Posted on 04/23/2012 8:32:40 PM PDT by anymouse
A newly unveiled company with some high-profile backers — including filmmaker James Cameron and Google co-founder Larry Page — has announced plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources such as precious metals and water.
Planetary Resources, Inc. intends to sell these materials, generating a healthy profit for itself. But it also aims to advance humanity's exploration and exploitation of space, with resource extraction serving as an anchor industry that helps our species spread throughout the solar system.
(snip)
"We're out there right now, talking to customers," Anderson said. "We are open for discussions with companies — aerospace companies, mining companies, prospecting companies, resource companies. We're out working in that field, to really open up the solar system for business."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
And they will be sovereign on their own, if history rhymes. Colonies that are long distances away from central power tend to independence.
I expect that the UN Treaty will wind up getting ignored or paid off, or folded into pointy corners and inserted into sensitive UN orifices.
/johnny
I do. I'd be willing to grant multi-year mining concessions to qualified applicants however, for the right price and conditions.
even if they never recovered a drop of water or an ounce of valuable minerals, the lessons learned and the technology developed while undertaking such a venture could be worth a fortune, priceless possibly.
If I remember correctly someone here on FR is currently the overlord of the universe....I think he owns the asteroid.
You can watch hours of aircraft failure films. Overall, we learned something.
That's how humans learn. Try, fail, try again, smarter.
Some on FR would rather mock those that try than acknowledge that risktakers are the reason we advance.
/johnny
Laz, you got a claim?
/johnny
A lot of Hollywood types are multimillionaires, and like James Cameron, they're not really into free markets, except for their own product. They're mostly crazy libs that border on communists, and judging from Cameron's comments in the past, he's closer to that than a "free market" guy.
You can call him a good film maker if you like, but free market guy he's not.......
Rich people are not fans of free markets and competition, they want to hinder competition as much as possible.
It's a strange thing, sometimes a bit like Stockholm syndrome.
And Elon Musk at SpaceX is a free-market kind of guy.
And Peter Diamandis is pretty big on free-markets, too.
No, heavy hitter free-market types are headed into space with billions of dollars.
And they have a track record of success.
/johnny
/johnny
Sorry, Stockholm syndrome and elite university training is alive and well in our so called captains of capitalism (not all, but those guys for sure).
I don't know how much you have heard the google guys speak, but they do support free markets.
They also drink the go-along-to-get-along kool-aid, like many here on FR do.
So they ain't my kind of conservative.
But they know where their money came from, and they turn and snap at government when it messes with their nest. Like many here on FR, that are ok with government bans on whatever, but proclaim they want freedom.
/johnny
pinging the Master of the Universe....please pick up the white courtesy phone in the hotel lobby.....
Unless they have some new type of propulsion, there is no way that this could possibly be cost effective. The cost of fuel it takes to even leave Earth is ridiculous, unless they somehow manufacture their hardware in space...which I think would be more practical in the long run. Get a huge station/factory up in orbit in about 100 pieces, put it together, get staff up there, start constructing hardware.
NASA freaked, but he did manage to orbit and retrieve a capsule.
Fuel cost is small. Government cost is huge.
/johnny
Fuel is the least expensive part.
/johnny
“And Elon Musk at SpaceX is a free-market kind of guy.”
~~~Musk said that he believes the best way for society to help reduce the problems of climate change is to impose a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, the government has been using “indirect” subsidies, such as those for electric cars.
“The ideal would be to tax CO2,” said Musk.~~~
I love free markets, believe in them, think they are simply the best economic system for everyone. The Google guys only snap at gubmint when it affects them, they are not true free market guys, or they would not support the regime like they do.
There is a difference between James and Dagny Taggert in Ayn Rand's books. The Google guys are more like James, get the gubmint on your side, donate to the bad guys, and don't give a fig for what you are doing to the entire system.
Sorry, these guys are naive at best, brilliant at what they do, but ignorant of what their support is doing to the system.
How far will they have to travel to get to any asteroids, what’s the point? There are no settlements in space, establish colonies on the moon or mars before we start mining space rocks. Bringing stuff back to Earth is a waste of time IMO. Mine some space rocks for water, and bring it to Earth? WHY?
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