Author Topic: Planetary Resources  (Read 373093 times)

Offline billh

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1000 on: 10/21/2018 08:07 pm »
Let’s say you were starting up a new company to prospect for ores on asteroids. How could you make revenue in the near term?

If discoveries of ores on asteroids could be protected, and such claims were transferable similar to patents, then we might see an industry of prospecting firms.

The undesirable effect of this would be that the required investments for actually extracting the minerals would go up, as you have to pay the prospecting firms who can find and claim valuable locations far faster than extraction activities can be set up.

On the other hand, there is an economic benefit to knowing for sure there are resources to be found and where they are. For this reason mining patents may actually accelerate resource extraction because it removes some of the risk.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1001 on: 10/23/2018 12:20 pm »
Let’s say you were starting up a new company to prospect for ores on asteroids. How could you make revenue in the near term?

If discoveries of ores on asteroids could be protected, and such claims were transferable similar to patents, then we might see an industry of prospecting firms.

The undesirable effect of this would be that the required investments for actually extracting the minerals would go up, as you have to pay the prospecting firms who can find and claim valuable locations far faster than extraction activities can be set up.

On the other hand, there is an economic benefit to knowing for sure there are resources to be found and where they are. For this reason mining patents may actually accelerate resource extraction because it removes some of the risk.

Bingo.

A small amount of dollars could unlock the location of valuable ores in space. This knowledge could spur the Big Guys to get into the space mining business.

Offline bad_astra

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1002 on: 10/23/2018 03:00 pm »
I am discussing an intellectual property rights regime that allows companies that prospect for asteroidal minerals to sell their claims.
For people who don't know much about running a business, it's easy to talk about mining Mars and selling the ores back on Earth as a business plan. But, in the Real World, people have to have money to live on. Investors want to see some return on their investment in their lifetime. So, finding a near term source of revenue is important for space prospecting companies.
How would such claims be made? I can give some spectroscopal "evidence" that I found borax on Vesta and therefore the Bad Astra Mineral Foundation claims mining rights on Vesta (which will soon have B.A.M.F. burned into its surface by orbital laser, thank you) , but if someone else beats me to it I'm not going to really be able to defend that claim. Nor will I really be able to determine the mass removed from "my" rock to understand the value thereof to sue in some hypothetical claim.

If it comes down to the IP that determines those resources, the only real solution is to keep the information as private as one can, get the goods as quickly as possible. A gentleman's agreement between any major players might be the best that could be hoped for, and that might be enough, as arming drones and standing armies of probably useless lawyers would just eat into the profits. There's enough out there for Everyone and will be for awhile.
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Offline toren

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1003 on: 10/23/2018 05:00 pm »
Actually, there is a public benefit from knowing where mineral resources are among the asteroids.

There's a benefit to building airports, too.  But not before the airplane was invented.  Building airports before 1903 would not have been a good use of resources.  Better to wait for the airplane to be invented and be ready to use the airport.

It's inefficient to use resources to find the mineral resources of asteroids significantly before that information can be put to use.

There are some really good, boring financial reasons why that kind of venture doesn't happen.  Unless they are spending a private fortune (thanks, Elon! thanks, Jeff!), investors tend to want their money back, with interest.  Compared to rocket science, it's pretty simple:

Expected-return = (1 + risk-free-rate + risk-premium) ^ years

Risk-free-rate is what you could make putting the money into something like US government or AAA rated private bonds.

Risk-premium is where the fun happens.  How much more are you going to ask in return for the chance that the whole thing goes south, and you get little or no money back?

Years is a best guess of how long it'll take to receive your money and interest back.

When you're talking decades for a return, not only does that 'years' exponential do the compounding interest thing on you, but Risk-premium balloons, because of all the technical, government and business risks associated with having a lot of contingencies over time.

PR is a classic example of the hazards.  It's not comparable to, say, a new gold mining venture, because there the technology, logistics and markets are pretty well understood, though risky in themselves.  It's more like betting on a gold mine in Utah, in 1803, before there was a government, any transportation network, or the technology to do mass mineral extraction and refining.  Not. Gonna. Happen.  The risk has to be taken in smaller steps.

And, yes, I was involved in venture capital in a prior life.

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1004 on: 10/23/2018 06:49 pm »
Let’s say you were starting up a new company to prospect for ores on asteroids. How could you make revenue in the near term?

If discoveries of ores on asteroids could be protected, and such claims were transferable similar to patents, then we might see an industry of prospecting firms.

The undesirable effect of this would be that the required investments for actually extracting the minerals would go up, as you have to pay the prospecting firms who can find and claim valuable locations far faster than extraction activities can be set up.

