Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

http://www.space.com/15395-asteroid-mining-planetary-resources.html

by peteforde • 14 years ago

341 211 14 years ago

bane• 14 years ago

This has so much potential. Could this be the proper bootstrapping of us up there? (Thanks NASA for all the early scouting!)

joshontheweb• 14 years ago

How do I get a job as a space miner?

eco• 14 years ago

Step 1: Become a robot.

sammyo• 14 years ago

Not an uncommon Science Fiction theme. And at the moment seems much more likely than a FTL drive.

ChuckMcM3• 14 years ago

I think the comment about becoming a robot is accurate in its way, the 'pick' of a space miner is likely a semi-autonomous front loader equivalent which can process for a particular mineral/substance.

However, if you read the article (either the parent or the NYTimes one) you will see that there is some thought about bringing an asteroid to one of the Lagrange points or into a Lunar orbit (something that would make the chance of it getting away and hitting Earth unlikely). In that scenario one could imagine living in one of those inflatable habitats where you worked while you operated your remote mining pick.

Getting to and from that point would probably involve a 'loan' from the mining company, which you could pay off by mining the asteroid. Of course while you lived up there you would need things like food and stuff but you could get that at the company store. And rather than actually charge you for it they will just put it on your tab. You know, you load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. :-)

As part of one of the lunar exploration projects I was looking at various ideas for processing lunar regolith into something more useful than just dirt. Water is pretty straight forward, basically it sublimates off stuff in a vacuum and you collect it and store it. Platinum is a different story, some sort of chemical/catalyzing process is required that does not require re-charging the chemical packs either at all or very often.

sown2• 14 years ago

> You know, you load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. :-)

It's hard to be satirical about the future when all this stuff keeps coming true. ;)

wtracy• 14 years ago

If you're bringing an object that close to home, I don't know why you'd need someone up there just to teleoperate the equipment. At that distance, the lightspeed delay gets low enough that the person with the joystick could work from earth.

necubi• 14 years ago

This NY Times article has a lot more information: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/science/space/in-pursuit-o....

It's wonderful to see people spending huge amounts of money to expand the reach of humanity instead of our capacity for narcissism. Startups like these give me hope for the future.

richcollins2• 14 years ago

What makes you think this isn't about narcissism?

njharman3• 14 years ago

By most definitions narcissism is self-love, inwards pointing. Going to space for the betterment of humankind's future doesn't seem to fit.

mryan3• 14 years ago

What if it is? (I don't think it is, but let's assume for a moment). Does it matter? We will still advance as a species, regardless of the motivation of the original backers.

One of my favourite aspects of capitalism is that it can provide individuals with an incentive to achieve goals that benefit the species as a whole. Sure, the backers will get richer, and they will get loads of personal press out of it. But we will finally be expanding our resource gathering to the near solar system. That is worth feeding someone's ego IMO!

sage_joch• 14 years ago

"One possibility the company is considering is to nudge a small asteroid, perhaps one as long as a football field, into an orbit around Earth closer than the moon."

I hope they're careful. :-)

tomerico• 14 years ago

This leads to scary thoughts on using this for military purposes

cloudwalking• 14 years ago

"'The company is cash flow positive, already,' Mr. Anderson said."

How is this possible?

redthrowaway3• 14 years ago

Advance orders, I'm guessing. Lots of people would be more than happy to get their hands on a few tons of platinum, even if it takes 15 years.

maaku• 14 years ago

Technology development contracts.

krschultz2• 14 years ago

Because they haven't hired the engineers yet.

A couple founders raising money and taking pre-orders can be cash flow positive. Then they will build out the team, it likely will be cashflow negative for a while (or else they wouldn't have raised money), and then hopefully it will be cashflow positive again.

molsongolden• 14 years ago

It's a slightly deceiving statement. A company can be "cash flow positive" as long as they are bringing in more cash (by any means) than they are paying out (for any reason).

A company that gets a $1m loan then spends $100k would be "cash flow positive".

guscost2• 14 years ago

It sounds totally insane, but I read somewhere that the backers just bought a bunch of platinum puts and then announced their plans to mine it from space...

padobson• 14 years ago

From the Times article: this one has the distinct advantage in that it has technical savvy and adequate capitalization to get started.

Gotta feel bad for the guys who provided the "inadequate capital" to the earlier companies that never had the "technical savvy" to make it happen.

I see the imaginations of the hackers here burning, and it excites me. I only wonder if the human species as a whole isn't too cynical to try risky space ventures again.

estel• 14 years ago

The public might not endorse risk that's Government sponsored, but I doubt we'll ever have a shortage of people willing to take extreme risks in the name of exploration.

peteforde3• 14 years ago

I can't help but feel that Asimov would be proud.

jholman2• 14 years ago

Asimov would probably start kvetching about how long it took, but otherwise, probably.

