Everything you need to know about James Cameron's asteroid mining

Blastr.com ^ | 04/24/12 | DVICE Staff

[KevinDavis]

Planetary Resources just wrapped up a press conference in Seattle, officially announcing both its existence and its ambitious plan to mine near-Earth asteroids. We were listening in live, and here's everything you need to know about how this asteroid mining plan is going to work and when it's going to happen.

Essentially, Planetary Resources is looking to send spacecraft to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources ranging from precious metals (like platinum) to water. The company has assembled a team of engineers and visionaries with a large helping of financial support from the likes of Larry Page and James Cameron, and today they went public with their vision for the future of harvesting resources from space.

[KevinDavis]

[cripplecreek]

Lots of increasingly rare earths are found in space.

[KevinDavis]

Imagine this, finding materials in asteroids that can be used on Earth or in Space..

[Da Coyote]

I wish them the best of luck, but Cameron is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Hollywood.

Hello!

[doc1019]

Have been following the idea of mining asteroids for many years (not a new concept). Have yet to see any figures that would indicate a significant return on investment dollar. In my opinion, the staggering cost of the whole project could never be recouped and thus would make it a money pit.

[expat2]

I haven’t done any calculations, but I’m pretty sure you are correct. The costs involved are enormous. Sounds like a scam to me.

[Thorliveshere]

Mr. Cameron! Mr. Cameron! I have a question! Wouldn’t blasting all of that equipment into space and bringing back the minerals/water create more of the pollution you’re advocating against? Wouldn’t that make you a hypocrite, Mr. Cameron?

[cripplecreek]

Sounds like a scam to me.

That's up to the investors to decide.

[JRandomFreeper]

"Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public ... has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company ..."

-- U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer, for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company, 1913

Some people just never learn. But fuddy-duddy nay-sayers are important comic relief.

/johnny

[JRandomFreeper]

"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."

-- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926

I seem to have heard this melody before.

/johnny

[Ditto]

I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see any of this stuff happen (where do you get the energy for a ‘robot’ refractory in space?) ... but I also don’t doubt that a team of K-Street lobbyists are pushing NASA into funding this pie in the sky to the tune if billions of dollars right now.

[doc1019]

I didn’t say the concept wasn’t feasible (or even profitable), just that I had not seen any numbers that indicated that the whole idea would be worth the dollars required. The numbers might be there, just not something I have seen.

[expat2]

Of course it is. Just gave my own opinion as a potential (but declining) investor.

[expat2]

Almost everybody who invested in DeForest’s company lost all their investment, so you have (involuntarily) supported my point. Thanks.

[JRandomFreeper]

Yep. It's difficult to make money when you are fighting the government and public opinion that later turn out to be wrong.

But it's much easier to talk smack about people that are actually accomplishing something than to do something yourself.

/johnny

[cripplecreek]

Few endeavors are money makers in the beginning. Just sending settlers to the new world financially destroyed lots of investors as well as the settlers themselves.

If there is value there, others will follow and costs will begin to fall.

Hell, I’d give them 50 bucks for a share or two. To me just seeing them try would be worth the $50.

[expat2]

The problem is one of timing. Some visions come true eventually, but much too late for the poor early investors.
Perhaps asteroidal mining will one day pay off, but not in my lifetime, I suspect.

[Leo Carpathian]

Why not attach roket to ass-teroid, land it in White Hut front lawn and mine the stuff here, huh?
Corzswine-Maddoff Co selling shares already.
Copyleft by telldaprompter.

[rottndog]

Video at the link

A couple of thoughts....wouldn't it be easier to steer an asteroid into the moon and then mine the impact site?

What are the chances that by altering the mass of one of these asteroids by removing water and minerals that it's orbit could be altered enough to eventually put it on a collision course with Earth?