Planetary Resources; grab your pickaxe and look to the sky!

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Oh man oh god oh man oh god OH MAN! It is time for some motherfuckin amazing news!

So in Seattle, Wa. This week a conference took place and a company was bankrolled by some forward thinking billionaires with the goal and dream in mind to expand our resource availability and eventual expansion into space.

Among those names being Peter H. Diamandis (X-prize foundation), David Vaskevitch (former CTO Microsoft), and then some. Even James Cameron is lending his clout to this company.

Enter Planetary Resources. (http://www.planetaryresources.com/)

and now an article on the matter:
Space exploration needs a kick in the pants, and it will get one Tuesday when a group of high-tech billionaires announces plans to mine asteroids, says a scientific adviser to the enterprise.

And there's money to be made, too, adds John S. Lewis, a retired University of Arizona professor of space science who now lives in Anacortes.

"We're talking resources with market values in the trillions," said Lewis, author of "Mining the Sky." "It's not at all surprising that it's billionaires who are steppingup to the plate. They think big and they know a big investment is required to make money."

Two of Lewis' former students are among the driving forces behind the project, and he will join them at Seattle's Museum of Flight on Tuesday for the unveiling of a new company called Planetary Resources.

Former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi, one of several investors,will also be there.

Money men who won't make an appearance include "Titanic" and "Avatar" filmmaker James Cameron, Google CEO Larry Page and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, and Ross Perot Jr., son of the former presidential candidate.

For decades, Lewis has been a self-described "voice in the wilderness," calling for anew industry to mine the abundant resources of space.

"There's alot of work that has to be done before we start cutting metal," he said. "But these are things that we've been thinking about for a long time."

Books running to a thousand pages or more have been written on processing minerals in space, he said.

Many space veterans are skeptical, and even Lewis admits to significant hurdles,such as finding customers for materials mined in space.

Asteroids are rich in nickel,platinum and other valuable minerals, but because it is so expensive to shuttle things down to the Earth's surface, it will only make economic sense if the resources can be used in space.

One possibility would be to mine materials and use them in space to build solar arrays, which could beam electricity to Earth via microwave relay.

Asteroids are also rich in water, which can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. That opens the possibility of shipping the water from the asteroid to a space station orbiting the Earth — a"downhill" trip that requires much less energy than penetrating the planet's atmosphere — where it could be processed into fuel for satellites and other space vehicles.

Seattle Times: Billionaires bankroll new space company for asteroid mining. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2018054882.html)

Not gonna deny the fact that it'll be a big expense, but where there's risk there's rewards. And fortune favors the bold. They have a clear goal in mind and intend to follow through with it and I for one want to be in the thick of it. Soon as I get my degree and certs out of the way I won't give up until I'm in league with these guys.

[Flarecobra]

It's pretty obvious what they need to name the intial spacecraft.

[Tev]

I read about this earlier today. It sounds awesome, even though the legal issues with operating in space for profit are monumental. As one reported pointed out, if they brought back an asteroid sized slab of platinum, do you have any idea what it would do to the market? There are a lot of rare metals that prop up whole economies because they are rare on Earth.

It will be interesting to see how things play out as we weigh the common good of moving humanity to the next stage of space expansion against the destabilizing forces of reducing the power of those who hold all the rare metals.

Imagine if we found an asteroid sized diamond. What would the Deberes do?

[Sifright]

Space exploration for mining reasons is mega dumb at this stage like it's so expensive right now there is no way to profit from it. The only semi intelligent thing mentioned in that news blurb is microwave energy from solar sats and thats still dumb.


Edit: that said if a bunch of rich wankers want to waste money and increase infastructure ehhh go for it. Would be better off just building infastructure on earth though for more mundane things like nuclear elec or just renewables.

[Tev]

Space exploration for mining reasons is mega dumb at this stage like it's so expensive right now there is no way to profit from it. The only semi intelligent thing mentioned in that news blurb is microwave energy from solar sats and thats still dumb.


Edit: that said if a bunch of rich wankers want to waste money and increase infastructure ehhh go for it. Would be better off just building infastructure on earth though for more mundane things like nuclear elec or just renewables.
From the article I read, they put $50 billion in seed money into developing ways for us to do things in space. NASA's annual budget is around $18.4 billion (and shrinking). They just paid for two and a half years of privatized NASA and gave them a clear goal making awesome things that would improve our space resource gathering potential. That's pretty awesome.

[tacticslion]

I'd say this is made pretty much of "win". Frankly, it makes sense: taking stuff out of our planet for the purpose of exploring other planets is a one-way guaranteed-reduction-of-resources thing, but has always been important because we need to know what's out there. If we could create and stable, consistent refining system in space that could (via water, rocket fuel, and the like) be more-or-less self-sustainable, then we'd have the basics of what we need for true interplanetary exploration.