The one who'd really be chortling, though, would be Heinlein, who was (almost) always a terrific proponent of privatized (almost) everything, especially space exploration.

geetee• 14 years ago

Get Bruce Willis involved and put up the Kickstarter page. Take my money.

ericd3• 14 years ago

I wouldn't say that there's much of a funding barrier in this, many of the people involved have more money than has been transmitted over kickstarter in its entire history :-). I think if you want to really help with this, you should offer to work on the project with them. I'm sure they're going to need a large amount of code written, research done, mechanical widgets made, and so on, depending on your specialty.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

This is so unreal my brain has trouble deciding it's not a prank.

chubot• 14 years ago

How much is the Unobtainium gonna go for?

jaysonelliot• 14 years ago

My inner ten-year old is leaping up and down with excitement right now. I've got visions of OMNI magazine illustrations from the 1980s in my head, with watercolors of mining ships and stylish orange-suited astronauts.

It's been so long since the future felt like it would match up to the optimistic sci-fi of a few decades ago, that I'd nearly forgotten. I know this is just one announcement of an intention, but I don't care, I'm going to go ahead and start dreaming again about seeing space elevators and terraformed moons and planets in my lifetime.

Great story to read before bed.

infectoid• 14 years ago

Totally with you man. Let the nay sayers nay.

It's activities like these that inspire the Human race as a whole. I don't even care if it's successful. Just to attempt such a grand idea is a great achievement.

pjscott4• 14 years ago

I definitely care if it succeeds. If they're successful, then not only will they make a lot of money and make some materials much cheaper, but it will be the thing that funds the commercial space industry and makes large-scale investment in space economically viable. That's huge.

ericd3• 14 years ago

I'm surprised at how invigorated this news is making me feel, like a weight has been lifted. SpaceX is great, but until now they've mostly been talking about missions that would have to be paid for by the government and subject to the agonizing budget-cutting that seems to happen every time an exciting mission is planned. If these guys succeed, it will emancipate the future of space exploration from congressional budget meetings forever. I don't think I realized how depressed I was about that whole situation until now. This is almost absurdly audacious and I love them for it.

redthrowaway3• 14 years ago

The interesting thing is, we have those budget cuts to thank for this. In the 50 years since we landed on the moon, we've put a massively expensive and questionably valuable series of tubes a few hundred kilometres from the Earth's surface, and sent a couple robots to Mars. These are both notable accomplishments, but they're hardly enough to give humanity any permanent presence in space. Space exploration has languished under the management of the federal government, and it has only been since the cancellation of the Shuttle that we've seen private enterprise truly step in with any sort of sustainable mission.

I have long argued that the cuts to NASA are short-sighted and a net loss for humanity; perhaps it's time to re-evaluate that notion. They may well have been short-sighted, but the hole left by the fading government monopoly is opening up some incredibly interesting opportunities.

kamaal4• 14 years ago

All it would take to get governments back into the game is some private firm proving the value of resources that can be mined there.

If governments get a clue of how valuable space real estate, energy and resources can be. Expect a space race, like weapons race.

In fact you can expect wars on the basis of who controls which asteroids and who gets to stay where on mars.

vibrunazo5• 14 years ago

But it's hard for governments to have its sight range longer than the election cycle. Private companies can aim for longer than 4 years without worrying about not being reelected when it's time to collect the spoils of their hard work.

waterlesscloud2• 14 years ago

I'd come to a point where I honestly thought I'd be dead before this kind of thing happened.

It really is a powerful feeling to know the push to space is back on.

ericd3• 14 years ago

Yeah, that might be it - the thought that I could live another 80 years and we'd still be doing the same old shit with different paint (now with more VR!) on Earth has been somewhat banished. It might be that I'm just too used to the results of the internet and telecom revolution to make it seem futuristic since I grew up with it, and that I haven't seen the big thing that completely separates the world of my adolescence and the world of my adulthood. This seems like it could be that big thing.

waiwai933• 14 years ago

I hate to admit it, but my brain initially processed the headline as:

"Google execs have backed an asteroid mining venture. In other news, James Cameron has been unveiled."

Then, after that horrendous attempt at comprehension, it came up with this, which was only slightly better:

"James Cameron has unveiled an asteroid mining venture that is backed by Google execs."

hdevalence2• 14 years ago

Replace "," with "and".

lucianof• 14 years ago

This is actually one thing I've always been wondering about as a non-native speaker when reading English headlines. Is there any reason newspapers prefer this style? It sounds weird to me.

freeman478• 14 years ago

There was this nice piece by the NYT about the history and traditions of comma placement recently. Interesting read.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/09/fanfare-for-...

prawn3• 14 years ago

If mines are such ugly, destructive things, why is it that I find this development so beautiful?

SamReidHughes• 14 years ago

Is it because asteroids are already ugly?

prawn3• 14 years ago

I'm not sure that's it. I don't hear of wrecking crews smashing up a derelict corporate wasteland (arguably far uglier than any natural shape) and feel some peaceful, "all is right" sensation.

Maybe something to do with the serenity of the void.

But probably more related to this being a step forward? A sense of progression? Could come from growing up reading and imagining anything to do with space exploration.

How many people on HN want to grab their colleagues right now, shake them, and yell "Why aren't you currently amazed? We're going to be mining IN FRICKIN' SPACE within our lifetimes?"

