Posted on 04/21/2012 5:31:08 AM PDT by KevinDavis
Earlier this year, entrepreneur and X-Prize impresario Peter Diamandis hinted he was about to unveil something amazing: a startup that will mine asteroids for precious metals.
“Since my childhood I’ve wanted to do one thing, be an asteroid miner,” Diamandis told Forbes. “So stay tuned on that one.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
NASA gets the shaft.
Peter drills a shaft.
Asteroid Justice? Today’s Global Climate Justice, is the next Galacic Harmony Offensive if we start raping asteroids, changing their mass and causing their orbits and paths to falter.
As a white European, I demand reparations for the enslavement of my peoples at the hands of the Moslem hordes!
I’d like to salvage orbital junk, but the fuel costs and logistics seem prohibitive.
Thank you!
the jupiter mining corporation?
I never read Heinlein......
A lot of terrestrial resources have political risk.
Russia, Congo, South Africa, etc.
As for “Why asteroids?” Its all about Delta Vee; that is, the change in velocity required. In order to get to the Moon’s surface from Lunar orbit you need to change velocity 2.6 Km/sec (IIRC). In order to get back to Lunar orbit you must again change by 2.6 Km/sec.
There are lots of asteroids where you can use gravity “slingshots” and flybys of Luna, Earth, Venus, et al to get Delta Vee requirements down to .5 Km/sec or less.
Remember, doubling Delta Vee takes four times as much fuel because of MV2.
Also, mining asteroids is much less controversial than claiming a piece of Luna. You perform a public service by removing a rock that could hit Earth in the future.
As for ownership, was there any question of who owned the rocks Apollo returned from Luna? If you bag it, you OWN it in space.
Add in a Space Elevator to geosynchronous orbit and beyond (now possible with carbon nanotubes 600X strength/wt of steel), and you have a real High Frontier!
Don’t know if you read what I posted before about RAH:
At the L-5 Society Convention in 1984 (I think that was the year) I was sitting there in my tuxedo waiting for the final banquet to begin. Everybody at our table buzzed with excitement. I asked why. “Don’t you know, this is Heinlein’s table!”
Soon, they seated R.A. Heinlein next to me. I finished off most of the wine on the table, and then turned to him. “Mister Heinlein, I got a bone to pick with you. I read Starship Troopers and was inspired to go to West Point. It wasn’t any fun at all.”
“Well”, he replied, “That’s where you screwed up. You should have gone to Annapolis”. And then he told me a parable.
“When Navy played Army, they took the cadets to Chicago for the game. The good people of Chicago made sure that all of the cadets had blind dates. One cadet got along so famously with his blind date that she wrote him a letter advising him that she was with child.
The cadet went to the Commandant and asked for Compassionate Leave. Then he went to Chicago. He met the girl’s parents and said, “I’m terribly sorry about what happened, but I am ready to resign from West Point and make your daughter an honest woman”.
The parents replied, “Son, that won’t be necessary. We’ve discussed it, and we’d much rather have a bastard in the family than a West Pointer”.
What an honor to be zinged by RAH!
There is a lot of potential here. Just one known asteroid, that NASA has already landed a probe on, called “433 Eros”, which is about 34.5km x 11km x 11km, is believed to have more precious metals in it, especially platinum group metals, than exist in the entire crust of the Earth.
To put that in perspective, on Earth, “platinum ore” has something between 4-6 parts per million of platinum in it. Non-platinum ore, that is, most all other rock, has maybe 1-2 parts per million. It is so rare that typically, the dust on the side of highways is reclaimed, because it has almost as many molecules of platinum group metals, from catalytic converters in cars, as does platinum ore.
At last check, platinum is selling for $1,577/troy ounce. While unusually worth less than gold right now, at $1,642/troy ounce, you can see why mining asteroids to get several tons of each every few months, is becoming far more reasonable.
You white europeans keep paying your jizya in the form of tolerating uncontrolled immigration of moslems into your countries, supporting them with lavish welfare benefits, and the relentless submission of your western cultural values to islam in the name of tolerance
Then, you get to keep your heads attached to yuor infidel necks.... allu akbar
"Get your ass to Mars.....Get your ass to Mars.....Get your ass to Mars....."
For me the real interest lies in the technological advances that would naturally grow from industrialized space.
They’re talking about mining near earth asteroids but that would inevitably lead to mining the main asteroid belt which means faster ships. That in turn will lead to looking for minerals and gasses of the Kuiper belt which will require even faster ships. Once you start looking to the Ort cloud, you can reasonably start talking about missions to Alpha Centauri and Barnard’s star.
Few of these things will happen in our lifetimes but it sure would be nice to see mankind actually striving to do something again.
The movie “Apollo 18” was a documentary.
I guess we're really pissing them aliens off right now, walking a fine line, with a total of five spacecraft orbiting the Moon at the same time.
We’ve got quite a few spacecraft running all over the place. There are several orbiting mars. Cassini is orbiting Saturn. Juno is headed for Jupiter, New Horizons is less than 10 AU from pluto. Dawn is checking out asteroids. Messenger is orbiting Mercury and there’s at least one orbiting Venus. Several are studying the sun and more are looking into deep space.
I heard the moon is made of green cheese? I think I heard it was on MSNBC.
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