up there is a bit of a waste.

Re:don't look now

[Dr. Spork]

I take it the point is to use the materials in space to first build something. Only once it's built will people actually come. The reason why our space programs are stuck in first gear is that we don't know how to build things in space from materials that are there. This will change soon, because many of the lessons of automated production techniques on Earth can be applied (with modifications) in space. The problem will be one of sourcing the raw materials from which to manufacture something useful. So that demand is perfectly predictable, and asteroid mining companies are now taking the baby steps they need to take to eventually satisfy that demand.

If you're wondering about what's worth making in space, there are many great ideas. Here is just one: A truly gigantic telescope mirror. It might actually be easy to do, because the factors that make mirror production on Earth so hard are not a problem in space. There is no need to worry about sagging, stress and all these other gravity-related issues. Space-built telescopes could get pretty darn big, The question is: what will they be made of? And the most plausible answer is: materials from asteroids. Like I said, that's just one example.

Monetize space

[rmdingler]

Escaping the earth's gravity well is the millstone about the neck of the exploration of the rest of the Universe for the Earthling humans.

The asteroid belt contains the galaxy's low hanging fruit of available rocket fuel (hydrogen and oxygen), and quite probably some metal groups we find necessary on planet, as well.

This is the next logical step. Monetize space. Get behind it... or get out of the way, so that others might not trample you.

Re:Monetize space

[R3d M3rcury]

I haven't quite figured out the economics yet.

If you consider minerals, I would imagine that asteroid mining will certainly be less cost-effective than mining them on Earth. So there's no way they're going to be able to compete with Earth-bound mining. Short of some kind of unobtainium deposit, you're losing money. You could conceivably sell the minerals in orbit for building things up there, but that technology doesn't really exist yet and that's going to be pretty tricky to come up with.

If you consider mining ice/water for rocket fuel, you've conceivably got a chicken-or-the-egg problem. The idea is that you mine the ice and then break it up into hydrogen (a very good propellant source) and oxygen (something we humans need for breathing) and sell that. But who will buy it? Perhaps people looking to make money mining asteroids. And what's the only way to make money mining asteroids? Mining ice/water for rocket fuel! So it becomes sort of a pyramid scheme where the first people make money and suddenly there's a lot more competition, the price drops, and the bottom falls out of the market.

I like the idea, but I'm not sure I'd be investing any money in it...

Re:Monetize space

[oztiks]

This is the next logical step. Monetize space. Get behind it... or get out of the way, so that others might not trample you.

Problem: To the rest of the galaxy we'll end up pigeonholing ourselves as being too 'Ferengi like'

Re:Monetize space

[ShanghaiBill]

asteroid mining will certainly be less cost-effective than mining them on Earth.

It depends what you are mining. If you are mining a lithophile mineral like uranium or thorium, that readily oxidizes, you are better off digging into the earth's crust. But if you are looking for a siderphile mineral like gold, platinum, or iridium, you are better off looking in the asteroid belt. Gold readily dissolves in molten iron, and nearly all terrestrial gold sunk into the core eons ago.

To decide where to mine, look at the Goldschmidt classification for the element you need.

Re:Monetize space

[NickyLogic]

Cheaper fuel and building materials in space could enable new space ventures that today are "too big to launch"

Re:Monetize space

[KeensMustard]

Escaping the earth's gravity well is the millstone about the neck of the exploration of the rest of the Universe for the Earthling humans.

Really? I woiuld have thought, by any measure, the sheer size of the galaxy, let alone the universe, is the actual millstone. The delta v required to reach orbit (11.2 km/s) is only a quarter of the size needed to escape the gravity of the sun (42 km/s) and thus escape the solar system. Even then, you will get nowhere, the delta-v required to travel anywhere is measure in fractions of the speed of light, and any practical speed (for the purposes of travelling) is measured in units far above what we can hope to achieve. By way of example, it will take the fastest moving object we have sent to the edge of our solar system millions of years to reach the next star. The galaxy is billions of stars deep.

Clearly, then, if we want to actually explore the universe, we must find a away to do so that doesn't require physically moving a probe in the direction of interest. In which case, delta-v to orbit around earth, as challenging as that is, is generally irrelevant.

Re:Monetize space

[nickersonm]

If you look into Planetary Resources even a little bit, you'll see that their present goal is water-ice for consumables. NASA will be happy to buy water for $5k/kg. The first page on their 'prospecting' site has a full page header about the H2O mining.

Re:Deorbiting

[Irate Engineer]

How do you deorbit a million tonnes of ore without blasting out a huge hole on earth.

You don't deorbit anything. That's the idea - get materials into space by using the materials that are already in space.

Asteroid mining isn't meant to provide raw materials for Earth.

Dog whistles... nice!

[rmdingler]

Space nutter.

nutter butter

Re:Republicans haven't even finished raping this..

[sabbede]

Even pretending your offensive nonsense is true, moving on would mean not "raping" this planet anymore. So, a win-win.