“While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower. Prospecting probes can likely be built for tens of millions of dollars each and Caltech has suggested an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft could cost $2.6bn,” the report says.$2.6 billion (£2 billion) sounds like a lot, but it is only about one-third the amount that has been invested in Uber, putting the price well within reach of today’s VC funds. It is also a comparable to the setup cost for a regular earthbound mine. (This MIT paper estimates a new rare earth metal mine can cost up to $1 billion, from scratch.)There is just one problem: That same asteroid would instantly tank the entire platinum market: “Successful asteroid mining would likely crater the global price of platinum, with a single 500-meter-wide asteroid containing nearly 175X the global output, according to MIT’s Mission 2016.”Nonetheless, Goldman is bullish. “We expect that systems could be built for less than that given trends in the cost of manufacturing spacecraft and improvements in technology. Given the capex of mining operations on Earth, we think that financing a space mission is not outside the realm of possibility.”
There is just one problem: That same asteroid would instantly tank the entire platinum market: “Successful asteroid mining would likely crater the global price of platinum, with a single 500-meter-wide asteroid containing nearly 175X the global output, according to MIT’s Mission 2016.”
Quote from: Warren Platts on 04/06/2017 02:28 pmThere is just one problem: That same asteroid would instantly tank the entire platinum market: “Successful asteroid mining would likely crater the global price of platinum, with a single 500-meter-wide asteroid containing nearly 175X the global output, according to MIT’s Mission 2016.”Assuming they found a 500 meter-wide asteroid composed almost entirely of platinum. The odds of that are really slim at best.
But even so, such an asteroid would crash the market. 130 tonnes of Pt is about 6% of the total global production of gold. Thus, if you wanted to make a killing in space mining, gold would be the target IMHO. YMMV.
Tomorrow's announcement, Discovery Channel's new reality TV show, "Gold Rush - Space".
QuoteBut even so, such an asteroid would crash the market. 130 tonnes of Pt is about 6% of the total global production of gold. Thus, if you wanted to make a killing in space mining, gold would be the target IMHO. YMMV.Depends. The current players in platinum production would definitely not want to crash the market. I wouldn't hold my breath looking for them to branch into asteroid mining unless they are forced into it to stay relevant.However, a non-mining corporation that would benefit from large quantities of bargain-basement platinum might be willing to invest in this, if new space manages to lower launch costs far enough to make the gamble enticing.
Quote from: Tuts36 on 04/06/2017 03:17 pmQuoteBut even so, such an asteroid would crash the market. 130 tonnes of Pt is about 6% of the total global production of gold. Thus, if you wanted to make a killing in space mining, gold would be the target IMHO. YMMV.Depends. The current players in platinum production would definitely not want to crash the market. I wouldn't hold my breath looking for them to branch into asteroid mining unless they are forced into it to stay relevant.However, a non-mining corporation that would benefit from large quantities of bargain-basement platinum might be willing to invest in this, if new space manages to lower launch costs far enough to make the gamble enticing.What they could do is use predatory pricing to crash the price of Pt on Earth, and put all producers completely out of business. Once that was done, they would have monopoly pricing power, and could then set the price forever at just below the marginal cost of the most productive platinum mine on Earth. I've been trying to get a quantitative handle on the Pt demand curve. In 2014 there was a big strike that took about 20% of the 6 mo. supply out of the market, and there was a correlated price rise of about 10%. So if they wanted to crash the price by half, they'd have to quadruple the world's supply. Assuming they could capture the entire market at this point, it would be worth $15K/kg x 4 x 130,000 kg = $7.8B/year. Is that enough to run a major space program? Maybe. But it's hard to see how you're going to generate the world's first trillionaire with that revenue level. For comparison Exxon pulls in about $200B/year (down by half from a few years ago).
What they could do is use predatory pricing to crash the price of Pt on Earth, and put all producers completely out of business. Once that was done, they would have monopoly pricing power, and could then set the price forever at just below the marginal cost of the most productive platinum mine on Earth.
but crazy billionaires that are going to make prices come down... what then? How can we benefit?"
A quick internet search puts the average cost of platinum production on the order of $1200-1600/oz. Ultimately, that's the number to beat for space-based platinum mining, assuming the point is to bring it back to Earth
Looking to future demand, one of the largest consumers of platinum is the auto industry for cat beds, how likely is a shift in the coming decades away from internal combustion powered autos, vs. growing demand in the developing world for internal combustion powered autos? Understanding the demand side of the equation could go a long way to determining the threshold amount for "crashing" the market.
