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Asteroid mining - 4/24/2012 7:20:29 PM   
TheHeretic


Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007
From: California, USA
Status: offline 		Planetary Resources set to begin hunt for asteroids to mine in 18-24 months

quote:

Some time in the next 18 to 24 months, Planetary Resources, Inc. will launch a series of mass-produced 9" space telescopes, dubbed Arkyd Series 100 spacecraft. They're specifically designed to identify which of the roughly 8,900 near-Earth asteroids are both smaller than 50 meters and suitable targets for retrieval back to Earth orbit. These small near-Earth asteroids represent a transient population, with life spans in the millions of years, typically cut short by running into a planet or being thrown out of the solar system by Jupiter.

That mission, according to Planetary Resources co-founder Eric Anderson, will be completed well enough within the ensuing year or two that the follow-up spacecraft, the Arkyd Series 200, can track some of these asteroids as they fly by in high Earth orbit. Still later, Arkyd Series 300 swarm spacecraft can begin launching to survey those asteroids from a closer perspective, gathering information on spin, shape, and composition.

In theory, several spacecraft could be launched every year for as long as necessary. At some point, the company would have enough information to launch spacecraft built to travel to an asteroid and retrieve them over several years, ultimately delivering them to a high Earth orbit. By some time in the next decade, both robotic and manned spacecraft would be waiting in orbit for the asteroids as they arrived.

The Obama Administration has set 2025 as the year NASA would be set to attempt a human-asteroid rendezvous, which coincides with the Planetary Resources schedule. Humans would harvest asteroids from that point forward.



Very cool stuff, assuming they get the math just right when it comes time to park those things in orbit.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/24/2012 7:21:57 PM   
Hillwilliam


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Status: offline 		They could 'accidently' drop one on N Korea.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/25/2012 12:26:45 PM   
Karmastic


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Status: offline 		or worse, accidentally send it back into earth somewhere

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 3:52:09 AM   
Awareness


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Status: offline 		Do you have any idea what the mathematics are like trying to SUCCESSFULLY get something to re-enter the earth's atmosphere?

You're more likely to have it skip off into outer space or burn the fuck up on re-entry.

They're going to mine these things, not move them about. At least not for a few hundred years.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 6:05:00 AM   
hardcybermaster


Posts: 904
Joined: 10/6/2008
Status: offline 		I think the timescale is bollocks, can't see it really getting anywhere for tens if not hundreds of years, but I love this sort of stuff. Dunno if CERN is going to find or create anything amazing but I really hope it does.
If it doesn't then finding new and exciting elements in asteroids would possibly lead to huge steps forward. I reckon we have found pretty much all the stuff here that we are going to, all we're doing is refining what we've got. We have obviously only scratched the surfcae of what might be on the moon or Mars etc but my guess( which is worth fuck all obviously ) would be that we are not going to find much in the solar system that is too radically different from what we have here on Earth.
So grab those asteroids and if they have loads of interesting shit in them expect fabulous new science and wars in space!

ps. this would all be moot if Kirata's and Karmastic's little green men would get off their little green butts and help us out, but there you go,

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 3:22:51 PM   
Karmastic


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness

Do you have any idea what the mathematics are like trying to SUCCESSFULLY get something to re-enter the earth's atmosphere?

You're more likely to have it skip off into outer space or burn the fuck up on re-entry.

as i understand it, an infinitesimal nudge makes an exponentially large difference when dealing with huge vast orbital trajectories. so no, i don't know how much - only that the question doesn't seem relevant.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness
They're going to mine these things, not move them about. At least not for a few hundred years.

i imagine someone said similar things (conceptually) about offshore drilling rigs and nuclear waste. just sayyin.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 3:25:21 PM   
Karmastic


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quote:

ORIGINAL: hardcybermaster
ps. this would all be moot if Kirata's and Karmastic's little green men would get off their little green butts and help us out, but there you go,

hahahahhahahahahhaha! those little fuckers probably have this posted somewhere near the cash register:


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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 4:02:29 PM   
hardcybermaster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Karmastic


quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness

Do you have any idea what the mathematics are like trying to SUCCESSFULLY get something to re-enter the earth's atmosphere?

You're more likely to have it skip off into outer space or burn the fuck up on re-entry.

as i understand it, an infinitesimal nudge makes an exponentially large difference when dealing with huge vast orbital trajectories. so no, i don't know how much - only that the question doesn't seem relevant.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness
They're going to mine these things, not move them about. At least not for a few hundred years.

i imagine someone said similar things (conceptually) about offshore drilling rigs and nuclear waste. just sayyin.

as you understand it.....
I imagine.....

top notch scientific research went into that post then

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 4:30:08 PM   
Karmastic


Posts: 1650
Joined: 4/5/2012
From: Los Angeles
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quote:

ORIGINAL: hardcybermaster


quote:

ORIGINAL: Karmastic


quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness

Do you have any idea what the mathematics are like trying to SUCCESSFULLY get something to re-enter the earth's atmosphere?