Are we there yet? No. Not in the slightest. But the United States of America exists because a few "forward thinking" (and, in fact, incorrect individuals) saw the value in doing something: sailing around the world. Because of that we've now got: cars, cell phones, computers, internet. Those things may well have existed without the U.S., but they were definitely pushed forward because of it. It took a few hundred years, but it was over-all worth it. It just needed some crazy people to push that boundary and look at the possibilities rather than the drawbacks.

(And hopefully we've learned some things since then.)

[shiney]

Space exploration for mining reasons is mega dumb at this stage like it's so expensive right now there is no way to profit from it. The only semi intelligent thing mentioned in that news blurb is microwave energy from solar sats and thats still dumb.


Edit: that said if a bunch of rich wankers want to waste money and increase infastructure ehhh go for it. Would be better off just building infastructure on earth though for more mundane things like nuclear elec or just renewables.

It wouldn't work anyways so let's not even bother! We don't have the technology to make it viable but refuse to fund the research, so let's pretend that everything is just fine!

[stefan]

The most effective use of space resources would be mining the moon and using it to build orbital colonies. If you do it right, you can build a self-supporting culture in an O'neill cylinder.

[tacticslion]

The most effective use of space resources would be mining the moon and using it to build orbital colonies. If you do it right, you can build a self-supporting culture in an O'neill cylinder.

Pretty much this kind of stuff. And you could make deeper-space O'Neill Cylinder-style colonies (if I recall correctly, anyway - it's been quite a while since I looked at this stuff). These kinds of things would be great stepping-stones to eventual deep-space exploration and eventually colonization. (By "deep", of course, I mean "our solar-system". We ain't-a gettin' outta here for quite some time.)

And why, you ask, would any of this be important? 'Cause we'd be LIVING IN DAGGUM SPACE! We have literally no idea what the limits of possibilities of that is*. None. What can we do there long-term? Who knows? Deep-space satellites not contaminated by our lousy noise? Possible. Space-stops for deep space exploration? Maybe. Permanent satellite structures orbiting other planets so we can map it as thoroughly as our own? Suddenly much cheaper to build and launch (with the proper facilities). It's expensive, dangerous, time-consuming, and slightly crazy, but most things humanity has done that have "revolutionized everything" have been.

* This is, of course, completely different from knowing of many possibilities. We do know of many possibilities. Just not their limits.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Well it's about damn time. Really, I don't even care if there's no profit in it or or costs them all an absolute bomb, if it gets us viable space travel it's worth any cost. If these guys can help get our asses to Mars then I applaud.

[Sifright]

or this huge load of money could stop us killing our selves due to climate change i unno.

[Tev]

or this huge load of money could stop us killing our selves due to climate change i unno.That ship has sailed. I'm in the market for a new planet for my great great grandchildren at this point.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Yeah I hear Titans nice this time of year. Some nice real estate over there.

[Flarecobra]

They're starting to find Venus-sized planets out there too.

[Gregness]

Sif obviously missed the point of the Neil DeGrasse Tyson thread.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Was it lets all be fuckers?

[Aldurin]

I'm all for space, and while it is a huge money dump at this stage, it is this kind of investment that allows expenses to cheapen in the future.

We wouldn't have commercial air flight or tiny portable computers if the original idea was crushed due to not being the best potential investment at the time.

[shiney]

Exactly. Everything is prohibitively expensive, forever, until they undertake it and find ways to minimize cost and maximize potential. Nothing would get done if we sat on our hands and found excuses why not to do it.

Sifright I like your thoughts, but here's the problem; these rich guys could spend their 50 billion to try and fight climate change, which is commendable, but they wouldn't accomplish that goal. They would have to get politicians on board, politicians which gain a significant amount of campaign contributions from organizations that actively oppose climate change research because the reality is not profitable. THEN they would have to get legislation passed, get it enforced and regulated, convince the companiesd to go along instead of filing endless lawsuits challenging the legislation, and have all of this done by every country in the world voluntarily and have it enacted before social change brings in a new wave of politicians that are totally against it.

I think at least this is a good expense of these funds, and looking in the right direction; toward the future.

[Sithdarth]

They should just look into getting He3 back from the Moon as cheaply as possible. It advances space exploration and solves the clean energy problem at the same time.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Isn't the moon concentration of He3 like ppb or something equally ridiculous. Like it has heaps of it but its all so dilute it'd be a pretty mega operation to get it back.
Surely the cheapest shit would be to give all the stupid space money to people making renewables on earth to make that better and to make lots of them.

