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ateroid mining for profit?
Quesi:
Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson will announce next week the launch of Planetary Resources, a new company they've created that aims to sell resources extracted from asteroids.
Asteroids, which contain high levels of ingredients for fuel and precious metals like platinum and iron, could provide Earth with a crucial supply of raw materials, NASA scientists say. And with private ownership rights in outer space still up in the air, private companies like Planetary Resources could cash in on the minerals.
Diamandis, a creator of the X-Prize Foundation, which organizes non-profit technology competitions, predicted in 2008 that "a group of entrepreneurs will be laying claim to asteroids, the rights to which will be sold for hundreds of billions of dollars."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/20/planetary-resources-space-startup_n_1438936.html?ref=topbar
I'm wondering what opinions people have about this. I really want to see space exploration continue. I hate the "private market" model leading the way. I kind of like these X-Prize Foundation guys.
So they are going to build space ships and bring home iron and platinum? Doesn't sound too cost effective. Certainly not for a generation or two. I imagine that scientists will be their first customers (probably sponsored by govenments) because I can't imagine that they are going to transport iron millions of miles to sell to Home Depot for building supplies.
Is there reason to be hopeful? Or is the future of space exploration doomed to a future far uglier than a Kim Stanley Robinson story?
ParkingPlaces:
If reality up to this point is any indicator, space will be as ugly as things are here on earth. For every wonderful, fascinating, incredible and touching/inspiring story we hear there are dozens of idiots suing and stealing and ripping people off.
The people doing the right thing are far outnumbered by everyone else. That will continue in space, I'm afraid. There is no reason for it not to.
I hope someone can prove me wrong.
Historicity:
You crudely refine your asteroid into a big hollow sphere of iron. Then you crash it into the Pacific and the consortium who has already bought it hauls it away.
It's not my idea. Arthur C. Clarke and others have talked about it already.
Remember that it would have small guidance rockets and enter the atmosphere at a low angle so it would have plenty of atmospheric braking. The crew would have flown away previously.
mrbiscoop:
Great fodder for people that read a lot of Sci. Fi. Otherwise a pipe dream for a very, very long time, if ever.
wright:
It's a lovely idea, even essential for the human race continuing to prosper in the very long-term. And the sooner we start the better.
But like mrbiscoop, I'm skeptical about being able to do it in the near future. It would seem to require a lot of infrastructure that we just don't have as of yet.
I mean, it's a strain just keeping the ISS supplied and habitable for the US and its partners in that project. Sending a manned mission to even a near-Earth asteroid would be a tremendous undertaking, easily comparable to the Moon landings. Selling exploitation rights is one thing, actually retrieving those resources for use on Earth quite another.
Again, I would welcome the first real steps in such a venture. But I sure hope those proposing to do so have more than just mining options on paper: real launch capacity, trained specialists ready to go to space, even more specialists ready to support them on the ground and still more prepared to maintain the equipment needed.
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