New Spectroscope Perfect For Asteroid Mining, Planetary Research (vanderbilt.edu)

Science_afficionado writes: Scientists at Fisk and Vanderbilt Universities are developing a new generation of gamma-ray spectroscope that is light weight, compact and don't require much power but have the capability for detecting veins of gold, platinum, rare earths and other valuable materials hidden within asteroids, comets, moons and other airless objects floating about the solar system. "A gamma-ray spectroscope records the intensity and wavelengths of the gamma rays coming from a surface. This spectrum can be analyzed to determine the concentration of a number of important, rock-forming elements ... The key to the new instrument is a recently discovered material, europium-doped strontium iodide (SrI2). This is a transparent crystal that can act as an extremely efficient gamma-ray detector. It registers the passage of gamma rays by giving off flashes of light that can be detected and recorded."

Comments

Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no feasible way to go "mine" for these materials. This is just a fantasy. But I guess it's a good way to keep money circulating in a post-industrial society.

Re:Yeah, and?

[KGIII]

No, there's no way to do so now. However, it's a potentiality some day in the future. There's no good reason to not look for advances and speculate that they may be beneficial for those reasons in the future. I'm not sure *why* we'd want to mine asteroids but my imagination isn't that good. If we have sufficiently advanced technology to get to asteroids and mine them, we probably have technology that's advanced enough to get off this rock.

Getting off this rock, in a meaningful fashion, means getting off it in a manner where we won't need external resources but will be entirely self-sufficient with things like multi-generational ships. Perhaps, there's a slim chance, mining asteroids is a necessary step in that process but it seems unlikely.

Re:Yeah, and?

[someone1234]

Yeah just like going faster than 30 miles per hour would tear your head off. And there is no way a heavier than air object could fly.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Mostly a lurker]

The fact that we cannot yet see how or why we woulld mine these bodies is not a good guide to the futue. All advances build on those that went before. Practical, cheap ways to prospect for rare minerals off earth may well be a necesary link in the chain. I would also note that the new technique may be valuable in future rover missions to places like Titan.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is simple.
There are no environmental impacts from mining on an asteroid.

Re: Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Asteroids have enviroment too, ypu insensitive clod!

Re:Yeah, and?

[vtcodger]

Well, yeah. Someday .. Maybe. But sixty years into the space age, progress is slow. So space mining may well not happen for centuries. Moreover, my cocktail napkin says that the ore value of a 1000kg chunk of typical nickel-iron meteorite is probably around USD $2000-$3000 at current prices. (The curiousity value is much higher, so the first few might fetch a LOT of bucks). AFAICS, at the moment we couldn't even get 1000kg down from earth orbit in an orderly fashion for $20000-$30000 much less the $200-$300 per tonne that would be needed to make commercial exploitation practical

Moreover, the idea that there even are veins of material in asteroids enhanced in various elements is less than certain. It seems to me that most of the differentiating processes that result in "loads" with high concentrations of minerals on Earth probably wouldn't be present in asteroids. And certainly not for the same timespan. But maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe there are other concentrating processes that work on low gravity rocks.

And maybe this thing might have some utility right here on Earth.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Rei]

We surely can see how and why. Asteroids have (generally) tiny gravitational fields. By and large, the delta-V needed to return material from an asteroid to Earth is just its earth-intercept delta-V. Which on some asteroids - earth-crossers - this energy can be tiny itself. At earth, the body can either aerocapture or go all the way in for landing. Neither of these things require an engine. There is of course the heat load to deal with. Your projectiles can be ideally shaped for reentry and with the outer layer of the hot side expected to ablate off. If you want to go straight for landing you don't have to have a parachute, there's nothing living on it. Asteroids of a certain size survive landing mostly intact (too small and they mostly burn up; too large and they mostly convert themselves to gas and plasma on impact).

Things that would be needed:
  * Impact area, large enough to account for aiming errors
  * Mining probe which can "hop" around the body, boil off its surface, and condense it into a ceramic or tungsten mold - OR collect loose/grind off solid material and cast it with small amounts of a binding agent or sinter it.
  * Power source for the casting process: concentrated solar, high-temperature nuclear, or battery (with periodic charging and/or cable to a base station, which in turn would be solar or nuclear)
  * Coil gun and system to load it, along with the power to fire it.
  * Standard probe hardware: communications, cameras, compute hardware, thermal management, etc.