You're more likely to have it skip off into outer space or burn the fuck up on re-entry.

as i understand it, an infinitesimal nudge makes an exponentially large difference when dealing with huge vast orbital trajectories. so no, i don't know how much - only that the question doesn't seem relevant.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness
They're going to mine these things, not move them about. At least not for a few hundred years.

i imagine someone said similar things (conceptually) about offshore drilling rigs and nuclear waste. just sayyin.

as you understand it.....
I imagine.....

top notch scientific research went into that post then

ha! next time i will preface it with...

Jane, you ignorant slut...

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 6:41:01 PM   
LookieNoNookie


Posts: 12216
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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

Planetary Resources set to begin hunt for asteroids to mine in 18-24 months

quote:

Some time in the next 18 to 24 months, Planetary Resources, Inc. will launch a series of mass-produced 9" space telescopes, dubbed Arkyd Series 100 spacecraft. They're specifically designed to identify which of the roughly 8,900 near-Earth asteroids are both smaller than 50 meters and suitable targets for retrieval back to Earth orbit. These small near-Earth asteroids represent a transient population, with life spans in the millions of years, typically cut short by running into a planet or being thrown out of the solar system by Jupiter.

That mission, according to Planetary Resources co-founder Eric Anderson, will be completed well enough within the ensuing year or two that the follow-up spacecraft, the Arkyd Series 200, can track some of these asteroids as they fly by in high Earth orbit. Still later, Arkyd Series 300 swarm spacecraft can begin launching to survey those asteroids from a closer perspective, gathering information on spin, shape, and composition.

In theory, several spacecraft could be launched every year for as long as necessary. At some point, the company would have enough information to launch spacecraft built to travel to an asteroid and retrieve them over several years, ultimately delivering them to a high Earth orbit. By some time in the next decade, both robotic and manned spacecraft would be waiting in orbit for the asteroids as they arrived.

The Obama Administration has set 2025 as the year NASA would be set to attempt a human-asteroid rendezvous, which coincides with the Planetary Resources schedule. Humans would harvest asteroids from that point forward.



Very cool stuff, assuming they get the math just right when it comes time to park those things in orbit.




I don't get it.

Until oil goes to $3,000.00 a barrel or gold goes to 12 kabillion an ounce....I don't get it.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/26/2012 9:23:19 PM   
FrostedFlake


Posts: 3084
Joined: 3/4/2009
From: Centralia, Washington
Status: offline 		I think it's great that some folks are reaching for the unreachable star. But. There are more than several problems to mull over.

Among them :

1/ What are these miners going to do with their spare time?

It would seem that they will have a LOT of it. Months long journey to the site. Months long job. Months long journey back. Followed by trying HARD not to burn up on reentry because of unnoticed micro meteor damage. All in all, that better be one hell of a spaceship.

2/ No mention, so far, of a superconducting electromagnet to deflect cosmic and solar radiation.

Can't live without one of these. Can't mine ferrous metal if you do have one.

3/ Are they going to let the fragments of debris inevitably created while mining just fly about at random, imperiling the ship, or is there some containment technology in mind?

If these could be reliably sent to Mars, that might work out very well indeed. At least, until someone tries to set up shop there. Impacts gasify rock and that creates atmosphere. Doing this requires great pecision, but little energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network

Of course, the real value of this business is not profits. It is capabilities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_keyhole

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 12:08:53 AM   
FrostedFlake


Posts: 3084
Joined: 3/4/2009
From: Centralia, Washington
Status: offline 		Go to this page.

http://www.planetaryresources.com/

Find and click on this phrase.




Attachment (1)

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 1:45:15 AM   
hardcybermaster


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Joined: 10/6/2008
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quote:


1/ What are these miners going to do with their spare time?


read a book, play chess,have a wank, fly the scapecraft?
Nah, lets call the whole thing off as the miners might get a little bored, poor lads

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 2:25:27 AM   
shallowdeep


Posts: 343
Joined: 9/1/2006
From: California
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness
They're going to mine these things, not move them about.

Actually, the goal is to move them about in the near future to enable the mining… but into lunar orbit, not an atmospheric entry.

quote:

ORIGINAL: hardcybermaster
I think the timescale is bollocks..

The 18-24 months is just for launching some small telescopes merely to start the search for candidate asteroids. No asteroid recovery attempt would be made until the next decade at the earliest. It's aggressive, but not out of the realm of reasonable possibility. This announcement was preceded by a feasibility study that concluded recovery of a 500,000 kg asteroid would be possible by 2025 at a cost of under $3 billion.

quote:

Finding new and exciting elements in asteroids would possibly lead to huge steps forward.

