Billionaires and Polymaths Expected To Unveil a Plan To Mine Asteroids 531
dumuzi writes "A team including Larry Page, Ram Shriram and Eric Schmidt of Google, director James Cameron, Charles Simonyi (Microsoft executive and astronaut), Ross Perot Jr. (son of Ross Perot), Chris Lewicki (NASA Mars mission manager), and Peter Diamandis (X-Prize) have formed a new company called Planetary Resources, and are expected to announce plans on April 24th to mine asteroids. A study by NASA released April 2nd claims a robotic mission could capture a 500 ton asteroid and bring it to orbit the moon for $2.6 billion. The additional cost to mine the asteroid and return the ores to Earth would make profit unlikely even if the asteriod was 20% gold."
A bad idea that "sounds good". (Score:4, Insightful)
A study by NASA released April 2nd claims a robotic mission could capture a 500 ton asteroid and bring it to orbit the moon for $2.6 billion. The additional cost to mine the asteroid and return the ores to Earth would make profit unlikely even if the asteriod was 20% gold."
And when the mission makes a mistake and an asteroid goes plummiting into a major city it will cause trillions of dollars in damage and massive loss of life and potentially create a cloud of dust that will cause an ice age.
I'm sorry, but no, this isn't a good idea. If you don't even have the technology to completely destroy an asteroid yet, then you can't fully control it and shouldn't be trying to "bring it to orbit". Maybe the first team will succeed because they have the smarts, but then when its shown to be profitable, the morons will get involved with fresh VC, etc.
It's even dumber than that. (Score:2, Insightful)
What are they going to find on a rock in space that is not already available on THIS rock in space?
And a shorter distance.
And with an atmosphere.
And so on and so forth.
"Even if the Asteroid was 20% gold." (Score:5, Insightful)
Asteroid Defense? Orbital Construction? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:2, Insightful)
And a humungous gravity well.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
the point of the plan is that it is possible.
not that it is profitable right now, but that it is a possible backup plan to get resources(ore) should we need them in the future.
why does that matter? to shut the fuck up people complaining that we will run out of mineral X in 20 years and all civilization will be doomed because of that.
overly right wing? I think my opinion on this is left wing, actually.
another thing is that we wouldn't necessarily want the resources to be dumped back to earth just to shoot them up to space again, but use them in space.
Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
Actual distance between earth and moon is huge (Score:2, Insightful)
The diameter of earth is less than 13'000 km. The distance between earth and moon varies (elliptical path) but even when the moon is at its closest, the distance is more than 363'000 km. That's nearly 30 times the diameter of earth. This picture [trickofmind.com] illustrates it pretty well. I think that a lot of people fail to grasp that scale due to having seen very deceiving images of the solar system (all planets and the sun presented relatively close to each other) at the classroom walls when they were young.
Even factoring in the earths gravity, you need to miss by quite a lot before you accidentally hurl something at earth.
Scientists are naive (Score:5, Insightful)
You only make a small part of the money involved in capturing an asteroid on commercially-viable minerals/metals like gold.
What people will pay for a space rock is way more important than what people will pay for gold. A 500 ton asteroid could be 500 tons of rock. But that would make millions of lumps of Space Rock that could be sold by The Franklin Mint in a special collectors set.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
What are they going to find on a rock in space that is not already available on THIS rock in space?
I dunno, maybe........resources that are not on this rock? i.e. in its gravity well?
Why does the bulk of humanity always have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future?
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm thinking they don't want to bring 'Mineral X' down to Earth unless it's in ton lots. What they want is, the materials right where they are, in space, where they will provide materials to work with in space. Yes, it could take $2.6 billion to bring a random 500 ton asteroid to lunar orbit. It would cost over 10 billion to launch that 500 tons into orbit at the current guestimated going rate of $10,000 per pound. What can you do with 500 tons of materials in orbit? Lots of things. 500 tons of very high grade iron ore, the purity of which we haven't seen on Earth in almost a millenium, would make the basis for the frame of a decent sized space station. For comparison, the ISS at full buildout is about 37 billion plus overruns and weighs in approximately 450 tons plus about 13 billion so far in supplies etc to date. Grabbing a carbonaceous asteroid could offset some of that 13 billion on the 'next-gen' space stations, when we learn to 'convert' that carbon into foodstuffs in space.
Sure, we'd need to put a smelter assembly in orbit to refine the metals & scavange the carbon/etc from any asteroid, but add a machine shop as well, adn we can duplicate the factory complex and build out from there, at ZERO boost from Earth costs. Again, why would we want to send asteroidal material to Earth when we need it so badly in space?
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Raw materials that aren't at the bottom of a gravity well.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, most the metal in this planet is below the crust. The metals we do have in the crust is from the lower levels of the earth squirting little bits out every now and then. An asteroid does not have that problem.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly.
First, on the marketing side... let's say that gold from an asteroid has a slightly different chemical composition than gold from planet Earth. IANA geologist, but you can tell (chemically) where a diamond came from, so wouldn't you be able to tell whether gold came from an Asteroid or from Terra Firma? Either way (chemical signature or not), they can bring down a few hundred tons of "Space Gold" and Debeers can tell husbands that only the men who really love their women will buy space gold at a 500% markup.
Secondly, what if they can pull in materials that are a bitch to find here? It is possible that it might be easier to dump something from orbit rather than try to hunt it down and dig it up on Earth.
