Author Topic: Diamandis and Simonyi Planetary Resources Company Announcement and Notes  (Read 227304 times)

Offline Moe Grills

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  Most of the post here are relying on conjecture, wishful thinking, and estimates (guesses).

Let's try some hard facts for a change:
 How much will this project REALLY cost?
No man knows! All we have are opinions and guesstimates.
There are no previous projects to compare it to.

How long will the project take to make a hypothetical profit?
Years?  Decades?  A century?
I'm sure you'll give me your OPINIONS on this.
But the FACT is, no man knows!

How will the project planners overcome any potential legal, political, lobbiest even media opposition?
ANSWER: The project planners aren't saying. At least not publically.

Who is going to provide insurance for this project, to soften the financial risk?
Lloyd's? AllState? Governments?
Investors would like their money back if this project collapses; all it takes
would be for the stock or commodities markets to take a nose dive, like in 1987, 1929.   
Those are FACTS.


OK! Let's try something easier:
How much will it cost for just ONE test-sample return spaceprobe mission
for this asteroid mining project?

The only example I can give is NASA's projection of a billion dollars for the Osiris-Rex mission to return 60 grams of asteroid material to Earth.

  You need return samples to confirm or refute the interpretations of the spectra of celestial bodies.
EXAMPLE; It's a FACT that the flyby of the asteroid Lutetia by Rosetta
disproved the interpretations of telescopic spectra of that body.




 

Offline mrmandias

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100 mT = 100 metric tons

I would think that in-situ processing must happen, that way the cost of returning the refined metals to Earth would be economically feasible.

How is that accomplished?


I think its safe to say that no one knows yet, not even Planetary Resources.  Tom Jones mentioned brute heating as the key in their presentation, but I have to think that's still a pretty preliminary proposal.

Offline Bill White

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Let me ask a different question:

So, PR has a rock containing 100 ppm PGM in high lunar orbit. Then what? Where do they make money?


Strip out the other stuff using various chemical processes.

If the asteroid fragment is metallic (with pure FE or Ni rather than oxides as on Earth) then Mond process would allow pure nickel and pure iron to be stripped off the fragment and then vapor deposited into useful forms.

That will increase the PGM concentrations before dropping to Earth.

Many non-metallic elements and compounds could simply be boiled off with direct application of focused solar energy, again increasing PGM concentration.
EML architectures should be seen as ratchet opportunities

Offline go4mars

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How is it brought down? 100 mt of ore is to be returned to Earth - how? Is ore really worth $10K a kg?
The telescopes are for high-grading.  They are gambling that either it will be less expensive to get at and transport in the future (like using volatiles as propellant/reusable rockets/other innovations) or that they'll find a big chunk of highly concentrated platinum group metals from a planetary core.  If it doesn't make sense to go get it at that time in the future (with unknowable spot price/demand, and recovery technology) then they can wait.  It isn't like they'll go hungry on this venture.   

Is high-grade ore worth $10k/kg?  If they find their nugget it sure is.  But your price projections for returning things to earth might not match theirs. 
Elasmotherium; hurlyburly Doggerlandic Jentilak steeds insouciantly gallop in viridescent taiga, eluding deluginal Burckle's abyssal excavation.

Offline mrmandias

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  You need return samples to confirm or refute the interpretations of the spectra of celestial bodies.
EXAMPLE; It's a FACT that the flyby of the asteroid Lutetia by Rosetta
disproved the interpretations of telescopic spectra of that body.
--whistles innocently--

Offline Bill White

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  You need return samples to confirm or refute the interpretations of the spectra of celestial bodies.
EXAMPLE; It's a FACT that the flyby of the asteroid Lutetia by Rosetta
disproved the interpretations of telescopic spectra of that body.
--whistles innocently--


The ability to calibrate spectroscopic predictions with actual sample analysis (whether human or robotic) could have significant value as proprietary information and as trade secrets.