[Sithdarth]

Isn't the moon concentration of He3 like ppb or something equally ridiculous. Like it has heaps of it but its all so dilute it'd be a pretty mega operation to get it back.
Surely the cheapest shit would be to give all the stupid space money to people making renewables on earth to make that better and to make lots of them.

shiney already pointed out the inherent problems there. Basically it comes down to the moneyed special interests groups have to much of a strangle hold on American politics for any real change to ever happen. There are currently fully functional wind farms sitting idle because they are not allowed to sell their electricity. Its much easier to side step all that bull and sneak in the back door with something that at first glance looks like it has nothing to do with energy.

Also, He3 would be great for base load power and we get space travel and kickass lunar bases out of the deal. Not to mention space flight has been one of the greatest impetuses for invention known to man. Solving the technical problems of space flight is almost as good at advancing technology and helping the economy as fighting a world war.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

But I mean clearly the solution isn't to do whatever the monied interests want.

[Sithdarth]

Since is when is sneaking around behind the backs of someone doing what they want? I mean if it is then like my parents owe me an apology and maybe some money.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

But space investment helps them out. It's like sneaking around your mom's back to put money in their wallet.

[Sithdarth]

How does space exploration in anyway help big oil and coal (the specific monied interest with an interest in stopping alternative energy)? Well in anyway more than it helps the economy and people in a very general sense?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

It helps them continue to exploit us because a fuctioning space fuel economy is a long way off.

[Sithdarth]

It helps them continue to exploit us because a fuctioning space fuel economy is a long way off.

But how do you know it'll take a shorter amount of time to enact the required change in the way you purpose? In fact how do you know it is even possible to enact the required change in the way you purpose? It could in fact be an even bigger waste of money trying to work within the system when it isn't even possible.

[Bells]

Sif obviously missed the point of the Neil DeGrasse Tyson thread.

which begs the question... why isn't he in on this one?

He focus so much of his energy on trying to encourage the government to do this stuff, and then a bunch of ultra-rich guys go on and say they wanna do it TWICE as much... seems like Dr Tyson would be the perfect fit for such a project, SPECIALLY in the "This is where the funding needs to go first" department.

EDIT: Oh, never mind. Here is his take on this

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0425/How-asteroid-mining-could-turn-billionaires-into-trillionaires-video

[tacticslion]

Two links because they're vaguely related in a long-term sense (as in "the economics of space travel and trade").

Slightly relevant (http://www.costik.com/inttrade.html) for the future. (Mostly game-theory, if I recall.)

More relevant (http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf) for the future. (More real-world economics applied to space travel, if I recall.)

Both a long way off from being terribly relevant, but they both are related to the ultimate (very-long-term) goal of this!

[Azisien]

Billionaires are gonna spend billions to go into space and catch rocks. Who the fuck are you to say otherwise? Huh?

Huh?

[Ecks]

This sounds cool why isn't it a thing yet. I'd rather they be spending this $50 billion on space shit than on what other rich people do (i.e. expensive toys and bribing the government to pander to their specific wants at the expense of the not-so-wealthy).

[Amake]

I'd rather they be spending this fifty billion on like getting drinking water to everyone, but what are we going to do. At least this shows a little forward-thinking and I guess we shouldn't mock that.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

That will be one of the side-benefits of this venture. Water is/will be available in large quantities as the chief resource sought after first for a few reasons as laid out in their 'road map' of goals.

Water for drinking, water for fuel, water for radiation shielding, water for X reason. Metals and other materials come after extraction of water is successful and a standardized. Up front the cost efficiency may be daunting to get it down here, but when one lands on a 500 meter chunk of mostly water worth, roughly $50 billion in water alone, the returns more than pay off the cost. There'd be further incentive to increase earthbound cargo transport efficiency to reduce the overhead.

Not saying its an easy task, but not impossible and the payoffs for the effort are very high. The money is just sitting up there waiting to be plucked. And yes, I'm being very optimistic bout it. Have no doubts in my mind there'd be setbacks and problems. But setbacks, failures, and problems are only learning moments. Only a damn fool expects perfection on the first try and a damn idiot gives up at the first fail.

[Sifright]

That will be one of the side-benefits of this venture. Water is/will be available in large quantities as the chief resource sought after first for a few reasons as laid out in their 'road map' of goals.

Water for drinking, water for fuel, water for radiation shielding, water for X reason. Metals and other materials come after extraction of water is successful and a standardized. Up front the cost efficiency may be daunting to get it down here, but when one lands on a 500 meter chunk of mostly water worth, roughly $50 billion in water alone, the returns more than pay off the cost. There'd be further incentive to increase earthbound cargo transport efficiency to reduce the overhead.

Not saying its an easy task, but not impossible and the payoffs for the effort are very high. The money is just sitting up there waiting to be plucked. And yes, I'm being very optimistic bout it. Have no doubts in my mind there'd be setbacks and problems. But setbacks, failures, and problems are only learning moments. Only a damn fool expects perfection on the first try and a damn idiot gives up at the first fail.