Lastly, this is necessary prep for the future. As the parent post said, it's kind of necessary for eventually working in space. It'd be way easier to mine and refine metals out in space for a moon base or space station than it would to bring everything up from Earth.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'We Only Need Earth' religion DEMANDS we do everything from Earth, that there are no exploitable resources offworld. They would have had each and every settler from Europe to San Francisco to pack every single gram they needed in supplies and tools plus the entire vehicle used to get across the ocean, all the way from Europe to San Francisco. At those kind of costs, nobody would have ever left, which suits the 'We Only Need Earth' crowd just fine, thank you.
I've been told a famous man once said 'The meek shall inherit the Earth'. That man was spot on. The rest of us are going to figure out a way to go to space and make it pay.
Re:Compared to the moon (Score:3, Insightful)
Why wouldn't there be a vein of iron ore on the Moon? There are veins of it on the Earth.
You have to find them first. If you're sitting on a giant nickel iron rock then no hunting is necessary.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
We fear change. It's a survival characteristic.
It's also a survival instinct to move on to new territory when your tribe has grown too large and you cannot distinguish yourself from the other males as a suitable mating partner.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Compared to the moon (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Large, impractical, grandiose, ridiculously expensive symbolic gestures?
It's a better idea than invading other countries for resources. Probably less expensive too.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your "future" seems to be somewhere around 1970. Today's challenge is not how to find and use ever more resources, it is how to use and re-use the existing ones without making the planet unliveable. Given the current context of impending climatic and ecosystem breakdown, mining asteroids is nothing but an outrageous red herring.
I continue to be astounded by the number of "technologists" in this forum who appear stuck in an almost Soviet mindset of science, where the future is all mining and flying cars and space exploration. It's as if you haven't noticed the last 30 years of scientific advance and all the new constraints that humanity must now work within.
Re:It's even dumber than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an impoverished view which will lead to nothing but stagnation, decline, and ultimately extinction.
it's the constraints of the world (Score:5, Insightful)
that lead to stagnation, decline and extinction if humans don't get sufficiently wise and active about mitigating them.
_Wish upon A Star_ works in Disney movies. Mother Nature is unimpressed.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Cart before the horse (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I see that I'm outvoted by incurable, irrational techno-utopians.
I too am optimistic, as it happens. But only cautiously so – not recklessly, like you people are. Given humanity's past, there is no reason to believe that we can't rise to the current environmental challenge. But we're taking our time seeing the problem, as evidenced by this frivolous chat about mining asteroids. Right now the world a half-century hence is looking a scary place, and even in the best-case scenario a lot of permanent damage is going to be done to the biosphere. If and when we solve this problem – mitigating the effects of consumption rather than finding resources for more of it – then we can perhaps start thinking about mining asteroids. Until that point, you are putting the cart before the horse.
I have a strange feeling you don't even know what I'm talking about, that we're not even on the same page here. That's sad, because I'm talking hard science, and the solutions will come largely from hard science too. They include energy tech, biotech and all kinds of innovation in farming, town-planning and architecture. They don't include mining asteroids.
Re:Compared to the moon (Score:5, Insightful)
Why wouldn't there be a vein of iron ore on the Moon? There are veins of it on the Earth.
The moon doesn't have veins of iron ore because it doesn't have an atmosphere that contains oxygen and never experienced the Great Oxygen Catastrophe [wikipedia.org], and thus does not have the banded iron formations [wikipedia.org] which is the source of almost all the minable iron on the earth's surface.
Re:Typical 1% Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid.
Ask the 1% what they would do with $2.6 billion and they'd say "invest in some hedge funds, HFT companies, etc." These guys want to do something that a) generates more actual wealth and b) advances our capabilities as a species.
Re:it's the constraints of the world (Score:4, Insightful)
If we don't get off this rock, we will follow the path of the dinosaurs or even worse. Whether by interplanetary impact or a hugely destructive solar storm or a disastrous disease mutation etc.
On this world we live in borrowed time and probability will catch up to use sooner or later, suck it up, extinction is inevitable when you are bound to a planet, it is just the way of things.
So reality, why worry about the abstract notion of an asteroid they capture crashing into the planet. They have got so much else to do before they even get there, leaving basically decades to discuss the issues. Getting into orbit cheaply being the first issue. Low cost space stations next (obviously capable of far more than just asteroid mining). Accurately mapping and scanning surrounding asteroids, your doing far more than scanning suitable for mining ones, that level of scanning could map every single high risk of impact asteroid. Then there is the non-nuclear shifting of the orbit of the asteroid, that some propulsion method would get as cheaply around the solar system.
You know what really pisses me off, narcissistic fuckwits wasting the planets resources on supercars, mansions, mega yachts, jewellry etc. etc. etc. all those wasted resources, all that pollution for what. Seriously what the fuck are those morons proving, how big a pollution pushog they can be or being the winner in the race to be the most wastefully useless arsehole on the planet.
Those resources being spent on expanding the future of humanity seems a whole lot wiser than using to try to feed the insatiable ego of psychopathic arse holes.
Re:Compared to the moon (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a lot of people are used to space being a government endeavour. When it's NASA/ESA/JAXA/etc it's perfectly natural for the public to have an opinion, since it's their money being spent. It'll be interesting to see what happens as more private ventures move into space, and don't have to answer to a majority.
Not that it will stop the comments, of course. We certainly hear enough opinions about what Apple and Google should do.
SpaceX's costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, here we are.
Re:Hardcore math time. (Score:4, Insightful)
then you do not have a grasp of how far away the asteroids are.
If you: a) Think that all asteroids are in the belt between Mars & Jupiter. And b) think of space in terms of distance, not fuel/velocity/energy. Then you don't understand enough to comment.