51–60 of 221 posts
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.
How is this possible?
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…
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…
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?
I'm a little surprised that billionaires haven't already done things like launched a couple more Hubble telescopes. The design is already done and debugged, just clone it, and launch it. The same for several other successful interplanetary probes - build a (relatively) cheap fleet of clones of successful designs, and send them out to explore the solar system fully. Heck, you don't even have to come up with all the mo…
Finally, extraordinary concentration of capital has an upside.
There is an underlying theme here, that tech/valley-generated wealth is causing a level of change we are only barely beginning to comprehend as the $ are pooled and focused. Now that is exciting. And that will create a brave new world.
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.
What makes you think this isn't about narcissism?
I hate to admit it, but my brain initially processed the headline as: "Google execs have backed an asteroid mining venture. In other news, James Cameron has been unveiled." Then, after that horrendous attempt at comprehension, it came up with this, which was only slightly better: "James Cameron has unveiled an asteroid mining venture that is backed by Google execs."
Replace "," with "and".
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…
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…
23*1330lb = 13,875kg ever
130tons = 117,934kg per year
"basement of less than 25 cubic feet" Maybe them meant basement of 25 square feet or 250cuft which is still tiny basement.