Reward:
  * Regular shipments of absurdly valuable mineral concentrates (rare metals, gems such as olivine/peridot (if not boiled during mining - it tolerates sintering), etc). A single multitonne-tonne rock recovered on the surface may be worth in the ballpark of $1m even ignoring the (probably significant) multiplier of it having come from space (aka, would your average luxury-obsessed sultan rather have table made of gold, or a table made of Gold From Space?).

The key issue is that excepting the option of using an imported binder, all of the above options require no regular shipments of any hardware from Earth except for that required by maintenance. Meaning that once you pay your (multi-billion-dollar) capital costs (largely imposed directly or indirectly by the rocket equation), the rocket equation ceases to be relevant.

Are we ready to launch something like that today? Of course not. In space you don't just launch multi-billion dollar projects without first including test hardware on smaller probes first to try out all of the difficult aspects of what you want to do, to retire the risk. But there are no fundamental technological or economic barriers. The value of the return materials is massive and they can be launched to earth intercept with little to no consumables via electric power.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Rei]

Moreover, the idea that there even are veins of material in asteroids enhanced in various elements is less than certain. It seems to me that most of the differentiating processes that result in "loads" with high concentrations of minerals on Earth probably wouldn't be present in asteroids.

That's an overly simplistic view of asteroids. First off, we already know very well from spectroscopy that asteroids sometimes (if not usually) have varied surface material properties. Hence it seems perfectly reasonable to expect certain areas to be more or less enriched in various minerals. It's also an overly simplistic view to think of the entire body of an asteroid as being undifferentiated; asteroids have suffered being pounded by fierce impacts since the formation of our solar system, which means melt, and melt can mean differentiation - albeit localized. Lastly, there are asteroids (the largest being 16 Psyche) thought to be remnants of the cores of larger bodies. So mining them would be more like mining chunks of Earth's core - primarily nickel/iron but highly rich in heavy elements rare on Earth's surface.

Re:Yeah, and?

[darthsilun]

There's pretty much no point in bringing iron or aluminum down. We'd leave it in orbit and build things with it there.

And if we could somehow get past this need to always generate profits now and take a longer term view of things, we could undertake long term projects that will produce profits 25, 50, or 100 years from now. E.g. moving whole asteroids nearer to Earth – slowly – where we can get to them more easily.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

So therefore anything is possible. Living forever, going to the center of the Earth, a leisure society with resources for all.

Get to it!

Re:Yeah, and?

[Applehu Akbar]

Two technological processes are converging here. Space robotics is getting better fast, and the easy source mineral deposits on Earth are gone. In high gravity, boring into the ground at depth gets exponentially expensive after the first two or three kilometers. In the TauTona mine in South Africa, the sheer heat of the rock at 4 km has become a major barrier to going deeper. And in most other parts of the planet, stability of the rock and local earthquake frequency prevents going even that deep.

This convergence will at some point bring us to space mining. Send the spectroscope described here out on an RTG-powered probe with a high-powered laser on it, to make a series of asteroidal flybys like the Dawn mission we have out there now, but focusing on smaller asteroids rather than planetoids. At each asteroid, send laser pulses into the surface at numerous points, analyzing the light that comes back to build a spectroscopic map of exposed minerals.

First we need to characterize what general form asteroidal resources take. "Veins" would be formed by hydrology, which is an Earthly phenomenon, so we're more likely going to see expanses of iron containing a range of siderophilic elements ('found with iron'). Will the iron be like that which we mine in the earths' crust, or will it be core iron, much richer in the heavy elements that 'sink to the bottom' on planets?

Findings from this probe will guide us in developing a mining strategy. Whatever we end up with it will be highly automated, with an army of teleoperated robots replacing Leland Stanford's Chinese laborers.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, fantasies usually don't, yeah.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Asteroids have (generally) tiny gravitational fields"

Which means none of the tools and techniques we use here will work. Oh, and you'll need to fully automate them too.

"Which on some asteroids - earth-crossers - this energy can be tiny itself. "

Wow, so we just need to wait a few years per "mission". Wow, yeah, that sounds useful.