Understanding the demand side of the equation could go a long way to determining the threshold amount for "crashing" the market.
Platinium is far from the most valuable material that can be mined in space Iridium is worth far more to terrestrial civilisation because you can use iridium to create artificial photosynthesis and remove atmospheric CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into fuel .How would anyone like a panel on their roof that makes fuel that they can put in their car or heat their house for free ?
Quote from: floss on 04/06/2017 08:03 pmPlatinium is far from the most valuable material that can be mined in space Iridium is worth far more to terrestrial civilisation because you can use iridium to create artificial photosynthesis and remove atmospheric CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into fuel .How would anyone like a panel on their roof that makes fuel that they can put in their car or heat their house for free ?{citation needed}
Quote from: incoming on 04/06/2017 05:48 pmUnderstanding the demand side of the equation could go a long way to determining the threshold amount for "crashing" the market. Yes, the demand curve will be key. I did some fooling around with the (linear) demand curve seemingly implied by the 2014 Pt strike (where a 20% reduction in supply caused an apparent 10% spike in prices), and I get a formula of:P = -0.115384615 * Q + 45,000where P is the price in $/kg, and Q is total annual production in kilograms per year. (For present prices I'm assuming $30K/kg and 130,000 kg of produced Pt.)I got some interesting results: once production causes the price to decline below $22.5K/kg (25% less than current prices), total revenue starts going down. So the optimal price point is $22.5K/kg, with a total production of 195 mT, and total revenue of $4.4B, compared to total revenues today of approximately $3.9B. Thus, to do the predatory pricing strategy, assuming a 50% price reduction would do the trick, they would have to double the total production, and their revenues at that point would still be $3.9B. As for the benefit to society, at the optimal point, the consumer surplus per year would be about $1.2B (that is, money freed up that can be spent on other things). If they kept the price at $15K/kg (50% of today's price), then the consumer surplus would be nearly $3B/year.
Demand for $1 per gram of platinum doesn't look like that, at all.
I found this calculator for constructing a curve of the form y = (ax + c)/(x - b) that has the general shape you're looking for. It matches the 3 points to within tiny fractions of a percent.http://www.had2know.com/academics/rational-function-regression-calculator.html
Quote from: Warren Platts on 04/07/2017 04:59 pmI found this calculator for constructing a curve of the form y = (ax + c)/(x - b) that has the general shape you're looking for. It matches the 3 points to within tiny fractions of a percent.http://www.had2know.com/academics/rational-function-regression-calculator.htmlWolframAlpha does that pretty well too, btwhttp://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=logarithmic+fit+%7B104,+33%7D,+%7B130,+30%7D,+%7B22750,+0.5%7DOr if you want widget: http://www.wolframalpha.com/widgets/view.jsp?id=a96a9e81ac4bbb54f8002bb61b8d3472
A lot of hot air if you ask me.
I think predictions of asteroid mining crashing markets are a bit premature. Once you capture that amazing shiny rock, you still need to process it and transport it. None of that is going to be free or fast.
Actually, there is reason to believe the costs of production could be radically lower. The cost of "mining" the asteroid is really mainly the cost of moving the object to Earth orbit. Once there, since it's mostly metal, slabs of the asteroid could be fed directly into an electric arc blast furnace. This is A LOT easier than trying to beneficiate ore. The thing is, the "slag" that would result is basically nature's own Inconel steel, which is the best steel known to mankind. You could then use this to manufacture satellites and other structures for use in space. The deadweight value of these items would be equal to the cost it would take to launch the same mass from Earth's surface. Basically, the value of the steel would be the per kg launch costs. Thus enough steel to build a structure with twice the mass of the ISS (~500 mT), and if launch costs are $10K/kg, then the value added would be worth ~$10B right there. If Pt is at 100 ppm concentration (which is extremely high), after producing 1,000 tonnes of steel, you'd have a paltry 0.1 tonnes of Pt.Flipping that around, if you produced the optimal amount of Pt (~200 mT sold for $4.5B), the excess steel would be 2 million tonnes--enough to build 4,000 ISS's. At 10K/kg, that's worth $20 trillion; that is equal to the US GDP. Bottom Line: it's quite clear that platinum is wagging the dog when it comes to mining iron asteroids.