SkyMarshal• 14 years ago

Because, real wealth creation (not fake skimming or wealth transfer) =

1. extract raw materials

2. apply labor + capital + innovation + time

3. sell final product for more than cost of inputs

4. Profit!!!

This announcement takes #1 literally out of this world. Still dirty perhaps, but beautiful.

philwelch4• 14 years ago

Mines are ugly and destructive because they fuck up habitable crust and life. There's none of that on an asteroid.

bdunbar• 14 years ago

Because if it's cheaper to get iron from an asteroid than Minnesota, we can stop tearing up Minnesota for iron.

jacques_chester• 14 years ago

It really bugs me when billionaires do the same thing I would do with billions of dollars before I have billions of dollars to do them with.

Seriously. Space mining and pressure from environmentalism is going to turn this whole field into rivers of gold ... in the sky.

xlevus• 14 years ago

I know right.

If I had a few billion dollars I'd (like to think I'd) happily plonk my cash into space mining. Even if I was unlikely to see a return before I died.

daeken2• 14 years ago

Agreed. I've been pondering ways to bootstrap space-based mining and manufacturing for a long, long time and while I believe that I have some solid ideas, I just don't have the capital to do anything about it in the least.

vibrunazo5• 14 years ago

They'll probably be looking to hire engineers in the next few years tho. If you've got some skills and knowledge that could be helpful. Then there's still time. :-)

pjscott4• 14 years ago

If you get billions of dollars, you'll be happy that the asteroid mining guys put the space infrastructure in place to allow you to do really cool things.

lmarinho• 14 years ago

I'm curious about how they plan to bring these materials here. I assume changing the trajectory of the asteroid towards Earth wouldn't be a very good idea, considering the potential risk of impact. Maybe small chunks of material brought by numerous cheap reentry capsules are the way to go.

raldi• 14 years ago

I'd crash them into the moon (no atmosphere, so they wouldn't burn up on entry) for about a decade, then send ore-processing robots to smelt them down, then figure out later how to bring the results back.

Nick_C3• 14 years ago

Good idea at first look, but it would be tricky to get the trajectory right, though. The Moon's sphere of influence is tiny compared to the Earth's. You would need a guidance package and, perhaps more importantly in terms of cost, onboard rockets to change delta-v (and only one-use because they would be destroyed on impact).

mukaiji• 14 years ago

Here's to the crazy ones.

As a scientist, I am so thrilled about this idea.

Roboprog• 14 years ago

I love the first picture of the drum about to "eat" the rock. Reminds me of the furnaces in the book "Higher Education"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_(novel)

njharman3• 14 years ago

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Planet_killer,_remaster...

tylee782• 14 years ago

I almost upvoted all of your comments - its incredible - as if someone was reading our mind and finally said, let's just do what all of us ever wanted to do!

htf• 14 years ago

> Planetary Resources wants to identify and characterize these top targets before it does anything else. To that end, it has designed a high-performance, low-cost space telescope that Anderson said should launch to low-Earth orbit within the next 18 to 24 months.

Wow, they are not wasting time. Last week, the idea of an asteroid mining company was still in the realm of science fiction. Today, an asteroid mining company announces that they are launching a survey telescope within two years. It feels like we are entering a new era of technological progress. It makes me wonder what other surprising announcements are coming over the next few years in other fields.

sown2• 14 years ago

Neat.

So I wonder where this puts us on the hockey stick curve of space exploration? Are we at the point of the spinning jenny or more towards the cotton gin in humanity's space timeline? Probably doesn't matter if you are sufficiently far enough into the future and have to squint backwards.

InclinedPlane5• 14 years ago

Still way, way over on the left side. We don't even have off-Earth colonies yet. We're on the cusp of being able to support cities in orbit, colonies on Mars, the Moon, and asteroids, etc. It'll be a fun ride.

tylee782• 14 years ago

Now seriously, as a software developer, what would be the best skill set to help these guys... As soon as I can afford it I would knock at their door and work for them for free. What would be most usefull for them (or spaceX)... A lot of C, C++, knowing NASA's open source repos in and out, doing MIT online courses on robotics and astrophysics... ?

wtn2• 14 years ago

Read up on Armadillo Aerospace…

jholman2• 14 years ago

Hear hear. I think the same thing every time I read about SpaceX, and yes, now this.

eru5• 14 years ago

Why don't you write to SpaceX and ask them what skills they are looking for? Once you work for one kind of space company, you can probably get into another one quite easily.

WalterBright4• 14 years ago

I'm a little surprised that billionaires haven't already done things like launched a couple more Hubble telescopes. The design is already done and debugged, just clone it, and launch it.

The same for several other successful interplanetary probes - build a (relatively) cheap fleet of clones of successful designs, and send them out to explore the solar system fully.

Heck, you don't even have to come up with all the money yourself. Sell advertising on the mission. Having a logo on the rocket, and logos on the returned pix, etc., are all fantastic opportunities for advertising.

WalterBright4• 14 years ago

In fact, a lot of the exploration journeys of the 1800s were financed by advertisers and newspapers looking to sell newspapers.

philwelch4• 14 years ago

It's hard to imagine that newspapers were once that rich.

brc2• 14 years ago

So was the Tour de France, for that matter.

paulsutter3• 14 years ago

SpaceX has dramatically reduced the cost of launching payloads into space, and that will make this and many other ventures possible.

mburns• 14 years ago

More hubble telescopes have a limited use. We can learn mysteries of the universe, sure, but they aren't great for finding readily-mineable asteroids.