There won't be new elements. But there might be relatively high quantities of some elements that are rare in the Earth's crust.

quote:

ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie
Until oil goes to $3,000.00 a barrel or gold goes to 12 kabillion an ounce... I don't get it.

Given the extremely high terrestrial launch costs per kilogram, a few hundred tons of even plain water starts to look pretty valuable for future deep-space missions when it's already in lunar orbit. An asteroid with platinum-group metals in significant quantities would also be incredibly valuable. It's obviously a pretty high risk investment, though.

quote:

ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake
There are more than several problems to mull over.

1. What are these miners going to do with their spare time? It would seem that they will have a LOT of it.

Actually not. The idea is to bring asteroids here robotically, not send miners out to them. The asteroids would be parked in lunar orbit, or at Earth-Moon Lagrange points, so travel to them from Earth would take a few days, not months.

quote:

2. No mention, so far, of a superconducting electromagnet to deflect cosmic and solar radiation. Can't live without one of these. Can't mine ferrous metal if you do have one.

There's no long trip, so the radiation isn't really an issue. If any long-term, non-robotic operations on the asteroid after recovery were needed, the asteroid itself would serve as passive shielding. As an aside, passive shielding is generally seen as the practical protection from radiation for human deep-space travel, not active electromagnets.

quote:

3. Are they going to let the fragments of debris inevitably created while mining just fly about at random, imperiling the ship, or is there some containment technology in mind?

This probably has some validity as a concern, but containment of debris doesn't seem particularly insurmountable. Something as simple as a plastic or kevlar wrap might well work.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 8:58:42 AM   
ResidentSadist


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness

Do you have any idea what the mathematics are like trying to SUCCESSFULLY get something to re-enter the earth's atmosphere?

You're more likely to have it skip off into outer space or burn the fuck up on re-entry.

They're going to mine these things, not move them about. At least not for a few hundred years.

so you are saying the shuttle reentry is what. . . a miracle, an act of god? Perhaps it's plain old math beyond you grasp and you don't believe it exists?

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 9:52:53 AM   
hardcybermaster


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Status: offline 		to be fair, the space shuttle is specifically designed to be able to re enter the earths atmosphere, an asteroid isn't, if it's designed to do anything it's to make a fuck off big crater

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 4:32:38 PM   
kalikshama


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Status: offline 		I've been hearing a lot about mining asteroids for ***water*** lately and would like someone to explain how this can possibly have a better ROI than investing in conservation or desalination here on Earth.

There was a mention of getting rocket fuel from separating the H and Os; perhaps someone would be so kind as to expound on this.

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/27/151534933/mining-quarries-millions-of-miles-from-earth

See also which includes a brief appearance from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-25-2012/space-innovators






< Message edited by kalikshama -- 4/27/2012 4:35:19 PM >

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 6:13:01 PM   
DomKen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kalikshama

I've been hearing a lot about mining asteroids for ***water*** lately and would like someone to explain how this can possibly have a better ROI than investing in conservation or desalination here on Earth.

There was a mention of getting rocket fuel from separating the H and Os; perhaps someone would be so kind as to expound on this.

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/27/151534933/mining-quarries-millions-of-miles-from-earth

See also which includes a brief appearance from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-25-2012/space-innovators

It's where the water would be at. "Mining" it from an asteroid would save having to launch the stuff into earth orbit.

A fairly basic, and very energetic, rocket fuel is liquid O2 and liquid H2. Basically the two gases are mixed in the engine and burned. As water is H2O it is possible to use electricty to break the chemical bonds and get O and H.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 6:15:05 PM   
DomKen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: ResidentSadist

quote:

ORIGINAL: Awareness

Do you have any idea what the mathematics are like trying to SUCCESSFULLY get something to re-enter the earth's atmosphere?

You're more likely to have it skip off into outer space or burn the fuck up on re-entry.

They're going to mine these things, not move them about. At least not for a few hundred years.

so you are saying the shuttle reentry is what. . . a miracle, an act of god? Perhaps it's plain old math beyond you grasp and you don't believe it exists?

The shuttle is somewhat aerodynamic and is coated with very heat resistant materials. A rock of irregular shape and varied composition would almost always disintegrate in the atmosphere during entry. That's why there aren't lots of craters all over the Earth.

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RE: Asteroid mining - 4/27/2012 6:20:26 PM   
DomKen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake
2/ No mention, so far, of a superconducting electromagnet to deflect cosmic and solar radiation.

Can't live without one of these. Can't mine ferrous metal if you do have one.

Nope. Most radiation is stopped by a sheet of aluminum foil and most of the rest is deflected by the Van Allen. The miners are going to work in Earth orbit after the rocks are brought there by robot craft.

The Apollo crews went beyond the Van Allen in essentially a tin foil box and did not get a big enough radiation dose to cause any problems. They certainly did not have anything like a superconducting magnet onboard.

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