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Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

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Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#81

Post by Devilboy »

guynamedloren wrote: post #40

Cannot explain how much this excites me... but can somebody familiar with the matter please elaborate on the economics of this? How, exactly, do they intend to make money? I was under the impression (from previous articles) that the raw minerals from the asteroids were worth tens or hundreds of thousands $$, while the process of bringing them to Earth would be orders of magnitude higher (millions or billions). Wouldn…

The intent is to use the material in orbit. It costs loads of money to send stuff to orbit (e.g. for the ISS) and this could be cheaper, especially for bulky stuff.

Bringing it all the way back to the surface is not worth the energy required.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#82

Post by kamaal »

evoxed wrote: post #73
nlh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA: "A single platinum-rich space rock 1,650 feet (500 meters) wide contains the equivalent of all the platinum-group metals ever mined throughout human history, company officials said." Quick Wikipedia/Google math: 1 cubic foot of Platinum = 1330 pounds [1] Total platinum mined ever = ~25 cubic feet [1] * 1330 lbs = 33250 lbs = 532,000 oz Current price of platinum = $1,560/oz [2] Total value of platinum in an aster…

I'm not saying I don't believe any of this (I certainly do), but this whole business has HUGE bubble or even scam potential. Think those damn "moon-plots" but on a larger, perhaps government scale. Imagine some of the poor smaller governments trying to invest in the future only to find out that whoops, our data was wrong and you can only make $500k on that giant rock...

Its more than that. Merely the technologies that will get developed to build such a venture can patented and billions can be made out of them.

Also they are talking of water, that means resources for the next permanent space stations. Building oxygen gardens in space and space colonies. Stuff and resources that require maintaining large space colonies.

Considering projects of such big ambitions, the investments and associated risks we are taking is chicken feed.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#83

Post by waterlesscloud »

ericd wrote: post #14

I'm surprised at how invigorated this news is making me feel, like a weight has been lifted. SpaceX is great, but until now they've mostly been talking about missions that would have to be paid for by the government and subject to the agonizing budget-cutting that seems to happen every time an exciting mission is planned. If these guys succeed, it will emancipate the future of space exploration from congressional bud…

I'd come to a point where I honestly thought I'd be dead before this kind of thing happened.

It really is a powerful feeling to know the push to space is back on.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#84

Post by loceng »

kamaal wrote: post #76

I think this sort of stuff is natural progression in the time scale of evolution of a species. Its called exploration. People in the middle ages got equally excited when somebody invented a ship that could sail the seas and a compass that could point where they wanted to go. And then when they actually went there, they found some surprises. They figured that they are not the only ones to exist. Space exploration will…

I agree, I just hope we don't let quality of life and health here on Earth diminish more and more. Imagine if everyone was healthy, happy, and being as productive as they can be, doing what they enjoy most - imagine how much more energy could go into projects like these from productivity that won't be lost due to crime, too much turmoil from transition periods, etc.. Everyone would be able to on a daily basis have as much excitement as OP has. Exciting.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#86

Post by InclinedPlane »

WalterBright wrote: post #79
InclinedPlane wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually not so easy to operate a space telescope, let alone build one. More so, billionaires that would look to astronomical investments would usually be better served by merely investing in ground based instruments, which they do. The Keck telescopes are named after the W.M. Keck foundation, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is named after the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, for example. Space based observatories a…

I suspect that the cost could be cut quite a bit, especially since the design is already done. Also, the Mars landers cost $250M, well within the budget of a billionare investor.

Even if you had blueprints that said "here's exactly how to build a space telescope" just building it and going through all the proper testing would be quite expensive. Certainly you could just privately fund, say, Johns Hopkins University's APL to build a spacecraft for you, but it would still cost hundreds of millions of dollars and still be a comparatively risky endeavor. More so when you consider that the operations side would run to the millions of dollars a month level, and require a substantial build out of infrastructure.

That sort of thing will happen, but it'll probably take until after launch costs have dropped a fair bit.

I'm not sure which Mars landers you're referring to, I'm not aware of any that were so cheap. The Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity rover) cost $2.5 billion. The total cost of the MER rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) was $820 million. The Mars Phoenix mission cost $420 million. The Mars Pathfinder mission cost $280 million in 1996 dollars, or $380 million adjusted for inflation. There have been no other successful Mars landers within the last 2 decades.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#87

Post by kamaal »

Eliezer wrote: post #85

The next space race will be between Google and Paypal.

Hardly surprising.

The seas and oceans were explored by merchants. Entities like British East India trading company.

The space might be explored by business men too!

Ironic, but true.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#88

Post by kamaal »

redthrowaway wrote: post #65
ericd wrote: post #14

I'm surprised at how invigorated this news is making me feel, like a weight has been lifted. SpaceX is great, but until now they've mostly been talking about missions that would have to be paid for by the government and subject to the agonizing budget-cutting that seems to happen every time an exciting mission is planned. If these guys succeed, it will emancipate the future of space exploration from congressional bud…

The interesting thing is, we have those budget cuts to thank for this. In the 50 years since we landed on the moon, we've put a massively expensive and questionably valuable series of tubes a few hundred kilometres from the Earth's surface, and sent a couple robots to Mars. These are both notable accomplishments, but they're hardly enough to give humanity any permanent presence in space. Space exploration has languis…

All it would take to get governments back into the game is some private firm proving the value of resources that can be mined there.

If governments get a clue of how valuable space real estate, energy and resources can be. Expect a space race, like weapons race.

In fact you can expect wars on the basis of who controls which asteroids and who gets to stay where on mars.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#89

Post by Keyframe »

peteforde wrote: post #47
Keyframe wrote: post #41

Probability of PR stunt rather than truth - 99%, but if it is true we can definitely say we are in a new era.

Larry Page doesn't really strike me as someone that needs to do a lot of PR stunts.

Time will tell, my money is on PR stunt.

Re: Asteroid Mining Venture Backed by Google Execs, James Cameron Unveiled

#90

Post by redthrowaway »

kamaal wrote: post #88
redthrowaway wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing is, we have those budget cuts to thank for this. In the 50 years since we landed on the moon, we've put a massively expensive and questionably valuable series of tubes a few hundred kilometres from the Earth's surface, and sent a couple robots to Mars. These are both notable accomplishments, but they're hardly enough to give humanity any permanent presence in space. Space exploration has languis…

All it would take to get governments back into the game is some private firm proving the value of resources that can be mined there. If governments get a clue of how valuable space real estate, energy and resources can be. Expect a space race, like weapons race. In fact you can expect wars on the basis of who controls which asteroids and who gets to stay where on mars.

I can see perhaps the Chinese and maybe the Russians looking to own asteroids, but that would require they pull out of several international treaties (not that big of a deal). For the West, their model has always been government-backed private monopolies (Hudson's Bay Company, East India Company, United Fruit, modern oil companies, etc). The American government would be more than happy to let Planetary resources do their own exploitation, while throwing its military weight behind them "to protect American interests". I'd be surprised if Europe makes much of an effort.
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