 
EML architectures should be seen as ratchet opportunities

Offline go4mars

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Heat up asteroid with large fresnel lens.  Once liquid, it self-differentiates with the less expensive metals on the surface and the more expensive in the middle.  Let it cool on its way to earth.  When it re-enters, it burns off some of the lower value metal jacket.  The differentiated ingots could be formed bar shaped to minimize atmospheric interaction by spinning while liquid around the long axis.    Land them on/in a glacier.
« Last Edit: 04/25/2012 08:55 pm by go4mars »
Elasmotherium; hurlyburly Doggerlandic Jentilak steeds insouciantly gallop in viridescent taiga, eluding deluginal Burckle's abyssal excavation.

Offline Mongo62

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100 mT = 100 metric tons

I would think that in-situ processing must happen, that way the cost of returning the refined metals to Earth would be economically feasible.

How is that accomplished?


I am not a mining engineer.  But one resource that any in-situ processing facility would have in abundance would be solar energy.

So you have parabolic mirrors feeding solar furnaces.  The maximum temperature would be just below the temperature of the solar surface.  That's more than hot enough to vaporize any asteroidal material.

After that, there would be various possibilities.  Vapour deposition comes to mind -- possibly utilizing fractional evaporation, first boiling off the lower-boiling-point substances, then carefully increasing the temperature to just below the boiling point of each metal you want to capture and allowing them to boil off, in a way similar to fractional distillation.

Of course this uses a LOT of solar energy to boil off almost all the asteroid, but once you have the solar furnace, it's perfectly possible.
« Last Edit: 04/25/2012 09:01 pm by Mongo62 »

Offline LegendCJS

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Heat up asteroid with large fresnel lens.  Once liquid, it self-differentiates with the less expensive metals on the surface and the more expensive in the middle.  Let it cool on its way to earth.  When it re-enters, it burns off some of the lower value metal jacket.  The differentiated ingots could be formed bar shaped to minimize atmospheric interaction by spinning while liquid around the long axis.    Land them on/in a glacier.

The focal point of your lens where the heat is applied will cause local vaporization, making you lose material and imparting thrust to the asteroid and coating your big lense with debris.  The rest of the asteroid will likely just stay inert, as a loose rubble it will not be conducting heat well.
Remember: if we want this whole space thing to work out we have to optimize for cost!

Offline A_M_Swallow

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...You are assuming that because the US has agreed to a treaty, it is now part of the body of law applicable to US citizens.  That assumption is incorrect.

I'm having a hard time reading this and not concluding that you assert that US citizens are not bound by the terms of the international treaties that the US has properly ratified.

It’s more complicated than that, but in some cases, basically yes.   
Treaties are binding on the United States, the government.  In most cases, how those treaties should affect individual citizens is a policy decision that has to be made by the government ...

Without dragging this aside too much, now I'm thinking that my fears of OST, expressed elsewhere, may be unfounded, since that "policy" decision has yet to be made.  Maybe it simply doesn't pertain at all to US citizens?

I'm not seeing a logical consistency in the legal aspects you're commenting about.  If the Planetary Resources folks can bring home the "bacon", then the legal precedent can be made in US courts.

 

I don’t understand your question. 

We’ve discussed the OST in two contexts here.  One is whether the OST means that until some government agency issues a permit, Planetary Resources can’t do anything in space.  The other is whether Planetary Resources can own resources that they extract.

My initial view is that the OST permit requirement is almost certainly not self-executing.  It doesn’t apply absent some US law or regulation. 

But as to the ownership of resources, my view is that its an open question whether the OST is self-executing or not.  If it isn’t, then US courts would probably hold that Planetary Resources possession of extracted material gives it working title.  If it is, then Planetary Resources would own the resources as per the prevailing interpretations of the OST.


You are assuming US jurisdiction.  Outer Space is outside the US Territorial waters, so the 'Law of Nations' probably applies instead of the 'US Constitution'.

Planetary Resources and its machines could be arrested and tried before say a Chinese court.  The charge may be something like committing an 'Unauthorised activity in space'.

Offline cro-magnon gramps

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You are assuming US jurisdiction.  Outer Space is outside the US Territorial waters, so the 'Law of Nations' probably applies instead of the 'US Constitution'.