Even with the James Webb telescope discovering habitable planets, we're centuries away from doing anything particularly useful at scale.

We need to focus on the the inner-solar system, the asteroid belt and a few outer moons. There are trillions of dollars in immediately-useful research to be done locally. None of which needs a deep space telescope to succeed.

reneherse• 14 years ago

No doubt with SpaceX leading the way to lower launch costs we'll see more private ventures and public/private partnerships.

However, more than likely there will need to be new designs purpose built: The manufacture of new telescopes and probes from old designs is not really practical. These craft were mostly "one offs"; their supply chains, tooling, and work groups are not waiting and ready to go. Their optical, structural, guidance, and computational technology is no longer state of the art, so you'd have to kludge together new systems based on old design docs and specifications. Not the kind of efficiency a privately funded venture would aspire to.

Far better to start anew, using the cumulative data of previous missions as a stepping stone, and employing lean design-build techniques such as SpaceX, Scaled Composites, and others have done.

I'm aware of one new generation of lean-manufactured, government-contracted observational satellites that are designed to be cheaper and replicable, but they're tactical in mission: they point towards targets on earth.

InclinedPlane5• 14 years ago

It's actually not so easy to operate a space telescope, let alone build one. More so, billionaires that would look to astronomical investments would usually be better served by merely investing in ground based instruments, which they do.

The Keck telescopes are named after the W.M. Keck foundation, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is named after the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, for example.

Space based observatories are still an enormously expensive (billion dollar) endeavor and are generally quite risky.

WalterBright4• 14 years ago

I suspect that the cost could be cut quite a bit, especially since the design is already done.

Also, the Mars landers cost $250M, well within the budget of a billionare investor.

guynamedloren2• 14 years ago

Cannot explain how much this excites me... but can somebody familiar with the matter please elaborate on the economics of this? How, exactly, do they intend to make money?

I was under the impression (from previous articles) that the raw minerals from the asteroids were worth tens or hundreds of thousands $$, while the process of bringing them to Earth would be orders of magnitude higher (millions or billions). Wouldn't it be more economical to use the materials for space ventures/stations/etc? Or are the asteroids composed of some high value materials that can be hugely profitable?

Edit: this is not to say that the venture isn't utterly amazing - but there does seem to be quite a bit of focus on profit, and that confuses me.

nlh• 14 years ago

FTA:

"A single platinum-rich space rock 1,650 feet (500 meters) wide contains the equivalent of all the platinum-group metals ever mined throughout human history, company officials said."

Quick Wikipedia/Google math:

1 cubic foot of Platinum = 1330 pounds [1]

Total platinum mined ever = ~25 cubic feet [1] * 1330 lbs = 33250 lbs = 532,000 oz

Current price of platinum = $1,560/oz [2]

Total value of platinum in an asteroid = $829M

And that's just the one metal, which is not the only thing they're mining. Throw the water in there for the space station(s) and it's not impossible to assume that one asteroid can gross well over $1bn -- we're not talking $trillions yet, but I bet they've modeled this out to make it a profitable venture...

[1] http://www.gold-eagle.com/analysis/platinum.html [2] - http://www.kitco.com/market/

(of course this doesn't account for the fact that if you suddenly double the worldwide supply of platinum overnight, the price likely won't stay at $1560/oz....but still...)

paulsutter3• 14 years ago

And that's for a tiny, tiny asteroid.

njharman3• 14 years ago

Wow! I can't believe we've only ever mined 25 cubic feet of plat. Reading your source I'm not sure it's right, "The annual supply of platinum is only about 130 tons" "one cubic foot weighs a little more than 1,330 pounds"

23*1330lb = 13,875kg ever

130tons = 117,934kg per year

"basement of less than 25 cubic feet" Maybe them meant basement of 25 square feet or 250cuft which is still tiny basement.

guynamedloren2• 14 years ago

Well apparently I was very wrong! Thanks for clearing this up. Amazing.

So, for $1BN you could have: Instagram, SpaceX, or small asteroid. Ha!

Sivart13• 14 years ago

A billion -- whoa, we're talking Instagram money here.

evoxed2• 14 years ago

I'm not saying I don't believe any of this (I certainly do), but this whole business has HUGE bubble or even scam potential. Think those damn "moon-plots" but on a larger, perhaps government scale. Imagine some of the poor smaller governments trying to invest in the future only to find out that whoops, our data was wrong and you can only make $500k on that giant rock...

paulsutter3• 14 years ago

The raw materials are potentially worth trillions.

Economic growth in China and India has caused a huge increase the the price of many commodities, and economists have been projecting gloom and doom because he future looks to be resource-constrained.

But they weren't taking into account the one million asteroids in the solar system, many of which contain billions of tons of resources each.

This can really reshape fundamental assumptions about the future. Of course, it will happen slowly over the course of decades, and by the time we see results we'll all feel jaded about it.

But tonight I feel positively thrilled.

