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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

#171

Post by samstave »

What is the math behind mining resources on asteroids?

Assume it takes 50 billion to get to the point where you can mine your first asteroid, how much of what resource is in that asteroid that they can resell to terrestrial earth dwellers who need it for profit?

Or does this not matter at this point?

Further, what will the harvested resources be used to build? Military hardware? If so then I am very unimpressed with what this would mean to our civilization.

While I think it is "cool" - there are so freaking many problems with humans on earth that I feel we largely ignore our core issues and focus on shiny objects.

Every government on the planet is broken, we a a slave species to debt and we kill, exploit and oppress ourselves.

Now, what would be interesting if the took these resources to build a huge floating city-state in the middle of the ocean (or orbit) however, this would just be future-feudalism as it would be living in the corporation.

EDIT: I love how people on HN downvote without any comment. My point is completely valid, it is also my opinion - you don't need to agree, but it would be nice if you attempted to address my question regarding the economics of this effort.

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

#172

Post by vibrunazo »

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…

But it's hard for governments to have its sight range longer than the election cycle. Private companies can aim for longer than 4 years without worrying about not being reelected when it's time to collect the spoils of their hard work.

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

#173

Post by guscost »

cloudwalking wrote: post #51
necubi wrote: post #4

This NY Times article has a lot more information: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/science/space/in-pursuit-o... . It's wonderful to see people spending huge amounts of money to expand the reach of humanity instead of our capacity for narcissism. Startups like these give me hope for the future.

"'The company is cash flow positive, already,' Mr. Anderson said." How is this possible?

It sounds totally insane, but I read somewhere that the backers just bought a bunch of platinum puts and then announced their plans to mine it from space...

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

#174

Post by vibrunazo »

alinajaf wrote: post #119

Wow. Second the comments about feeling about ten years old again. I hope beyond all hope that this is actually happening in my lifetime. Questions for those in the know: 1. Is there any legal precedent on whether or not they're even allowed to mine the asteroids? From what I understand the Moon can't be exploited by any one country or corporation. Does any similar law apply to asteroids? 2. How are they going to get…

They could just throw the mined metals to the moon. Refine it, and manufacture stuff there. Where energy is cheaper. Then just ship the moonphones back to earth, with a lower cost of reentry shipment per value sent.

Now that would be cool.

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

#175

Post by joejohnson »

guscost wrote: post #173
cloudwalking wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"'The company is cash flow positive, already,' Mr. Anderson said." How is this possible?

It sounds totally insane, but I read somewhere that the backers just bought a bunch of platinum puts and then announced their plans to mine it from space...

An article that mentions the put options scheme: http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/23/planetary-resources-astero...

It says that Diamandis (the founder of Planetary Resources) may have been joking when he made these plans to buy options.

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

#176

Post by guscost »

joejohnson wrote: post #175
guscost wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds totally insane, but I read somewhere that the backers just bought a bunch of platinum puts and then announced their plans to mine it from space...

An article that mentions the put options scheme: http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/23/planetary-resources-astero... It says that Diamandis (the founder of Planetary Resources) may have been joking when he made these plans to buy options.

Yep, that's it. But why wouldn't it work? There are orders of magnitude more platinum-group resources out there than there are down here.

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

#177

Post by krschultz »

dustyreagan wrote: post #77
yohui wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - James Cameron (goog) I don't think Cameron is involved in Google, is he?

No. This is James Cameron the director. Same guy that funded Deepsea Challenger. This guy is doing some pretty cool stuff with his money.

Now I feel much better about paying $17 to see Avatar in 3D.

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

#178

Post by vibrunazo »

SudarshanP wrote: post #162
DennisP wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent is to use the water in orbit, but they're saying they'll bring the platinum down here. If you're already in earth orbit, going back to the surface doesn't take much energy.

If we want to move stuff around in space what matters is the delta v or change in velocity. Fortunately since we are de orbiting a satellite, we can use aerobraking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerobraking . So we just need to slow down the craft and a make fall with a parachute. If we had to lift the mass off the moon or mars we would have to spend a lot of money. Just getting it to the surface of the earth from orb…

But don't you need to spend a lot of money to prepare the material for reentry without losing most of it?

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

#179

Post by joejohnson »

guscost wrote: post #176
joejohnson wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An article that mentions the put options scheme: http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/23/planetary-resources-astero... It says that Diamandis (the founder of Planetary Resources) may have been joking when he made these plans to buy options.

Yep, that's it. But why wouldn't it work? There are orders of magnitude more platinum-group resources out there than there are down here.

Yeah, that's true. Maybe it will work if they keep their plans secretive until right before they are able deliver large amounts of platinum-group elements? They're only going to make a significant amount on these options if very few people buy these options, otherwise a large rush would shift the market prematurely.

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

#180

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

Symmetry wrote: post #145
swalsh wrote: post #142

Reading through this thread makes me realize there is no shortage of people who want to contribute either financially or through engineering talents. Prior to now, I didn't even realize it was conceivably feasible to do asteroid mining... but if it is, why doesn't someone start a massive open source track? A classic space race, though it would between a private company, and a non government public effort. I'll contri…

I wouldn't normally post song lyrics to HN, but this just seemed too appropriate: *And I want it so much. Close my eyes, I can taste the Mars dust in the air. In the darkness the space stations shimmer in orbits that I will not share. But I'll teach the student Who'll manage the fact'ry That tempers the steel that makes colonies strong. And I'll write the program that runs the computer That charts out the stars where…

You should probably mention that this is the song Somebody Will by Sassafrass. You can find more info and purcahse it here: http://www.sassafrassmusic.com/?page_id=15
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