Planetary Resources and its machines could be arrested and tried before say a Chinese court.  The charge may be something like committing an 'Unauthorised activity in space'.
a little history lesson, of course Mr. Swallow knows this one;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear

The War of Jenkins' Ear was a conflict between Great Britain and Spain that lasted from 1739 to 1748, with major operations largely ended by 1742. Its unusual name, coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1858,[5] relates to Robert Jenkins, captain of a British merchant ship, who exhibited his severed ear in Parliament following the boarding of his vessel by Spanish coast guards in 1731. This affair and a number of similar incidents sparked a war against the Spanish Empire, ostensibly to encourage the Spanish not to renege on the lucrative asiento contract (permission to sell slaves in Spanish America).[6]

After 1742 the war was subsumed by the wider War of the Austrian Succession involving most of the powers of Europe. Peace arrived with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

My point is, the US would not stand for it, and the Chinese would be aware of this; unless they felt strong enough, militarily, I don't think would be any such arrest or trial;

edit sentence structure
« Last Edit: 04/26/2012 12:11 am by cro-magnon gramps »
Gramps "Earthling by Birth, Martian by the grace of The Elon." ~ "Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but it has not solved one yet." Maya Angelou ~ Tony Benn: "Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself."

Offline RocketmanUS

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I don't care WHERE we go in space, as long as we go. If anyone is willing to spend their own lives and treasures to do that, I will cheer them on, no question! What makes me excited about PRI is that they: 1) Have serious capital behind them. 2) Are pursuing a new market which is not necessarily limited like comm-sats and isn't space tourism (as much as I like space tourism, new space desperately needs to diversify beyond it). 3) Have a good team (including people with direct experience with similar missions and several PhDs in planetary science). and 4) Have a realistic early business plan that doesn't rely solely on just burning capital investment and which is technically very feasible.

And as far as people, Planetary Resources has several planetary scientists on board:
http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/

Wholeheartedly agree. 
I would also add that even very partial success would help prove out other space resource plays, including lunar ones, and potentially even stuff like space-based solar power to the extent Planetary Resources can show that some space processing and manufacturing is possible.
We would save a lot of arguing and back and forth if everyone in this thread realized that everyone in this thread probably agreed that
(1) no one knows what the precise composition of most NEOs are.  Planetary Resources doesn’t know either, which is why their first several phases all involve surveying and prospecting.   
(2)  no one knows yet how or how cheaply asteroids can be mined/refined, shipped, and landed.  Including Planetary Resources, at least that they’ve let on.  Obviously they feel that there is some potential there, but they admit that these are tough problems. 
(3) if PGMs can be found, mined/refined, transported, and landed for something less than the earth market price, no one knows for sure the extent to which the earth market price would be lowered, and if the PGM operation would continue to be viable.
(4) The Planetary Resources plan probably would be too risky or too unlikely for a normal investment, because Planetary Resources itself has stated that its investors were willing to take longer delays and/or face greater risks than normal because of the possible benefits to mankind.  All of that said, higher risk does not mean impossible risk. Planetary Resources has some very smart and experienced people who presumably have taken a much harder look at data than any of us have.  Their investors appear to be no slouches either.  They presumably believe that there is at least some reasonable chance of finding asteroids with high enough PGMs and developing the tech to mine/refine, ship, and land at low enough costs that it would be economic.  None of us are  in a position to say for sure that there is no such chance.


Both good posts

1) it's something for now ( low cost telescopes and launches for those new rockets ), something for future
use ( mined material in space were it could be used ), and a reason for other to invest in future human space travel including commercially developed low cost to and from LEO vehicles ( low and high mass )

2) spurs investment by others to use these materials in space

3) when we have space mining and manufacturing a possible place for space tourist to go and see

Gold and platinum are not the main items to be mined, they are a by product with future value. When California had it's Gold Rush in the 1800's the miners unknowingly throw away silver ( that would have paid for their mining operation ). This team that is to mine asteroids is not focused on the gold and platinum but the more realistic areas of profit.
« Last Edit: 04/26/2012 12:55 am by RocketmanUS »

Offline robertross

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  Most of the post here are relying on conjecture, wishful thinking, and estimates (guesses).