Devilboy• 14 years ago

The intent is to use the material in orbit. It costs loads of money to send stuff to orbit (e.g. for the ISS) and this could be cheaper, especially for bulky stuff.

Bringing it all the way back to the surface is not worth the energy required.

DennisP2• 14 years ago

The intent is to use the water in orbit, but they're saying they'll bring the platinum down here. If you're already in earth orbit, going back to the surface doesn't take much energy.

Keyframe2• 14 years ago

Probability of PR stunt rather than truth - 99%, but if it is true we can definitely say we are in a new era.

peteforde3• 14 years ago

Larry Page doesn't really strike me as someone that needs to do a lot of PR stunts.

Keyframe2• 14 years ago

Time will tell, my money is on PR stunt.

aresant• 14 years ago

And two credible co-founders behind the giant names:

- Peter H. Diamandis (Founder of the X PRIZE)

- Eric Anderson (Founder of Space Adventures,

Rounding out the entire list of backers:

- Larry Page (goog)

- Eric Schmidt (goog)

- James Cameron (goog)

- Charles Simonyi (Billionaire via MSFT, oversaw creation of office)

- K. Ram Shriram (Billionaire via goog)

- Ross Perot, Jr (Perot's son)

via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Resources

yohui• 14 years ago

> - James Cameron (goog)

I don't think Cameron is involved in Google, is he?

dustyreagan• 14 years ago

No. This is James Cameron the director. Same guy that funded Deepsea Challenger. This guy is doing some pretty cool stuff with his money.

wtn2• 14 years ago

I wouldn't drink water from a heavy-metal rich asteroid.

freehunter• 14 years ago

Right now, here on Earth, heavy metals are being extracted from water to make it drinkable. If you've ever drank water that wasn't straight from a well, you've had water that has had heavy metals filtered from it.

gavanwoolery• 14 years ago

ALL HAIL OUR NEW OVERLORDS.

javajosh3• 14 years ago

Finally, extraordinary concentration of capital has an upside.

phodo• 14 years ago

I thought I'd echo your comment here and note that this is the third extraordinary concentration of capital I'm familiar with... a) gates foundation b) the give-my-billions-away-pledge c) this

There is an underlying theme here, that tech/valley-generated wealth is causing a level of change we are only barely beginning to comprehend as the $ are pooled and focused. Now that is exciting. And that will create a brave new world.

CWuestefeld• 14 years ago

But if today's attitudes give us any indication of future behavior, then I think the outcome is sad.

A century from now, those who had the vision, and the willingness to risk so much for something that would benefit all of mankind so much, will be even more fabulously wealthy (if it goes as planned). Yet the masses will be shouting that it's unfair that those few should have such unimaginable wealth, just because they made a lucky bet a few years back.

I picture "Occupy Cape Canaveral" protesters pillorying those who took the risks and made the future possible -- all while those same protesters are wearing platinum jewelry and using electronics that the iridium, rubidium, etc., made possible.

DennisP2• 14 years ago

Apparently, billionaires who made their money by inventing things people want have a tendency to do other cool things that benefit people.

Billionaires who got there by, say, making giant bets with the downside backed by the public purse, tend to be absent from these sorts of ventures.

javajosh3• 14 years ago

It's too soon to tell - so far it's all pie in the sky. And a pie in the sky upside is not enough to counterbalance the quite obvious, very real downsides to enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of private individuals.

(My suspicion is that I'm happy with wealth concentrated into the hands of people who agree with me.)

whalesalad• 14 years ago

Ads like this in the center of the article really detract from the read =(

http://wsld.me/G4q5

yaix• 14 years ago

As much as I dislike Goog for it's terrible costumer service, but these kind of investments make Goog as a company -- as well as it's founders -- so different from other corporations. Autonomous cars, Google earth/sky/moon/mars, Google glass, asteroid mining. Having some crazy idea and just doing it, even though it could fail, but at least trying it.

kfk• 14 years ago

Are they considering also sources of energy (gases for example) to mine? I mean, metals are good, but we will need more energy too. Also, what metals can they mine? Can they mine lithium (maybe we can ship 'batteries' to charge on the moon or asteroids?)?

Cool stuff anyway.

dstorrs• 14 years ago

Solar is a better bet for energy in near earth space as opposed to batteries. That changes as you go out to the Belt and Mars, but even then a radio thermal generator (RTG) is probably better.

If you want to ship energy to Earth surface you want solar again. Generate electricity from panels, convert to microwave, beam to receivers on Earth, convert back to electricity, problem solved. And no, the beam density would not high enough to cook anyone.

Google "space based solar power" for more.

dkastner• 14 years ago

You're going to burn a lot more energy getting to and from the asteroid than what you'd be able to bring back.

eru5• 14 years ago

If you need energy on earth, fission thorium.

evoxed2• 14 years ago

I heard Mr. Cameron is already suiting up for the mission. I wonder where is secret door is this time...

kamaal4• 14 years ago

I think this sort of stuff is natural progression in the time scale of evolution of a species. Its called exploration.

People in the middle ages got equally excited when somebody invented a ship that could sail the seas and a compass that could point where they wanted to go. And then when they actually went there, they found some surprises. They figured that they are not the only ones to exist.

