talkpolitics | Anyone want to mine an asteroid?

Deep Space Industries unveiled its plans to launch a series of spacecrafts in 2015 to mine valuable minerals from asteroids. "Announcing the proposals, chairman Rick Tumlinson said that resources locked-up in nearby asteroids were sufficient to "expand the civilisation of Earth out into the cosmos ad infinitum". Some (e.g. NASA) are skeptical about how commercially viable the project will be.

Keith Cowing, editor of NasaWatch.com, said he was not yet convinced by Deep Space Industries' plans. "Is the prospect of using asteroid resources crazy? No it's not. Is if difficult? Yes it is. Can you make a business case for it? People are trying, and making progress." But he said any company must have a product, experienced people and a business case. "This is like a three-legged stool. You need all three legs, otherwise it's not a business, it's a hobby," he said.¹

This is the second business that has stated its goal for mining asteroids; Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin with film director James Cameron, Ross Perot Jr. and others started Planetary Resources.

I think this is fantastic; and shows there can be a collaborative approach between private industry and government funded space exploration. Now, this isn't manned lunar bases yet, but it a serious start. And oddly enough, this does make me appreciate Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's proposals for Moon bases. And the punditry reaction that his ideas were slightly eccentric or even nuts, disappointed me. Gingrich defended his proposal, recalling with great pride he grew up in the 1960s seeing American missions landing men on the Moon.

The Near Earth Asteroids are thought to be recent arrivals from the Kuiper Belt or the Main Asteroid Belt sent our way by Neptune and Jupiter. Coming from colder places they are more likely to have water and other volatiles. Metallic asteroids are thought to come from the cores of bodies large enough to have differentiated layers. These asteroids have nickel, iron, and platinum group metals in much richer concentrations than are typically found on planet surfaces.²

[1.] Asteroid mining: US company looks to space for precious metal by
Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian, Tuesday 22 January 2013.

[2.] The Case For Asteroids.

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I'd be even more in favor of it if they found enough gold out there to crash Glenn Beck's portfolio.

Yeah, I wondered what happens say if these mining companies find an asteroid that is essentially a huge gold nugget. What then? Flooding the market with a lot of gold will dilute their own investment. I think that such a find isn't likely but, you wonder how they will manage the flow of goods to protect their bottom line.

I'm actually hoping they find an asteroid made entirely of adamantium, ensuring a large enough supply for everyone on the planet to have it fused to our skeletons like Wolverine. Ultimate Fighting League would be worth watching then.

More seriously: In "Lucifer's Hammer" Larry Niven wrote a character who opined that "In space it's raining soup and we haven't invented can openers". That was in the 1970s.

See: Diamonds.

In the asteroid belt, water and it's components will be several orders of magnitude more valuable than gold.

I just hope I finish my grad degrees in time to get in on the ground floor of this stuff. They're gonna need physicists and astronomers and such.

Don't know if you saw it today on the news, but NASA / Huntsville Alabama fired some Saturn V rocket components today, so engineers could get some design ideas for new classes of rockets. The rockets are older than some of engineers at the test today. They fired up and purred like they just came off the assembly line. And the tests were very loud ;)

Edited 2013-01-25 02:36 (UTC)

The Saturn V is the most awesome rocket when ignited. Compared to the shuttle, it's like a steam vs a diesel locomotive. I built an Estes model of it when I was a kid.

We should be able to land, steer, mine, and destroy asteroids and comets. Saving Earth's civilization is a good aim and being able to manipulate comets and asteroids is fundamental to saving Earth's civilization in the long term.

Then again, isn't the cost of getting ourselves to the asteroid (and back) far beyond any profit to be had mining ANYTHING we could conceivably mine?

I have to expect that, before we can hope to save civilization, we need to figure out how to get ourselves thinking on that kind of scale. I mean, you and I can sit here and chat about it a bit, but tomorrow, what am I doing? Going back to the office, working on contracts for my clients, reviewing deals, etc. I'll bet you'll do something comparable.

Aggregate that experience on a worldwide scale and we have a planet of people who eat and smoke themselves to death, given the opportunity. We'll drown half the world's coastal communities because (1) we couldn't stop ourselves from pushing the climate and (2) we couldn't convince ourselves that our climate-pushing required coordinate action to protect or move those coastal communities. In the aggregate, we seem to be very good at ensuring our own destruction. The asteroid that kills us will be the one we could have prevented.

Touche. I try to inform myself and support efforts to increase funding for nasa. But other than that, yeah, I'm just working on digital toys and lifting a spoon to my face basically. I wouldn't mind getting closer to aerospace again, however the defense side? It is not so much fun seeing your work blowing up kids in other countries.

http://www.longnow.org/ is dedicated to promoting long term thinking. On the kind of scale where impact of decisions are examined for greater and greater lengths of time. Generational logic. Asteroids come into that scale.

Working with law is very important work, by the way, imo.

Do ability comes to mind. It would be amazing if we could do it. NASA may have to do it first (http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/stp/niac/2012_phase_I_fellows_cohen.html), and then commercial.

Edited 2013-01-25 03:26 (UTC)

Working with law is very important work, by the way, imo.

Without getting too specific, I have to dispel the notion that what I do could possibly be characterized as "very important." It has consequences, I suppose, but it's likely that none of my clients will even exist in another decade or two, most of the deals I work on will be ancient history in five years, etc., etc. The most "important" thing I think I'm working on right now is helping a couple adopt their shared children (pro bono) - that's something that will outlive my career in the law - and me, really.

Sounds like something worth getting out of bed for to me!

The companies are targeting "fly by" asteroids, because they apparently have heavy metals in them. Asteroids are easier to get to as well, because you don't need as much fuel, etc. according to this link, (http://clowder.net/hop/railroad/asteroids.html) that gets into the physics of it all.

Very cool site. http://clowder.net/hop/railroad/railroad.html
Crazy as hell, but amazing thinking.

NASA has a study, but I cannot find more data on it:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/stp/niac/2012_phase_I_fellows_cohen.html

Edited 2013-01-25 03:25 (UTC)

Not inconcievably so. We are already at the point where mining cadmium thorium, and other such element could turn a profit. The issues are mostly in the start up cost (establishment of infrastructure) and legallity. There are several treaties thar bar the utilization of off planet resources and private ownership of WMDs.

I actually posted on this a while back, if i werent on my phone right now id dig up the link.

We are dreamers, we build unicycles on asteroids! (sorry I had to)

Judging by the photo, dreamers aren't particularly good at engineering.

Anyone want to mine an asteroid?

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