"Regular shipments of absurdly valuable mineral concentrates"

Except that no minerals are "absurdly" valuable, and we are already living on a rock with the same minerals.

You are a totally deluded child. No one is mining asteroids, not now, not ever. It simply makes no sense whatsoever, and is merely a fictional daydream for high-functioning autists.

Re: Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rhe value is in the fact that you don't need to send materials into orbit, if you can get a whole industrial chain going in space, you can manufacture your infrastructure in situ.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, or a leisure society with resources for everyone. Nah, better focus on child-like sci-fi daydreams.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Rei]

Which means none of the tools and techniques we use here will work. Oh, and you'll need to fully automate them too.

As if we haven't been extensively working on both of those things already (staying grounded on low-gravity bodies and automating robotic systems - and no, "fully automated" is not needed, there's nothing preventing the use of ground controllers on Earth).

Wow, so we just need to wait a few years per "mission". Wow, yeah, that sounds useful.

So your conception is that one would only mine when an asteroid is near Earth? Whatever you mine and fire off may only impact earth a few years, but it doesn't change the throughput. Your returns all happen in clusters, but it's a lot of material at once.

"Regular shipments of absurdly valuable mineral concentrates"

Except that no minerals are "absurdly" valuable, and we are already living on a rock with the same minerals.

Gold, platinum, iridium, rhodium, osmium, indium and palladium hover in the rough ballpark of $10000-60000 USD per kilogram; gem-quality peridot about the same. You don't call that "absurdly valuable"? And those prices of earth-source materials, while those wanting them for luxury purposes (as opposed to industrial purposes) would pay significant premiums for space-sourced minerals.

Of course they're all "found" on Earth. But they're all found on Earth in tiny quantities, usually upper ppb/lower ppm-levels from ore in a good mine - underneath vast amounts of overburden.

You are a totally deluded child.

Wow, namecalling. That's surely a good way to make you totally not look like a child.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an insane old man stuck in half-century old space propaganda. There is no space robotics getting "better fast". Cite, please.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

" You don't call that "absurdly valuable"? "

Not in the context of your space fantasies that would require billions up front, no.

"But they're all found on Earth in tiny quantities"

Technology gets better, remember? We will find other ways to do things that don't require this old-fashioned space approach. We don't need osmium, or rhodium. Because we don't need so many hard relay contacts or ball-point pens anymore.

Get a clue. Space is over, finished, dead. Those space fantasies you cling to are just sad.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I came to say the same thing - the geophysical processes that result in differentiation or "veins" of material would not be present in any put the absolutely largest dwarf planets. And on those, gravity becomes more of an issue for extraction.

Re:Yeah, and?

[vtcodger]

Your argument would be a lot stronger if you could point to some meteorites showing veins of gold, or platinum, or rare earths or indeed anything. As far as I know there aren't any. But I'm not an expert on meteorites

Yes nickel-iron meteorites are enhanced in some heavy elements. e.g. Indium. But it appears, nowhere near as much as the most concentrated terrestrial ores. My $2000-3000 value includes about $100 worth of heavy metals Gold, Platium Group, etc. The rest is the value of the nickel and iron.

Re:Yeah, and?

[someone1234]

Living forever will never be possible. But living for 1000 years might be. Mining asteroids is much easier than living for 1000 years. I would be surprised if in 50 years, there won't be at least 5 extraterrestrial mining companies.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Rei]

Forget about veins - even in bulk some S-type meteorites have been measured at over 100ppm platinum-group metals, several times better than the best mine on Earth (last I checked, about 40ppm), let alone typical mines for platinum-group metals on Earth, which range from a couple hundred ppb to a few ppm. Concerning precious metals as a whole, even the *average* H-chondrite is 28ppm precious metals. L-chondrites can be up to 220 ppm precious metals. And there's no overburden - it's rich all the way through. "Veins" or other areas of unusually high concentration would just be an extra.

One could eject raw ore to Earth or concentrate it first, through any number of steps (particularly if the surface is pulverized to regolith - metallic grains can be extracted through electromagnetic processes). The key is that you should be able to eject a sintered or cast projectile on an Earth-intercept trajectory without the use of any consumables - via a coilgun. If your projectiles include sufficient metallic material to sustain an induced magnetic field than they don't need any sort of sabot. If they're shaped and sized properly you can have a stable reentry with minimal ablative burnoff and remain relatively intact after impact (too small and they'll burnup too much; too large and they'll explode too much on impact)

Re:Yeah, and?