Space exploration will be similar. We have gone from a boat to sail in a small lake, to making ships that can sail and mine resources for surviving a prolonged exploration campaign.

The only thing that can throw spanner in the wheels now is this things going down and projects like these getting dropped. We are on the right track and give the direct and a little more speed. Privatization in this domain is the way forward.I think permanent space colonies very much look to be practical realities in some decades to come.

loceng• 14 years ago

I agree, I just hope we don't let quality of life and health here on Earth diminish more and more. Imagine if everyone was healthy, happy, and being as productive as they can be, doing what they enjoy most - imagine how much more energy could go into projects like these from productivity that won't be lost due to crime, too much turmoil from transition periods, etc.. Everyone would be able to on a daily basis have as much excitement as OP has. Exciting.

Eliezer• 14 years ago

The next space race will be between Google and Paypal.

kamaal4• 14 years ago

Hardly surprising.

The seas and oceans were explored by merchants. Entities like British East India trading company.

The space might be explored by business men too!

Ironic, but true.

shrikant• 14 years ago

"Larry's fighting Elon!" is the new "Morpheus is fighting Neo!".

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Perhaps we'll see "Google Moon", the first settlement requiring a Google Account to live in...

chii• 14 years ago

I would totally apply for a beta. I also expect it to be free, inline with all the other google services, in return for giving away all my data about my personal life, so they can put ads on my walls.

ajuc• 14 years ago

I don't know, companies seems to act more ratinal, than people or countries.

Isn't it more rational to collaborate, when there is almost infinite potential profit and huge risk?

eliben• 14 years ago

Incredible, and kudos to everyone involved. I wish I'll live long enough to see the fruits of such efforts harvested.

gouranga• 14 years ago

Genius idea. It'll be like playing Homeworld again :)

chj• 14 years ago

Wow, wow, wow, wow, what can I do to support this adventure? Buying more android phones?

alinajaf2• 14 years ago

Wow. Second the comments about feeling about ten years old again. I hope beyond all hope that this is actually happening in my lifetime.

Questions for those in the know:

1. Is there any legal precedent on whether or not they're even allowed to mine the asteroids? From what I understand the Moon can't be exploited by any one country or corporation. Does any similar law apply to asteroids?

2. How are they going to get the platinum back to Earth? Re-entry strikes me as needing a really effing big parachutes for the hauls they're going to be bringing back.

gaius• 14 years ago

Who's going to stop you, the Space Police?

maxerickson• 14 years ago

If you're trying to make some dollars, you sort of have to take into account the firm grip that governments have on earth-side markets.

InclinedPlane5• 14 years ago

Ultimately the goal here is to increment values in US based bank accounts. Even if "the space police" couldn't stop them the US government could deny them the fruits of their labor, unless they really wanted to go rogue, but that's unlikely.

andyjohnson04• 14 years ago

1. Law seems to be undecided. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47151745/ns/technology_and_scien.... Presumably once someone starts to do some actual mining there will be some pressure to move on this.

2. Drop it in small bundles (a few tons?) over the ocean with a flotation device and a large reusable parachute. Preferable avoiding areas with significant pirate populations.

vibrunazo5• 14 years ago

They could just throw the mined metals to the moon. Refine it, and manufacture stuff there. Where energy is cheaper. Then just ship the moonphones back to earth, with a lower cost of reentry shipment per value sent.

Now that would be cool.

kator• 14 years ago

I love the optimism I naturally want to jump on the band wagon and I doubt my comment will get a single up vote but here it goes:

What about:

1) Biological issues (space viruses etc.)

2) Accidents (opps the orbit changed it's heading for Chicago)

3) More AI for robots, Skynet finally has a good resource base

4) "Today in the news global markets failed as PRI announced capturing a 1 billion metric ton astroid with 80% gold and platinum content"

I am actually super excited just thought it was interesting to think about the counter issues.

Symmetry5• 14 years ago

  1)  Any theoretical space viruses can already get to Earth just fine.  We're pretty sure they don't exist though.
  2)  Yup, a real concern.  I'm glad they're starting with a reasonably sized asteroid.
  3)  An AI rebellion probably won't look like what Hollywood says it will.
  4) Awesome!  There are so many cool things that you can do with gold and platinum that we don't because they're so damn expensive.

johngalt• 14 years ago

#1 'Andromeda strain' I'm sure that scientists will the first to study anything returned from the first mined asteroid.

#2 The asteroid they are returning will weigh less than the ISS and be parked further away. Tackling the control/direction of asteroids is something we want to learn anyway.

#3 We are a long way from strong AI. If strong AI is created, asteroid mining would be the smallest footnote in its capabilities.

#4 There are abundant industrial uses for PGMs so there is a high floor price and continuing demand. Markets have established systems for dealing with periodic resource delivery (futures).

ajlburke• 14 years ago

This sounds awesome, but I couldn't help but think that once they've built a fleet of robots capable of moving entire asteroids around, there's another viable backup business model to which they could easily 'pivot':

1. Assemble several dozen (hundred?) of the non-platinum-bearing asteroids with your robots and aim them on a slingshot-accelerated path towards Earth.