Pretty sure bringing that water to earth would be a huge huge waste of time. Like no one who wants to mine space wants to mine it for water. That water schtick would be a side thing to actually make space useable.

[shiney]

Apparently the better use of the water would be to break it down to create even more rocket fuel? But it could be very, very, VERY useful toward establishing long-term presences on the moon and Mars etc etc. And would save a shitton of money for humans to not have to transport water FROM Earth?

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Pretty sure bringing that water to earth would be a huge huge waste of time. Like no one who wants to mine space wants to mine it for water. That water schtick would be a side thing to actually make space useable.

If you ask me the worth of the water is that it's already up there. Like Shiney and others have said, getting up there is the hard part in all instances. If you can gain and maintain a steady supply of the materials you need to produce while already in space you've skipped the hard part of the battle.

[Sifright]

If you ask me the worth of the water is that it's already up there. Like Shiney and others have said, getting up there is the hard part in all instances. If you can gain and maintain a steady supply of the materials you need to produce while already in space you've skipped the hard part of the battle.

Yea thats what i meant by side schtick to make space usable, but skweeb was saying we would try and bring down a 500 cubic metre water roid to earth which one would be impossible and two wouldn't ever be worth the attempt because we have shitloads of water on earth

[Bells]

Searching for water is just a clear goal that we can build towards. that's all.

We know what water is, we know how to transport it, we know how to get it, we know where it can exist in space. So we can build equipement, train and prepare for THAT.

Once we get up there and go "Hey! There is a chunk of Platinum up here!"

Then we can start working on that. It's a solid hook to get a first step through the door, nothing else.

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Like no one who wants to mine space wants to mine it for water. That water schtick would be a side thing to actually make space useable.

I get the feeling you didn't read much into any of this. Water is the goal. Everything else comes after water.

I touched on it with my initial post and Shiney brought it up again. Again, the whole venture lies upon one resource first and foremost: Water. You drink it, it is an effective radiation shield (not advocating using it for that purpose, merely a side benefit by virtue of its very nature), split it and you get rocket fuel, what you don't need when split can be recombined back into water, various other uses for off planet sustainability.

To expound on the fuel portion some more. Lift off Earth. Swing by water fuel supply stationed between Earth and moon. Move beyond moon and stop at another resupply station before Mars. So on and so forth.

If you read my post instead of skimming I never said bring down the entire 500 meter chunk of rock and ice. That's a ludicrous notion not even worth entertaining. Break off smaller manageable pieces, cut off the waste material, sell bits to X bidder when it becomes efficiently cost effective to bring stuff back to earth. There's plenty of water down here, yes. Where there's man, there's need of clean drinkable water. I'm sure agricultural areas stricken by large periods of drought would love extra water regardless of if it came from earth or space. But again, another topic for another day for people with more knowhow on sustainability than I.

Bells is right in that water is the hook, even if underplayed. It is the hook.

In short:
No water-> no mining -> no metals/other goodies -> no water = no point.

[tacticslion]

I think Sifright's main problem is that - to him - it seems like a waste, compared to say, Clean Water (http://thewaterproject.org/?gclid=CMbu8aX91K8CFQfonAodaijIew) for the world. In which case he kind of has a point. He wants to make the world itself a better place, and there's nothing wrong with that.

And yet, just because someone could theoretically do something "better" (now) with the finances they have, doesn't actually negate any particular use of their own finances, so long as it isn't blatantly immoral (as in knowingly harming others). And this is doing more or less the opposite: this is finding out how we, as a species, can expand beyond the limits we currently have. This is literally our first step toward long-term, consistent space travel.

A reason this is so exciting by way of analogy? The space program before now is basically that of a new born learning how to get up on hands and knees and rock back an forth. We've built muscle, proved that we can do it, and actually shown that there is a reliable theory of space travel that can happen. Nothing's actually occurred out there (although many, many important things have been built down here), but we've now just shown the viability of actually crawling. And once we get things up there, we can begin crawling. And then one day we'll take our first step. That first step will be clumsy, and we'll need a lot of safety nets, but it'll be there. And then one day we'll walk on our own. (And so on.)

Despite the massively amazing things we've done, the space program is still basically in its infancy. But this is the proof that we're finally starting to grow up!

(Yes, I know. I'm a father! What?)

[Kim]

I don't understand why we're wasting all this money on rockets when we should be building space trains.

[Bells]

...maybe because space trains are Space rockets on rails? So it's like... actually one step more complex to make?

[Kim]

...maybe because space trains are Space rockets on rails? So it's like... actually one step more complex to make?

One step more awesome, you mean.