[Rei]

Not in the context of your space fantasies that would require billions up front, no.

Large mines on Earth also cost "billions upfront" - your point?

Technology gets better, remember?

While at the same time the easiest resources become exhausted. Also, "technology gets better" often means "exploiting radically new mineral sources that were previously unavailable to you".

We don't need osmium, or rhodium

Right, who needs extremely hard materials that tolerate very high wear? Who needs chemicals used in fingerprint detection and electron microscopy? Who needs extreme UV reflectors? Who needs catalytic converters and industrial catalysts? Who needs flat-panel glass? Who needs mammography filters? What useless garbage.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

getting better fast

What does that even mean? Or did you string some random words together? Please provide evidence.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh oh, the Space Nutter Downmod Brigade just woke up after a hard weekend's of sexless social-interaction-free gaming and received its orders from Central Command! Downmod the bad man with his reality!

Re:Yeah, and?

[CrimsonAvenger]

But sixty years into the space age, progress is slow.

SIxty years into the railroad age, we were still using rather primitive steam locomotives.

Forty years later, the early automobiles were on the roads (such roads as existed).

Fifty years after that, we were taking our cars to the airport....

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Large mines on Earth also cost "billions upfront" - your point?"

The fact that they work. You simply walk there with a shovel and coerce the natives and bribe the local politicians.

Your stuff doesn't even exist. Why would anyone put a penny into some half-witted sci-fi-addled nerd's fantasies?

"While at the same time the easiest resources become exhausted."

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware we are tossing things into a black hole. Just as a reminder, once we extract things from the ground, they stay here. Merely transferred to garbage dumps or ship-breaking yards.

We will see recycling perfected and extraction of trace minerals right here. After all, once you have this magical technology to mine asteroids, you can simply use it here, why add the mind-boggling expense, complexity, and time? To satisfy your Bionic Man lunchbox fantasies?

"Right, who needs extremely hard materials that tolerate very high wear?"

We will find other, cheaper ways of doing it. You can't have it both ways; you can't postulate advanced technology and at the same time think we'll still be doing things the old way.

Like I said, ball-point pens and relay contacts aren't quite the business they were in 1965, old man.

We don't need to deploy any of your comic-book "science" to get any of the things on your list. Humans are endlessly creative, universities are full of new, young people and your ancient space worship is just as funny to them as a 19th century steam locomotive is to you. (Even though steam locomotives existed, and your fantasies don't.)

Face it, time has marched on and technology has passed you by. Space is not the answer, it never was, you've been lied to, and you cling to the fantasies like someone in a cult who won't admit they've been had.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Applehu Akbar]

Compare Curiosity Rover with the initial Viking landers. That's how far we have come with robotics, just on Mars. Then compare it to the first lunar landers.

And when we get out there to mine asteroids, we will want to use teleoperators, not autonomous robots: a small human crew onsite directing a fleet of mining machines. The technology race will be between life supports for humans and the local AI that fully autonomous robots on location would require.

Re:Yeah, and?

[vtcodger]

I actually agree with much of that. Assuming you can find suitable material, the problems of getting it back to near earth cheaply are probably tractable. Especially if you are patient and use "free" solar radiation for your energy sources. But getting the payload near Earth with an optimum velocity vector may turn out to be a tricky problem that'll take a long time to work out.

"If they're shaped and sized properly you can have a stable reentry with minimal ablative burnoff and remain relatively intact after impact (too small and they'll burnup too much; too large and they'll explode too much on impact)"

That, however is, I think, vastly oversimplified. You also need to worry about differential heating causing your payload to break up into roughly a zillion pieces which then burn up. I believe that's the fate of most reasonable sized objects encountering the Earth. And you need for the thing to come down where you can recover it (i.e. not over the 73% of the planet covered by ocean). And not on top of somebody's cow, house, car or kid. On top of which, if your asset lands in someone's peach orchard, it will probably turn out to be his or her asset after the courts adjucate. And there's the issue of liability if something goes wrong and the damn thing explodes (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...) and flattens a county or two.