2. Threaten the entire world (or at least rich countries) with massive kinetic orbital bombardment.

3. ... profit!

Brought to you by the guy who coined "Nuke them from orbit - it's the only way to be sure."

mrgoldenbrown3• 14 years ago

Wouldn't it be cheaper/easier to just buy/steal some nukes?

melling• 14 years ago

We've had discussions on HN before about NASA and man vs robotic space exploration. It's really hard to convince people that NASA should not be going to Mars and not be going back to the moon with people at this time. The best way for NASA to spend its money is to build LOTS of robotic explorers/surveyors and learn as much about the solar system as possible. When we find something of value then it'll be time to send humans, which should take more than 15-25 years once we survey the solar system. At that point we'll have a VC bubble with people trying to extract whatever resources we find.

GlennS• 14 years ago

If sci-fi has taught us anything, it's that this can only lead to a dystopian future where mankind is ruled by warring mega-corporations. Also, space pirates.

masenghi• 14 years ago

Who do asteroids belong to? Can they just claim them and sell the material they extract?

Don't get me wrong, I would love to have my own asteroid mining company. Just need a couple billion dollars first. But what happens once there are two or more competing corporations? Who has the power to say which part of space belongs to whom? Will there be space battles?

Symmetry5• 14 years ago

Nobody owns or can own any celestial body according to the Outer Space Treaty[1]. Basically you can do whatever peaceful activity you want but you don't get to own anything in space except what you brought there. There is some legal question as to whether you own what you bring back, but you can certainly do whatever you want with it, including selling it.

Corporations operating in space are still subject to the laws of whatever national flag they're flying under, so I presume that the court system can come to some decision if more than one company wants to grab the same hunk of rock and metal. It'll probably be based on who launches their mission first, or something like that.

Tichy3• 14 years ago

What will be the shovels of the future gold rush? Maybe it would be a good time to develop mining robots? Rockets are completely out of my reach...

allenp• 14 years ago

How about prospectors maps?

javajosh3• 14 years ago

tents...er I mean solar shielding.

swalsh• 14 years ago

Reading through this thread makes me realize there is no shortage of people who want to contribute either financially or through engineering talents.

Prior to now, I didn't even realize it was conceivably feasible to do asteroid mining... but if it is, why doesn't someone start a massive open source track? A classic space race, though it would between a private company, and a non government public effort. I'll contribute money and time :D

Symmetry5• 14 years ago

I wouldn't normally post song lyrics to HN, but this just seemed too appropriate:

  *And I want it so much.
  Close my eyes, I can taste the Mars dust in the air.
  In the darkness the space stations shimmer in orbits that I will not share.

  But I'll teach the student
  Who'll manage the fact'ry
  That tempers the steel that makes colonies strong.
  And I'll write the program that runs the computer
  That charts out the stars where our rockets belong.
  It will never get easy to wake from my dream
  When the future I dream of is so far away.
  But I am willing to sacrifice
  something I don't have For something I won't have
  but somebody will someday.*

mrgoldenbrown3• 14 years ago

You should probably mention that this is the song Somebody Will by Sassafrass. You can find more info and purcahse it here: http://www.sassafrassmusic.com/?page_id=15

sabj2• 14 years ago

I am tremendously excited to hear about this project; it's exactly what I want(ed) to do, these billionaires have just gotten the jump on me by a few (dozen) zeroes of net worth.

If any of them are reading, or anyone here knows them, I would do anything to get involved in this effort; the development and exploration of space is the most important mission in human history, and I'd love to put to work my business expertise, youthful energy, and eagerness to contribute... I'm well credentialed but more importantly extremely passionate!

eru5• 14 years ago

> [...] I would do anything to get involved in this effort; [...]

Have you applied for a job at SpaceX, yet? That's one way to get involved with modern space faring.

sabj2• 14 years ago

It's an interesting proposition, but my intention has always been to find where I can be of greatest leverage. SpaceX is at a place in time / life / hiring that I think I wouldn't really be able to contribute to its mission (and mine) as much as I might by doing something else first. That plus I doubt I'd be of terrible appeal. The following are also true:

a) SpaceX appears more specifically to be looking for rocket engineers, etc, a background I do not have. (Good business / analytics / etc, but, a rocket engineer I am not). This problem likely applies to Planetary Resources as well. However...

b) Planetary Resources is more directly aligned with the mission I find most important - SpaceX is doing great things, and Elon Musk is super cool for insisting on his goal of making humans a multi-planetary species, but that's still a ways out. I don't know that I'd have as much ability to contribute. It's for this reason I've been trying to gain skills that would be of greater value down the line (business ones, in particular) in order to do what's necessary to help run and grow a commercial space venture.

c) I actually asked Elon Musk something on the subject - 'What advice do you have for people interested in getting involved early in these kinds of capital-intensive but world-changing businesses' and his answer was that, of course, it's helpful to have a few $100MMs from something like an internet company first :)

MatthewPhillips• 14 years ago

What are the property implications? Does a company "own" an asteroid simply by being the first to land on it, or do companies need to bid on asteroids to mine from (and who is in charge of that)?