On the other hand, there is an economic benefit to knowing for sure there are resources to be found and where they are. For this reason mining patents may actually accelerate resource extraction because it removes some of the risk.

Bingo.

A small amount of dollars could unlock the location of valuable ores in space. This knowledge could spur the Big Guys to get into the space mining business.

I don't see any evidence at all to suggest this is true, and lots of evidence to suggest it is not true.

If the big risk holding back mining of asteroids was really which ones had which concentrations of minerals, then it would make sense for "the Big Guys" to just spend the small amount of dollars to retire that risk themselves.  They wouldn't need some sort of mining patent if they just kept the information to themselves.

I've seen a number of analyses of the economics of asteroid mining with today's technology, some saying it's feasible and some saying it's not.  The ones saying it's not feasible are logically consistent and convincing.  The ones saying it's feasible have obvious, huge flaws.

If it's cheap to find the resources but expensive to exploit them, giving mining patents long before the resources can be exploited makes it harder, not easier, for the people who want to invest to exploit them, because it artificially raises the costs because then they have to pay the people who grabbed the rights without being able to exploit them.

I want to see asteroid mining happen as soon as possible.  That's why I would oppose any attempt at mining patents.

Online jebbo

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Offline Lar

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1006 on: 10/31/2018 01:37 pm »
https://twitter.com/PlanetaryRsrcs/status/1057626101776834560

Blockchain venture production studio ??? those 4 words don't make a lot of sense strung together like that.

This does not bode well, would be my first take.
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline GWH

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1007 on: 10/31/2018 01:40 pm »
The purchase of PR by a blockchain techology company could be directly related to using that tech for tracking of ownership rights.  To get a rough idea of what that could be: http://www.mining.com/web/resource-companies-using-blockchain/

Offline AdrianW

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1008 on: 10/31/2018 01:58 pm »
Quote
“Ethereum smart contract functionality is a natural solution for private-ordering and commerce in space—the only domain of human activity not ordered around territorial sovereignty—in which a diverse range of actors from a growing number of countries must coordinate and transact,” said Israel.

Oh dear, what a load of bull****.
I wonder what their new roadmap to revenue is – at the rate that PR is burning cash, even their scam money won't last very long, at least not long enough until they can make any profit from actual asteroid mining.

At least there's still Deep Space Industries.
« Last Edit: 10/31/2018 01:59 pm by AdrianW »

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1009 on: 10/31/2018 05:47 pm »




"A similar strategy is being pursued by Asgardia, a venture that has sparked legal debate by styling itself as the first space-based nation. Asgardia has said it plans to set up an independent space-based data storage platform and its own blockchain-based scamcurrency known as the Solar."

Also from same article but next paragraph.

Space-based nations is interesting concept. I suspect Asgardia is being driven by financial gain, a tax haven. I do think you need a physical present to be a nation, which could be manned spacestation, tax haven for rich.

Offline Llian Rhydderch

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1010 on: 10/31/2018 09:39 pm »
Re arguments from authority on NSF:  "no one is exempt from error, and errors of authority are usually the worst kind.  Taking your word for things without question is no different than a bracket design not being tested because the designer was an old hand."
"You would actually save yourself time and effort if you were to use evidence and logic to make your points instead of wrapping yourself in the royal mantle of authority.  The approach only works on sheep, not inquisitive, intelligent people."

Offline QuantumG

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1011 on: 10/31/2018 10:10 pm »
Blockchain venture production studio ??? those 4 words don't make a lot of sense strung together like that.

What will nerds open their (bitcoin) wallets for? See also.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Asteroza

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1012 on: 11/01/2018 12:14 am »
« Last Edit: 11/01/2018 12:15 am by Asteroza »

Offline Dante2121

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1013 on: 11/01/2018 12:35 am »
I smell an ICO (or perhaps an exit scam on space angels/VC crowd?)

Explain further?

Offline Danderman

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1014 on: 11/01/2018 12:55 am »
I am discussing an intellectual property rights regime that allows companies that prospect for asteroidal minerals to sell their claims.
For people who don't know much about running a business, it's easy to talk about mining Mars and selling the ores back on Earth as a business plan. But, in the Real World, people have to have money to live on. Investors want to see some return on their investment in their lifetime. So, finding a near term source of revenue is important for space prospecting companies.
How would such claims be made? I can give some spectroscopal "evidence" that I found borax on Vesta and therefore the Bad Astra Mineral Foundation claims mining rights on Vesta (which will soon have B.A.M.F. burned into its surface by orbital laser, thank you) , but if someone else beats me to it I'm not going to really be able to defend that claim. Nor will I really be able to determine the mass removed from "my" rock to understand the value thereof to sue in some hypothetical claim.

