
A New Asteroid Mining Operation supported by Google Execs and James Cameron - hristov
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27776/?ref=rss
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PaulHoule
The economics of this could be better than you think.

A fair-sized chunk of an asteroid could contain a few trillion dollars worth
of platinum group metals. If money can be found for it, a sample return
mission to a near earth asteroid could probably be accomplished SpaceX-style.

A key step in all of this could be the mining of water from the asteroid
Ceres, which is a much more practical destination than mars. At that point you
could set up a solar or nuclear powered water cracking factory that would make
large amounts of fuel available. Any needs for water in space could be so
satisfied.

~~~
gliese1337
It's only worth a few trillion dollars if you don't actually sell it to
anybody. Every kilogram they actually introduce into the market reduces the
total scarcity of the resource, which means every kilogram they introduce has
a lower marginal value.

~~~
jgmmo
It is true that increased supply -- all else equal -- decreases price, but, 1)
we will find uses for the element that we don't currently use/know about and
2) we will never find infinite amounts of any resource so this means that.
Prices will decrease marginally, but theres no way to know to what extent
prices would fall.

Thought experiment: SpaceX is able to lasso up a 100% diamond asteroid and
bring it to earth. Suddenly supply of diamonds is 1000x what it was expected
to be that year. Diamonds will be worth marginally less as a result, however,
it does not mean all that diamond asteroid is worthless. I am sure diamond
mines would close for a bit as that asteroid is likely cheaper per unit than
some other methods. Suddenly because diamonds because relatively cheaper they
can begin to be used for all kinds of currently uneconomical uses. Maybe
diamond fiber becomes the next typed of networking cable, or diamond asphalt
makes our roads last forever, or diamond knives become all the rage for top
chefs -- I don't know, but we'll find a way to use cheaper diamonds, and that
asteroid is going to be worth a boatload no matter what.

Wish I had more time to think about this, but work calls.

~~~
daemin
As far as diamonds go, we already have more than enough here on Earth, and the
price is being kept artificially high by a cartel. Industrial diamonds are
only worth 1/1000th of what you pay for jewelry diamonds, so there's not much
incentive for that.

But I see your argument.

Personally though I would want to keep the minerals up in space, figure out
how to refine them there, and then use them up there. Since the cost of
getting large quantities of materials up there is still rather expensive.

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kijin
Coming soon: a James Cameron movie featuring _real_ footage from a space
mining operation interlaced with a rather stereotypical love story. Title:
_Avatanic_.

~~~
trafficlight
I'd watch it.

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Tloewald
Seems like the most valuable and obtainable natural resource in space is
energy (solar or He3). Raw materials are a distant second, especially since
almost all new technologies do more with less (how many physical gadgets does
one smart phone replace?)

~~~
comicjk
Space may not be the best place to get raw materials (being, after all, mostly
empty space) but you are mistaken about falling demand for materials.
Commodity prices alone should tell you that demand is hitting the limits of
current production. One smart phone may replace N others gadgets, but only 500
million people had the other gadgets, and _everyone_ wants a smartphone.

~~~
Tloewald
I didn't say overall demand is falling. But per capita demand is, if not
falling, decelerating -- your car is made of less metal, one gadget does what
ten heavier gadgets used to, etc. otoh almost all of us are using more power.

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sparknlaunch12
Armageddon?

Is there anywhere James Cameron doesn't want to go? He was just at the bottom
of the ocean last month. He and Richard Branson should have a race into space!

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mulytani
You are too much empiric, there is no need to build something right now:
writing some generic patents will to the job.

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duncancarroll
Prob. want to use a Hulk fitted with some T2 lasers. Scordite's trading pretty
high right now in Jita.

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lutorm
<http://spacewealth.org/>

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iRobot
No web site, nothing on google, I'd start by creating a marketing department

Seriously, I'd buy some shares even if its a very high risk venture, if I knew
how too.

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saddino
Concept video is a bit rough though <http://bit.ly/J3YOnt>

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lifeisstillgood
Oh come on! No-one stands the remotest chance of getting viable amounts of
rock down from space for another two generations. We don't have any mechanism
to get the rocks down (a space anchor - not even remotely close to necessary
material strength / weight ratio), let alone the ability to survive journeys
to closest rocks.

Give it 20 years of people living on the moon or Mars and solving the supply,
radiation and working problems, then I will believe we might risk throwing a
megatonne of iridium at Earth orbit.

But great way for rich dreamers to hob nob with other rich dreamers. Enjoy it
folks. Just don't invest.

~~~
hristov
I can see a way to get the rocks down. Cut off chunks of particular size,
cover them in nets and tie the nets to a little robotic space tugboat, that
uses rocket power to pull the rocks into earth orbit and then lands with the
rocks in a parachute. The space tug boat will be reusable of course.

Radiation is also a tough problem. Most space metals should be radioactive.
They have been swimming in space radiation for millions of years, so even
metals that are usually non-radioactive, like iron should get plenty of
opportunity to get activated. And once a metal is radioactive we have no way
to fix that. The only fix is to wait for it to deplete itself. And that is
usually a very long wait.

But now that I think of it, perhaps in an asteroid only the outside metals are
radioactive. Perhaps the inside of the asteroid gets shielded by the metals on
the outside that absorb all incoming particles. If that's the way things work,
one should be able to mine non radio-active metals on the inside.

So I see nothing impossible, but it will be difficult.

~~~
ChuckMcM
<http://www.webelements.com/iron/isotopes.html>

Radio isotopes of iron. Unlikely that you'd have to worry too much about it.
Did you have a particular nucleotide you were concerned about?

~~~
hristov
Why is that something that we should not worry about? (I am not being
sarcastic, honestly asking, nuclear physics is not my primary expertise.) Yes
many of them seem to have short half-lives but one of them has a half life of
1.5 million years.

Also I am not sure these are the only iron isotopes. This seems to be a list
of "naturally occurring" iron isotopes which usually means "naturally
occurring on Earth".

Also another thing to worry about is the isotopes of platinum and platinum
group metals that seem to be the main and most lucrative target of space
mining.

~~~
gliese1337
> Yes many of them seem to have short half-lives but one of them has a half
> life of 1.5 million years.

Which means it's completely safe. If it has a half-life that long, it won't be
releasing radiation at a very high rate. Hardly enough to register above
background. The isotopes you have to worry about are the ones with in-the-
middle half lives- long enough that they don't deplete themselves in a
conveniently short period, but short enough that they produce a dangerous
power output.

~~~
hristov
That depends on concentrations of the isotope in the metal and the amount of
metal we will be using. I have no idea what the concentrations of iron
isotopes in meteors are and which iron isotopes are there, but I do not think
it is correct to automatically say that radioactive isotopes with long half-
lives are completely safe.

