Author Topic: Diamandis and Simonyi Planetary Resources Company Announcement and Notes  (Read 212256 times)

Offline iamlucky13

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April 24th press conference at the Museum of Flight in Seattle (Simonyi is a local and a major donor). Notice of it was included in the monthly email newsletter for members.

http://www.museumofflight.org/event/2012/apr/24/future-of-space

Quote
A new company will be unveiling its mission to revolutionize current space exploration activities and ultimately create a better standard of living on Earth.


Participants:

Charles Simonyi - Former Space Adventures passenger (twice) and one of the early Microsoft partners and software developers. Rumored to be worth around $1 billion.

Peter Diamandis - X-Prize Foundation founder and chair. Co-founder of Space Adventures

Dr. Tom Jones - NASA Astronaut, B-52 pilot, and planetary scientist. Apparent interest in asteroids, meteors, Mars, and ISRU.

Chris Lewicki - Mars Rover flight director. Also involved with Mars Phoenix.

It's natural to assume this past article I dug up when cross-searching the names is relevant:
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/nasa-veteran-emerges-helm-arkyd-stealthy-space-travel-startup/

Tickets are $25. I'd look into attending, but I will be out of town.

Edit/Lar: See also the main Planetary Resources thread at https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28680.0  At this late date (2018).. probably not a good merge.
« Last Edit: 10/22/2018 01:36 pm by Lar »

Offline QuantumG

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Juicy!
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline tigerade

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.
« Last Edit: 04/18/2012 02:10 am by Chris Bergin »

Offline neilh

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.

My suspicion is that this company will be payload-focused, which is pretty much exactly what we need more of right now.
« Last Edit: 04/18/2012 02:10 am by Chris Bergin »
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Offline Namechange User

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.

That's a really strange comment. I find it ironic that so many state they want competition and they want investment in space. And when it happens, like with the Stratolaunch announcement, it's treated with skepticism by those same advocates and said that their money should instead go to one of the internet's preferred recipients.
« Last Edit: 04/18/2012 02:10 am by Chris Bergin »
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline kevin-rf

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.

The whole space access problem is bigger than any one company can handle. While we are allowed to be critical of any given approach, they can spend any money they put forward any way they want. If they succeed, then we all benefit. Even if it doesn't put a solid gold rocket car in every garage.

I say welcome!
« Last Edit: 04/18/2012 02:11 am by Chris Bergin »
If you're happy and you know it,
It's your med's!

Offline iamlucky13

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.

My suspicion is that this company will be payload-focused, which is pretty much exactly what we need more of right now.

That would be my hope, also. The two participants with space technical backgrounds both point in that direction.

Something related to Red Dragon popped briefly into my mind, but the lack of SpaceX participation suggests otherwise.

Offline iamlucky13

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From some more digging around:

Arkyd, Diamondis and Lewicki's secretive company mentioned above, was involved with another company in an SBIR project for 3-D printing on the ISS.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=19519.msg842175#msg842175

And they've posted job openings for work related to "the development of new technologies for commercial robotic space exploration."

http://students.washington.edu/aiaauw/2011/05/arkyd-astronautics-summer-internship-opportunity/

Pretty thin, but there's not much out there to tie together.

Offline tigerade

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.

That's a really strange comment. I find it ironic that so many state they want competition and they want investment in space. And when it happens, like with the Stratolaunch announcement, it's treated with skepticism by those same advocates and said that their money should instead go to one of the internet's preferred recipients.

There has been too much over-promise and under-deliver.
Too much smoke and too few flames.

I don't care much for the hype, I would just like to see something in orbit at some point.

Offline QuantumG

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There has been too much over-promise and under-deliver.
Too much smoke and too few flames.

I don't care much for the hype, I would just like to see something in orbit at some point.

Umm.. there's plenty in orbit.. the problem is that you're biased to looking at promises instead of results. The people who have delivered to orbit so far are doing it quietly.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline neilh

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Here's the (short) thread from last year on Arkyd:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25906.0
Someone is wrong on the Internet.
http://xkcd.com/386/

Offline Danderman

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.

Its real easy to see how other people should spend their money.

My opinion, however, is that more competition is better than less competition.

Offline Robotbeat

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Wow, the steady stream of new (not necessarily "New Space") space companies just doesn't stop. Interesting that there are so many stealth-mode companies out there... It can only be a good thing, IMHO.

I'm going to step out on a limb and say it has something to do with asteroid exploitation.

If they can somehow pull that off, it may be bigger than space tourism, though their odds are longer. Of course, that's mostly speculation. But what other opportunity for commercial robotic exploration would make sense?
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Robotbeat

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Here's one paper that backs up this guess of having something to do with asteroid exploitation (coauthored by Arkyd Astronautics):
Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study
April 2, 2012  <---notice the date... just two weeks ago!
http://kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf
"This report describes the results of a study sponsored by the Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) to investigate the feasibility of identifying, robotically capturing, and returning an entire Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) to the vicinity of the Earth by the  middle of the next decade. "

Another note is the idea of capturing a temporary moon, which may be even easier than this idea of capturing a 500,000kg NEA in orbit around the Sun.
« Last Edit: 04/18/2012 05:22 am by Robotbeat »
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline Robotbeat

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This sounds pretty exciting...
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline jongoff

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Looking forward to learning more about Arkyd. I've got a few friends working there, but they've been really secretive to-date.

~Jon

Offline Robotbeat

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From just this February (Diamandis speaks on asteroid mining, tells us to stay tuned, hints that it's part of a new start-up he's a part of):
« Last Edit: 04/18/2012 04:08 pm by Robotbeat »
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline iamlucky13

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The skeptic in me isn't willing to believe that it's anything as grandiose as asteroid mining, but Robotbeat is finding some interesting clues that make it sound like a possibility.

The minimalist in me suggests we could be getting hyped up over just a public announcement of the existence of Arkyd (although we don't know for the sure the announcement is about Arkyd...it could be an additional project beyond that company)

The pragmatist in me assumes that this is a public announcement of Arkyd with a major growth planned supported by Mr. Simonyi, but I'm hard pressed to say what goal that growth would be towards.

By the way, here's the Trademark registration for Arkyd, filed in August of 2010:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4003:hmmi75.2.1

Quote
Goods and Services:

Custom construction and assembly of space-related systems, namely, robotic spacecraft and space launch vehicles to the order and specification of others.

Technical project planning and design engineering of space missions that send robotic spacecraft to various objects in space to perform remote sensing, rendezvous, repositioning, and in-situ research; providing scientific research information in the fields of robotic space missions, the research carried out on such space missions and the technology that enables such missions.

That reads almost like they want to sell NASA complete exploration missions on a for-profit basis.
« Last Edit: 04/18/2012 05:48 am by iamlucky13 »

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Asteroid mining - that reminds me of the 'Lensmen' books.

Offline neilh

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Do we really need another company that likely won't get off the ground?  I really wish the money was invested towards current efforts.

That's a really strange comment. I find it ironic that so many state they want competition and they want investment in space. And when it happens, like with the Stratolaunch announcement, it's treated with skepticism by those same advocates and said that their money should instead go to one of the internet's preferred recipients.

Overgeneralizing much?
Someone is wrong on the Internet.
http://xkcd.com/386/

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