Well some of us here are, and trying to pull as much factual information together to form an opinion, whereas some others are drawing conclusions from what has only been an announcement and considering them as gospel.

It's their money (well, it might have been ours at one point  ;)  )

we're just spectators here.

I would suggest more open speculation from someveryone, rather than a shooting match on ideas that cannot be proven or disproven at this stage.

Offline RocketmanUS

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You are assuming US jurisdiction.  Outer Space is outside the US Territorial waters, so the 'Law of Nations' probably applies instead of the 'US Constitution'.

Planetary Resources and its machines could be arrested and tried before say a Chinese court.  The charge may be something like committing an 'Unauthorised activity in space'.
a little history lesson, of course Mr. Swallow knows this one;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear

The War of Jenkins' Ear was a conflict between Great Britain and Spain that lasted from 1739 to 1748, with major operations largely ended by 1742. Its unusual name, coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1858,[5] relates to Robert Jenkins, captain of a British merchant ship, who exhibited his severed ear in Parliament following the boarding of his vessel by Spanish coast guards in 1731. This affair and a number of similar incidents sparked a war against the Spanish Empire, ostensibly to encourage the Spanish not to renege on the lucrative asiento contract (permission to sell slaves in Spanish America).[6]

After 1742 the war was subsumed by the wider War of the Austrian Succession involving most of the powers of Europe. Peace arrived with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

My point is, the US would not stand for it, and the Chinese would be aware of this; unless they felt strong enough, militarily, I don't think would be any such arrest or trial;

edit sentence structure

1) Chine to develop there own program

2) partner with them by launching the telescopes

3) #2 and later on add their own mining ability ( there is plenty of asteroids to go around )

Offline RocketmanUS

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Who is going to provide insurance for this project, to soften the financial risk?
Lloyd's? AllState? Governments?
Investors would like their money back if this project collapses; all it takes
would be for the stock or commodities markets to take a nose dive, like in 1987, 1929.   
Those are FACTS.
{snip}
They are very much aware of the 1929 and 1987 stock markets. They are aware of the up and down cycles of the markets. Their business plan is not over a few years it is over decades. So they can plan for the ups and downs just like other smart businesses.

Offline Blackjax

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I don't care WHERE we go in space, as long as we go. If anyone is willing to spend their own lives and treasures to do that, I will cheer them on, no question! What makes me excited about PRI is that they: 1) Have serious capital behind them. 2) Are pursuing a new market which is not necessarily limited like comm-sats and isn't space tourism (as much as I like space tourism, new space desperately needs to diversify beyond it). 3) Have a good team (including people with direct experience with similar missions and several PhDs in planetary science). and 4) Have a realistic early business plan that doesn't rely solely on just burning capital investment and which is technically very feasible.

And as far as people, Planetary Resources has several planetary scientists on board:
http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/

This pretty much summarizes my view as well.

Moreover it mystifies me why so many people are fixated on the long term mining aspects of this.  More interesting to me is the idea that they are attempting to commoditize low cost space hardware with the Arkyd 100 & 200 lines.  Part of what is needed is a shift in mindset among the larger public that changes the perception that only NASA or others with ultra high budgets can fly things larger than cubesats in space and/or beyond LEO.  If they can get universities, non-profits, wealthy philanthropists, small countries, and others to start thinking in terms of flying their own telescopes or science missions, that alone will be really valuable irrespective of whether they ever mine a single gram of asteroid material.  It helps strengthen a variety of aspects of the burgeoning low cost space industry on more immediate terms than any of the actual mining will.

In addition these platforms help to emplace a communications network out in the solar system, which itself helps enable additional missions.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Quote from: RobotBeat
There is no way [one is] going to spur investment in the Moon by doing everything you can on an internet forum to tear down investment in utilizing asteroids.

QFT.  And I think Moon first, with people, is the way to start.  Provides the practice and the propellant for getting out to the asteroid belt.  PR was on Page Two of today's WaPo, which is a page that almost everybody reads.