If it comes down to the IP that determines those resources, the only real solution is to keep the information as private as one can, get the goods as quickly as possible. A gentleman's agreement between any major players might be the best that could be hoped for, and that might be enough, as arming drones and standing armies of probably useless lawyers would just eat into the profits. There's enough out there for Everyone and will be for awhile.

The language in the mining patents proposal specifically precludes using instruments near Earth to identify asteroid resources to file a claim. Claims must be accompanied by extremely accurate data from close reconnaissance. The government would specify requirements for proof.

Offline Danderman

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1015 on: 11/01/2018 12:57 am »
Actually, there is a public benefit from knowing where mineral resources are among the asteroids.

There's a benefit to building airports, too.  But not before the airplane was invented.  Building airports before 1903 would not have been a good use of resources.  Better to wait for the airplane to be invented and be ready to use the airport.

It's inefficient to use resources to find the mineral resources of asteroids significantly before that information can be put to use.

There are some really good, boring financial reasons why that kind of venture doesn't happen.  Unless they are spending a private fortune (thanks, Elon! thanks, Jeff!), investors tend to want their money back, with interest.  Compared to rocket science, it's pretty simple:

Expected-return = (1 + risk-free-rate + risk-premium) ^ years

Risk-free-rate is what you could make putting the money into something like US government or AAA rated private bonds.

Risk-premium is where the fun happens.  How much more are you going to ask in return for the chance that the whole thing goes south, and you get little or no money back?

Years is a best guess of how long it'll take to receive your money and interest back.

When you're talking decades for a return, not only does that 'years' exponential do the compounding interest thing on you, but Risk-premium balloons, because of all the technical, government and business risks associated with having a lot of contingencies over time.

PR is a classic example of the hazards.  It's not comparable to, say, a new gold mining venture, because there the technology, logistics and markets are pretty well understood, though risky in themselves.  It's more like betting on a gold mine in Utah, in 1803, before there was a government, any transportation network, or the technology to do mass mineral extraction and refining.  Not. Gonna. Happen.  The risk has to be taken in smaller steps.

And, yes, I was involved in venture capital in a prior life.

This is the precise reason for mining patents - to allow prospectors to get to revenue much sooner than if they have to wait for ore to be returned to Earth.

Offline jongoff

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1016 on: 11/01/2018 02:38 pm »
I think people may be misreading this. Though I know Chris as well as some of the space guys on the Consensys side, I wasn't privy to the details of the deal, so what follows is speculation based on the publicly available information.

While it is totally possible that this is a case of a blockchain company "investing in Planetary Resources", I don't think that fits the data very well. To me this looks more like an acqui-hire situation, ie where Consensys wanted to hire Chris and his general counsel to augment their space team, so they agreed to acquire PR's resources for some amount. Likely to allow Chris to finish winding things down and recoup as much as he could for creditors and shareholders. If Consensys had bought PR to actually keep trying to go after asteroid mining, I think they would've stated so more clearly. I think instead they saw that Chris and his team had to do a lot of work in the space policy, space resources, and economics worlds, and they wanted to leverage that experience to find areas where smart contracts and such could help in the space industry.

As an entrepreneur, I've stared into the abyss of my startup potentially going south, and had to think through how best to "do right" by the people we owe money to, and our investors and team. If my read on this is accurate, Chris was trying to do his best to honorably wind things down instead of leaving a smoking crater. That's a crappy position for anyone to be in, and if anything it increases my respect for Chris and his team. Maybe I'm misreading things, and this is actually some sort of reboot of PR, but my guess from the public releases and the details is that this was what happened.

~Jon

Offline toren

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1017 on: 11/01/2018 03:13 pm »
Actually, there is a public benefit from knowing where mineral resources are among the asteroids.

There's a benefit to building airports, too.  But not before the airplane was invented.  Building airports before 1903 would not have been a good use of resources.  Better to wait for the airplane to be invented and be ready to use the airport.

It's inefficient to use resources to find the mineral resources of asteroids significantly before that information can be put to use.

There are some really good, boring financial reasons why that kind of venture doesn't happen.  Unless they are spending a private fortune (thanks, Elon! thanks, Jeff!), investors tend to want their money back, with interest.  Compared to rocket science, it's pretty simple:

Expected-return = (1 + risk-free-rate + risk-premium) ^ years

Risk-free-rate is what you could make putting the money into something like US government or AAA rated private bonds.

Risk-premium is where the fun happens.  How much more are you going to ask in return for the chance that the whole thing goes south, and you get little or no money back?

Years is a best guess of how long it'll take to receive your money and interest back.