I think all those problems can eventually be solved, but the obvious solutions involve expending a lot of non-free energy (e.g. reaction mass, transport vehicles) and the less obvious ones are likely to take a very long time to perfect.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think all those problems can eventually be solved, but the obvious solutions involve expending a lot of non-free energy (e.g. reaction mass, transport vehicles)

Propulsion: electrical energy will be free; so will particles that can be ejected as reaction mass. Assuming we need particles at all. Ergo, free propulsion can be had.

Transport vehicles: With what effectively amounts to unlimited amounts of nickle-iron available, material for transport packaging can also be had for free.

Labor: Robotics, specifically self-repairing robotics, can make labor free as well.

And of course, we'll want manufacturing in space as well. And everything else, pretty much. :)

It's a long way from here to there, but the benefits are so open-ended I simply can't imagine we won't go there as soon as we can manage it.

--fyngyrz

(Anon due to mod points, sigh. C'mon Dice, fix that. It's less than useful. Makes me want to quit moderating, too, and considering the general quality of moderation around here, and the near-0 effectiveness of meta-moderation, Dice shouldn't want that.)

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only we could process your Luddite butthurt for the energy it wastes. Alas, all the energy escapes as hot air.

Re:Yeah, and?

[silas_moeckel]

Your correct shipping minerals down the gravity well is a bit pointless.

The value is in manufacturing further up the gravity well or anyplace with a reasonably low escape velocity. So orbital and more probably moon based. That is of course a chick/egg issue since were currently stuck in LEO with that money pit that is the ISS and a timid NASA.

Re:Yeah, and?

[KGIII]

Hmm... I guess 'loads' works. Do you mean 'lodes,' however? Anyhow, you said a lot of things but nothing. Pfft... I bet you don't even have a cocktail napkin handy!

Anyhow... Where was I? Oh, yeah, err... Speculating at the rate of progress is a self-fulfilling prophecy if, of course, people listen and/or think as you. Assuming the 'vt' means Vermont, well, you fit the codger part. Or curmudgeon.

I, for one, celebrate the invention and hope that, someday, we'll make a clear choice to keep a few of us humans alive by getting us off this rock and spreading out into the galaxy. No, I don't think that will happen in my lifetime. But, at the same time, I welcome any advances that may help us move in that direction.

Re:Yeah, and?

[KGIII]

I'm not normally presumptuous but, if I may speculate, this seems to have been come trendy. Somewhat recently, we've become "space nutters." I'm not sure how, or why. They make strange assumptions, such as holding a belief that I expect to see this sort of stuff happen in my lifetime or in the near future. The above poster shows that they want immediacy.

To be honest, I don't even care about direct practicality. As a society, we're spending a trivial amount. I think it's fine to do pure research or specialized research just for education's sake. We can't really speculate as to the future in its entirety so this might be a valuable resource in the future. It has become trendy so, to close, I presume they're just trying to fit in and this has been a fairly recent change.

Re:Yeah, and?

[KGIII]

Your post is not moderated highly. That is unfortunate. You were more succinct than I. Of course, your post requires that they put a little thought into this instead of parroting trendy ideas. That makes a response unlikely, so I figured I would take a moment to thank you. 'Snot like I was doing anything better.

Re:Yeah, and?

[KGIII]

Interesting... To what end? The only end that I can see, that has anything other than research value, is processing the ore in space in order to build with it and that seems like it'd be making it more complex than it needs to be. I don't see this being financially viable for a very long time - if at all, if the goal is to return it to the Earth's atmosphere and then process it. I'd say it'd be great, on a small scale, for research but I'm not sure that it's something we'll be doing on a large scale for productivity or profit.

Then again, I mentioned above, I'm not the greatest at imagining things. I suppose that'd make me rather dull(er) in some circles. Thus, I'll defer to you but I'm still curious as to what value those items would have to reach in order to make such processing profitable or, more importantly, less complicated than what we're likely to be able to do with that same technology here on the surface.

My thinking is, if we have robotic devices capable of withstanding harsh environments then we can, likely, send them down instead of up with greater practicality, profit, speed, and chance of success. Whilst there's some chance of building in space, with mined ore, then it would need mining, processing, and construction - all while in space. That seems needlessly expensive and difficult.