And the bottom line is that, well, there is no bottom line for mining asteroids at the moment.  PR's gonna be looking for them for a decade.  That't their bottom line for the next decade.  They appear to assert that they have the funding to search, and if they find one in the meantime, they will also have the funding to make use of the mineral they find.

I agree with Bill White:  What PR is doing is "a task of brute force data gathering with respect to the total family of NEOs. A large number of telescopes is perfect for that task."

Presumably PR has the money to engage in this brute force data gathering.  So if they find that 200m diameter asteroid mentioned in Mongo62's post #447, that would be a $55B find.  Which would go a long way to covering their costs at that point.  If you sit back in your armchair and consider moving the dern thing closer to Earth, it sounds more feasible than moving a 2km diameter asteroid...

Quote from: RobotBeat
[PRI has] a realistic early business plan that doesn't rely solely on just burning capital investment and which is technically very feasible.

In all honesty, that remains to be seen.  They still might burn thru capital without return.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline dbhyslop

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I don't care WHERE we go in space, as long as we go. If anyone is willing to spend their own lives and treasures to do that, I will cheer them on, no question! ...

This pretty much summarizes my view as well.

Moreover it mystifies me why so many people are fixated on the long term mining aspects of this.  More interesting to me is the idea that they are attempting to commoditize low cost space hardware with the Arkyd 100 & 200 lines.  Part of what is needed is a shift in mindset among the larger public that changes the perception that only NASA or others with ultra high budgets can fly things larger than cubesats in space and/or beyond LEO.  If they can get universities, non-profits, wealthy philanthropists, small countries, and others to start thinking in terms of flying their own telescopes or science missions, that alone will be really valuable irrespective of whether they ever mine a single gram of asteroid material.  It helps strengthen a variety of aspects of the burgeoning low cost space industry on more immediate terms than any of the actual mining will.

In addition these platforms help to emplace a communications network out in the solar system, which itself helps enable additional missions.

This is how I feel about it, too.  The Stratolaunch announcement was a bit of a let down because at this point it seems to this amateur that for launch costs to come down we need a broader market of things to be launched and not necessarily more launchers.  If Stratolaunch fails, all the money invested in it is more or less wasted, just like the dozen other commercial launch ventures over the last twenty years that have been listed on other threads.

On the other hand, PR already has a lot of money and even in a worst case scenario probably won't fail for quite some time.  Even in that case a considerable amount of the money spent will presumably be to buy payload space on rockets, increasing demand.  This may also apply a little price pressure to launches since they're inexpensive and replaceable compared to traditional payloads that happily pay a premium for a reliable rocket.

The problem is whether there will really be enough of these Arkyds flown to make a difference on that front, especially given that these will mostly be tagging along on other launches.  Either way, it's a start and it's better than nothing.

One thing that really struck me about the press conference was the comments someone (was it Simonyi?) made about the value of high risk investments and compared the company specifically to the tech boom of the 90's.  While we obviously remember the bad things about the boom, much of the money lost by investors at the time was used to build the modern telecommunications network that we take for granted today.  If we had a more gradual, "sustainable" development of internet commerce we might not even have that infrastructure yet.  The Planetary Resources people seem to understand that going out and spending this money on space will be a tremendous net benefit whether they succeed or not.

Offline Dalhousie

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Strip out the other stuff using various chemical processes.

If the asteroid fragment is metallic (with pure FE or Ni rather than oxides as on Earth) then Mond process would allow pure nickel and pure iron to be stripped off the fragment and then vapor deposited into useful forms.

That will increase the PGM concentrations before dropping to Earth.

How are you going to solid nickel iron alloy to particulate form in zero G?

How do you propose moving the process stream in zero G?

What are the waste products and how are they disposed of?

What is the likely mass of the plant (including all supporting infrastructure?

What product rate is likely?

Quote
Many non-metallic elements and compounds could simply be boiled off with direct application of focused solar energy, again increasing PGM concentration.

What are these compounds in a nickel-iron asteroid? What temperatures are required? What happens to them after they have been "boiled off'?

Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline Robotbeat

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You do know that it's a little early to answer all these questions, right?
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

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