When you're talking decades for a return, not only does that 'years' exponential do the compounding interest thing on you, but Risk-premium balloons, because of all the technical, government and business risks associated with having a lot of contingencies over time.

PR is a classic example of the hazards.  It's not comparable to, say, a new gold mining venture, because there the technology, logistics and markets are pretty well understood, though risky in themselves.  It's more like betting on a gold mine in Utah, in 1803, before there was a government, any transportation network, or the technology to do mass mineral extraction and refining.  Not. Gonna. Happen.  The risk has to be taken in smaller steps.

And, yes, I was involved in venture capital in a prior life.

This is the precise reason for mining patents - to allow prospectors to get to revenue much sooner than if they have to wait for ore to be returned to Earth.

Even assuming some sort of legally constructed validity of claims based solely on remote sensing without occupation and/or exploitation, you don't get to evade financial facts.  Patents as suggested are a form of future, and their current day value is going to be heavily discounted for their risk of commercial viability at that future time, plus discounted for the time value of money to that hypothetical day of paying off.  You don't get out of the compounding formula, it just shows up in a different form - in its own way as nasty as the Rocket Equation.

Unfortunately, this looks to me like PR being merged into something that was already a buzzword salad.  Caveat emptor.

Offline Asteroza

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1018 on: 11/02/2018 01:21 am »
I smell an ICO (or perhaps an exit scam on space angels/VC crowd?)

Explain further?

There's a worrying trend that various blockchain based scamcurrency companies try to create a new blockchain based scamcurrency or similar asset vehicle, premine some of the blocks of that chain, then do an initial coin offering (ICO) where they sell some of these early mined blocks in that particular scamcurrency. Often the ICO is priced high for the initial blocks, but natural market prices force the real price down to point that ICO buyers take a huge loss and the ICO sellers walk off with a fair amount of fiat money. The exit scam part is when the scamcurrency itself may or may not viable and sustainable, but the ICO sellers and/or related exchanges take fiat money but do not deliver the scamcurrency to the buyer, or the exchanges are hosting buyer scamcurrency wallets and drain them into their own wallets, or some marketplace/exchange operating as a third party escrow runs off with the scamcurrency sitting in their wallet. Conceptually similar to pump and dump stock scams. Considering the pseudoanonymous nature of these things, especially if the purchase was paid for by another established scamcurrency such as bitcoin, the exit scammers can make a fairly clean getaway.

By using blockchains that are major/legitimate but hanging their scamcurrency off it, it becomes possible to use the legitimacy/infrastructure of the parent blockchain to shield shady activities. All a blockchain does is confirm the majority of miners accept a particular scamgraphic transaction as acceptable for the next link in the chain. There is no fundamental concept of legitimacy of the transaction itself here.

As a recent NIST whitepaper covering blockchain related technologies attests, blockchain stuff is appropriate when you have an untrusted marketplace where all actors are equally antagonists and there is no collusion amongst actors reaching the majority level. Bitcoin has been facing ongoing risks of the 51% attack problem due to the size of large chinese mining pools, and many scamcurrencies in their early stages are gameable via single actors who have the resources for a 51% attack as the amount required is smaller at that stage. At the ICO stage, since the originators are controlling the mining, they are performing a 51% attack themselves, directing the shape of the blockchain they are initially building.

The NIST whitepaper is interesting, highlighting when a blockchain might have some advantages, even if it is not superior to existing technologies and regulatory mechanisms. The concept of tying prospecting claims including mineral data into the scamgraphic transactions may have merit under some scenarios. This may become even more interesting when the initial prospecting data is itself encrypted, or otherwise obfuscated, and people can split the claim into scamcurrency subunits (effectively a share of the claim), similar to a whole BTC bitcoin and the satoshi subunits of bitcoin (think dollars and cents). For example, certain research scamcurrencies are experimenting with anonymous transactions, where the "amount" transferred is not viewable within the blockchain, only that a valid transaction occurred. There was a recent example with zCash where this was done through public and private transactions, though the obvious problem is if someone moves X amount from public to private, a private transaction is performed, then the buyer moves X into a public wallet immediately, anonymity largely fails (though this is more an OPSEC failure than a flaw per se).

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Planetary Resources
« Reply #1019 on: 11/02/2018 02:03 am »
ICO:

A company raises money by selling IOUs that don't have to be repaid with cash ever. So they're not even really IOUs. Basically, companies raising money by selling branded monopoly money or arcade tokens that you can theoretically trade with other people over the Internet. Like with pogs, but less colorful and over the Internet. And no game.
« Last Edit: 11/02/2018 02:49 am by Robotbeat »
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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

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