Which is to say, I already asked the question: To what end? Keep in mind, I'm a strong supporter of things like this and I'm a firm believer that we need to get off this rock and any tech that even potentially has a chance to aid us, in those regards, is something that I'm a fan of - by default. Where does this fit in? In my mind, and I mention my limited imagination again, I see it more useful as a probe that can be used by those out in something like a generational ship who are wanting to increase or replace resources. Ideally, they'd not need to do such things but, perhaps, they're wanting to settle some members somewhere or something like that?

Re:Yeah, and?

[Applehu Akbar]

If Luddite butthurt prevents us from getting at better sources of energy or materials, it's not just hot air - it's a greenhouse gas

Re:Yeah, and?

[Rei]

Your stuff doesn't even exist. Why would anyone put a penny into some half-witted sci-fi-addled nerd's fantasies?

Because that's what you so kindly mentioned: "technology gets better". If you'd rather stick to using the same technology over and over while the easiest resources exhaust, that's otherwise known as committing yourself to ever-increasing resource prices.

I'm sorry, I wasn't aware we are tossing things into a black hole. Just as a reminder, once we extract things from the ground, they stay here. Merely transferred to garbage dumps or ship-breaking yards.

Lol, and you're the one complaining about naive fantasies? Sorry, but resource recovery is not, and never will be, 100% efficient. Or even particularly close to it, even with valuable materials. And due to the fact that the human population - and GDP per capita, which means more consumption - is ever growing, even if there was 100% efficiency you'd still need a continuous stream of new material.

After all, once you have this magical technology to mine asteroids, you can simply use it here,

How does that make even the most remote bit of sense? When did Earth become a gravityless body comprised entirely of absurdly-rich ore with no overburden which needs to export to... a different Earth?

We will find other, cheaper ways of doing it.

The fact that people currently pay for these minerals attests to the fact that people find paying these sorts of prices to be "the best way to do it".

It's quite possible, of course, that technology changes might change that picture in the future. However, it's just as possible that technology changes might cause a situation where the demand for these metals goes even higher. More often than not, rare metal demands increase over time with advancing technology, not decrease.

Like I said, ball-point pens and relay contacts aren't quite the business they were in 1965, old man.

I'm 35, female, and industrial consumption of platinum-group metals has dramatically increased since the 1960s, almost across the board.

We don't need to deploy any of your comic-book "science"

You know, you really need to make up your mind on your insults. Am I a little kid reading comic books or am I an old geezer obsessing over obsolete resources?

Anyway, you've made your maturity level pretty clear in this thread, so it's done. Goodnight!

Re:Yeah, and?

[synaptic]

Why will living forever never be possible?

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

" Sorry, but resource recovery is not, and never will be, 100% efficient. "

Goalpost shifting detected. I wasn't aware that we're running so close to industrial collapse!

"I'm 35, female, "

Uh huh, but born with a wedding tackle, I bet?

"Am I a little kid reading comic books or am I an old geezer"

You're a sad old man who couldn't let go of the absurd comic-book scenarios vomited forth by the NASA PR department of the 1960s, and now you're fantasizing about some 35 year old woman, who's interested in space! Bahahahahhaaaa!!!!

"Anyway, you've made your maturity level pretty clear in this thread, so it's done. Goodnight!"

Says the one mapping out humanity's galactic conquest of mineral resources! Don't run out of Crayolas, nutcase!

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because for all their "pro technology" rhetoric, Space Nutters are quite conservative and have severe tunnel-vision. Only the scenarios they read about as kids are valid, anything else is either Luddites or impossible. But you see, *their* scenario is not impossible and they'll come up with fallacy after fallacy defending their prognostications, but suddenly they become hard-nosed realists about any other possible future.

We'll mine asteroids because somehow the Earth is so small and we suddenly need a few thousand kilos more of platinum! We'll never extract it from sea water (that was never a Star Trek episode, you see), but we'll all be old and crooked by 45 just like our parents damn it, because playing around with aging is just not natural!!!

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that's pretty far! Compare to Luna 16 that brought back Lunar samples before Viking! If anything, your vaunted "getting batter fast" was going backwards 40 years ago already.

And keep in mind, any progress you think happens in space happens here first; the doomsday equations you live by of "running out of resources" no longer apply anymore, so why bother with space?