PerryCox• 14 years ago

I would assume space is just like the Wild West. Whatever you claim is yours, so long as you can defend it.

alinajaf2• 14 years ago

Has anyone considered that this may be PR for the upcoming Prometheus? They have a TED talk on youtube, so it wouldn't surprise me.

a_m_kelly• 14 years ago

This seems unlikely as Prometheus is being directly by Ridley Scott, not James Cameron.

andyjohnson04• 14 years ago

If we suddenly have large amounts of previously expensive (rare or difficult to extract) metals available, what will this do to commodity markets? Would prices be driven down?

If the price of $mineral goes down below a certain level, demand has to go up for continued asteroid mining to be viable. What future activities (apart from the obvious, like catalytic converters) might provide this demand?

JshWright• 14 years ago

I'm by no means an expert on the topic, and I don't have any specific examples to cite, but it seems like an almost weekly occurrence to read about some cool new technology that will 'never' be economically viable, due to the cost of the 'unobtanium' required to mass produce it (holy long sentence batman...).

It seems likely that the end result of a massive influx of rare materials would simply make 'never' happen a whole lot sooner. While the price would obviously fall (likely by quite a significant amount, that's kinda the point), I doubt it would fall to the point of being 'worthless.'

andyjohnson04• 14 years ago

So then this is basically a bet on being able to "make 'never' happen a whole lot sooner". Or maybe they have someone in the background saying "sure, we can build the antigravity device / FTL drive but we'll need an mega-ton of platinum to make it work". The other alternative is that they believe all the "future of mankind" stuff...

Retric2• 14 years ago

It's just a question of efficiency, if the cheapest way to get platinum is asteroid mining then once it starts it can out compete traditional platinum mining.(1) Generally speaking as the price for a commodity drops the market for that commodity increases more than the price drop. AKA, if gold costs X, and you can produce gold for 1/2 the price then expect to sell more than 2x as much gold. With Oil being a classic example, it's used to make roads because it's so cheap vs. being a better road surface.

1) Not that anyone directly mines for just platinum it tends to be a byproduct of the refining process for things like nickel, copper or gold. Even 'platinum' mines end up producing platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium rather than just platinum. Still, it significantly influence the profitability of such mining operations to the point where if the price drops many mines will slow down production.

andyjohnson04• 14 years ago

Thank you. Very interesting.

Generally speaking as the price for a commodity drops the market for that commodity increases more than the price drop.

I know almost nothing about economics. Is there a general mechanism that explains this?

godbolev• 14 years ago

> "at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) Tuesday (April 24) during a news conference at Seattle's Museum of Flight."

I'm not in America. Does anyone know where I can see this live online?

es206412• 14 years ago

http://www.spacevidcast.com/live/

10:30 AM PDT.

es206412• 14 years ago

Link to their live public announcement :: Tuesday April 24 at 10:30 AM PDT :: http://www.spacevidcast.com/live/

samstave• 14 years ago

What is the math behind mining resources on asteroids?

Assume it takes 50 billion to get to the point where you can mine your first asteroid, how much of what resource is in that asteroid that they can resell to terrestrial earth dwellers who need it for profit?

Or does this not matter at this point?

Further, what will the harvested resources be used to build? Military hardware? If so then I am very unimpressed with what this would mean to our civilization.

While I think it is "cool" - there are so freaking many problems with humans on earth that I feel we largely ignore our core issues and focus on shiny objects.

Every government on the planet is broken, we a a slave species to debt and we kill, exploit and oppress ourselves.

Now, what would be interesting if the took these resources to build a huge floating city-state in the middle of the ocean (or orbit) however, this would just be future-feudalism as it would be living in the corporation.

EDIT: I love how people on HN downvote without any comment. My point is completely valid, it is also my opinion - you don't need to agree, but it would be nice if you attempted to address my question regarding the economics of this effort.

mrgoldenbrown3• 14 years ago

OK I'll feed the troll. You got downvoted because your comment makes it seem like you didn't read the article, or any of the supplemental articles linked to in this thread. A few quick examples of why I think this - Why did you assume 50 billion - that is not supported at all by the article. Why are you asking what resources are in the asteroid when the article answers that? Why are you assuming they want to resell those to "earth dwellers" when the article mentions applications involving resupplying other space missions? TL;DR - if we criticized every poorly researched post in detail instead of just downvoting, we'd have no time left in our day to do anything else.

bitwize• 14 years ago

Build yourself a rocket ship,

Blast off on an ego trip.

Can this really be the end?

Back to work you go again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I

tocomment• 14 years ago

So what happened at the press conference at 1pm? Were more details released?

dhughes• 14 years ago

If this becomes commonplace in the future I wonder how much it will affect the Earth, wouldn't more mass cause changes in the Earth's rotation or orbit?

I know tonnes of crap from space falls to Earth each day or year, whatever the number is, but mining may bring more material back possibly denser metals rather than just rock dust and in a shorter period of time.

Interesting to ponder.

Nick_C3• 14 years ago

The mass of the entire asteroid belt is only about 0.05% of the Earth's, and the metallic (M-type) ones only 10% of that, so not much effect.

Interestingly, Ceres alone is 1/3 of the total mass, and the big four make up half.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt#Characteristics

Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

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