OMG !!!!! You’ll use up all the resources in space !!! Can’t do that !!! Let us make some regulations before it starts LOL
We need a government that unequivocally states that our cooperation in all treaties governing commercial and private activities in space is null and void. Basically wave the green flag for private space.
ONLY if most of the profits go to third world dictators supported by Russia and China./s
Oh really!? Duh! So could mining the ocean floor at 35,000+ feet. Just some minor obstacles to overcome at a gazzillion dollars. I hope this didn’t come from a leading US scientific magazine.
I don’t think this is reasonably attainable!
The environmentalists and the EPA will put an end to that nonsense.
The only profitable exports to space are people and money.
The only profitable exports to Earth are finished goods and money.
Rockets can carry the people and goods.
The money can travel electronically.
One day people will realize this and make fortunes.
It’s all a pipe dream. We managed to send men to the moon but each stay was very brief and extremely dangerous. Not to mention profitable. We are a LONG way from mining the moon much less asteroids.
It’s a very interesting concept, but with two notable exceptions, I don’t see how deep space mining becomes even remotely economically feasible in the foreseeable future. The fixed costs of a lunar mining operation would be staggering. As for asteroid mining...even the closest of the “Near Earth” asteroids are 100 million+ kilometers out.
That said, there *are* two cases where I can see a workable scenario coming to pass:
First, the discovery of plentiful amounts of extremely rare earths (yttrium, etc.) or other very expensive, useful metals (platinum, as another poster mentioned). Even if the method of obtaining them wasn’t ultimately cost-effective, just having access to those materials would have significant security and technological benefits. Kind of a stretch, but maybe.
The other scenario I can foresee working out would be the development of concurrent market demand by research interests. Say NASA wants to build that moon base after all. A mining interest could conceivably produce metals and other materials locally for less than the cost of shipping them up from Earth - certainly in less time, as the rocket power needed to carry a base worth of materials to the moon is itself a staggering number.
Got me the t-shirt. All I need now is the space freighter.
Since the surface of the moon has not changed for billions of years, if a shower of heavy metal meteorites hit a particular area, they would be easy to recover billions of years later.
Nasa's photos clearly show manipulation as if they are trying to hide something in this area. The Japanese orbited the moon several times and took massive amounts of pictures. Strangely enough, in these pictures, 'holding tank' like structures and even tire tracks can be seen.
Since the site is now down, I'm not sure where you can find the pics, but the YouTube video is still up it seems.