Gold is "absurdly valuable" these days, where are the ocean-water extracting plants?

Re:Yeah, and?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Heat death of the universe.

Re:Yeah, and?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it! Luddites actually *had* machines to rebel against! You have nothing! There isn't a single bolt "on" orbit or bill of materials for any of your proposed space fantasies.

You are at the same level as SDI fanatics in the 1980s: deluded, and you refuse to listen to reason.

Re:Yeah, and?

[aXis100]

The point of space mining not to bring materials down to earth. It's to use it in space based manufacturing plants in order to eliminate launching raw material up from earth. Once we have kickstarted the manufacturing process it should make further space missions far cheaper.

Re:Yeah, and?

[nickersonm]

Moreover, my cocktail napkin says that the ore value of a 1000kg chunk of typical nickel-iron meteorite is probably around USD $2000-$3000 at current prices.

So that's worth around $8,002,000 delivered to orbit, based on Falcon 9 launch prices. The point of asteroid mining isn't to deliver to Earth, but to deliver to orbit. Planetary Resources in particular is targeting selling water to NASA at less than launch cost.

Re:Yeah, and?

[stoatwblr]

"Gold, platinum, iridium, rhodium, osmium, indium and palladium hover in the rough ballpark of $10000-60000 USD per kilogram; gem-quality peridot about the same"

You face a double-barrelled problem.

1: Space is currently expensive enough that recovering any of these materials is uneconomic even if there were ingots stacked on an asteroid (or the moon) awaiting collection.

2: Supply and demand. As soon as you start landing significant quantities of these materials the price will tumble.

The logical target market for space mining is space manufacturing and consumption. It's obscenely expensive to haul stuff out of a gravity well using chemical rockets. Space elevators are some time off (if ever), ditto Lofstrom loops or similar technology and Orion-class launchers contravene nuclear limitation treaties.

The two single largest resources available are iron/water and they're not something that's exactly in short supply on earth. Concentrations of other minerals may be a lot higher than on earth but the problems of zero-g extraction and smelting are hundreds of times more complicated in the short term. Even if you can match ground-based production costs, the moment you bring large quantities of supply online is the moment those precious metals/minerals are no longer precious ones unless cartel tactics are used (Like de Beers have used for over a century to hold gem diamond prices at least 10 times above what they should be)

Firstly, it is perfect for doing research

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, it is of course perfect for doing research, and for learning more about asteroids, comets, moons, etc.

This is primarily about research, and I guess that the researchers had to show to the people who give the grant how this could one day make money - hence the story about asteroid mining. Media then pick up on the mining, and run with it.

And then it comes to the grumpy old people here on this website, who will just comment negatively on anything that is not in their own direct personal interest. It's a pity to read that some here think that everything that does not advance our economy tomorrow is a waste of money.

Re:Firstly, it is perfect for doing research

[Anonymous Coward]

This site is filled with grumpy mostly young people who comment negatively on anything that is not in their own direct personal interest.

Maybe I can do it with a divining rod

[retroworks]

When do we get to see the proof of concept?

seen one of these before...

[fikx]

they are creating an ore detector ?
We've got an early version of an assembler in the works. now all we need are conveyors. Anyone working on those?

Space stuff is for space

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting bulk materials from space to Earth is absolutely not worth it. Materials placed out of deep gravity wells are suitable for factories in space, and space mining and space-based manufacturing are hopefully parts of a solution for the problem of high costs of sending construction materials and provisions from Earth up to orbit. If materials are sufficiently abundant, it should be possible to jump-start space based industry, first by seeding it from down here, then gradually replacing most of the bulk we now send up there.

Veins unlikely...

[martinfb]

Considering the presumed way that asteroids formed, it seems unlikely that veins of anything formed in them. The veins of precious and rare metals here on earth happened, primarily, as a result of our molten core. Asteroids, in general, lack such a hi-temp oven, or strong gravity, to allow metals to coagulate into veins. HOWEVER, the detector seems it'd be a great tool to have - in general. Go team go!

Re:Veins unlikely... and another thing...

[martinfb]

Oh, and something else (likely already being considered): It seems that any brute-force launch from an asteroid could change it's orbit. Let's hope we are smart enough to accurately determine when and where to hit the launch button!