.. I've just never seen a compelling business case where bringing large amounts of space resources down to Earth makes much sense ...
I think there's another point embedded here that always seems to materialize whenever I look at these types of analyses - space resources can absolutely be viable economically...as long as you are planning to use them in space. I've just never seen a compelling business case where bringing large amounts of space resources down to Earth makes much sense without large "and then a miracle happens" speculative leaps.
Which is interesting, because harvesting space resources is often cited as a rationale for increased activity in space (most often, in support of a moon base). See the circular logic?
Doesn't the idea that extra Platinum will crash the market assume that there won't be new uses for Platinum once the price drops?I've heard Aluminium used as a analogy for something that was once expensive and rare.Platinum, Palladium, Iridium are all metals that would be really useful in wider applications if they were less expensive and less rare.
Quote from: incoming on 04/11/2017 08:47 pmI think there's another point embedded here that always seems to materialize whenever I look at these types of analyses - space resources can absolutely be viable economically...as long as you are planning to use them in space. I've just never seen a compelling business case where bringing large amounts of space resources down to Earth makes much sense without large "and then a miracle happens" speculative leaps.While I generally agree, and I prefer to focus on volatiles for use in space, PGMs are valuable enough that they are on the cusp of viable.Quote from: incoming on 04/11/2017 08:47 pmWhich is interesting, because harvesting space resources is often cited as a rationale for increased activity in space (most often, in support of a moon base). See the circular logic?It's not circular. If you have an industry that extracts resources for use in space (such as fuel), you lower the price for other activities (such as PGM mining). If you have a market for asteroid-mined PGMs, then you have the basic infrastructure necessary to extract other resources for use in space. It doesn't matter which comes first, it one is viable, it makes the other more viable. Once regular mining is established, the "waste" from one process becomes cheap enough that you might as well bring it back to Earth (such as nickel), even though it would never have justified the creation of the necessary infrastructure on its own. Likewise, bulk materials left over from other processing may end up cheap enough that they can substitute for bulk material (aluminium tanks, shielding, trusses, etc) that would otherwise be brought from Earth.It's about self-reinforcing development. Not a circle, but a spiral.
I agree that once you are out there going for volatiles it's perhaps marginally less to go for metals as well, and vice-versa. I do not agree that it's ever trivial to bring back large amounts of very heavy, dense material to Earth.
And when people on this thread are talking about doing that for hundreds of thousands of tons of metal, that is not at all trivial.
Finally - I'm not sure how your argument refutes my point that resource extraction is not a compelling rationale for exploration of space, at least given the current economics surrounding PGMs. It's certainly an enabling technology for exploration, and there may come a day when, if we're out there anyway for a different reason or set of reasons, it starts to make sense to bring stuff back.
water accumulated in space would become valuable as it could be used for rocket fuel for interstellar voyages. The substance is too heavy and costly to transport from Earth.
Interesting related article from Bloomberg:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-23/space-the-final-frontier-seen-for-earth-s-crude-oil-giantsQuotewater accumulated in space would become valuable as it could be used for rocket fuel for interstellar voyages. The substance is too heavy and costly to transport from Earth. Re: lithobraking, I think Jon Goff once proposed constructing hollow platinum spheres that might be able to survive reentry. Actually, since the sphere would be made in a pure vacuum, if it was thin enough, and big enough, it would have neutral buoyancy in air. The diameter d of such a sphere with a thickness t can be given by:d = 6 * t * Pt_density/Air_densityThus, if I did it right, 195 mT in one sphere, if it was 0.64 mm thick walls, would have a diameter of 67.24 meters and have neutral bouyancy, assuming the atmospheric pressure didn't crush it.
d = 6 * t * Pt_density/Air_densityThus, if I did it right, 195 mT in one sphere, if it was 0.64 mm thick walls, would have a diameter of 67.24 meters and have neutral bouyancy, assuming the atmospheric pressure didn't crush it.
As for lithobraking, why would a desert be preferable to say, an ocean, or lake, or maybe even a big glacier?
What kind of temperature would a chunk of metal reach if allowed to reenter on its own? PGMs don't burn I think. They could boil away, but would have to get pretty hot to do so.
A UKIP candidate has pledged to invest more than £1 billion in the asteroid mining industry if he wins a seat, as he believes that Brexit provides a major opportunity for Britain to lead the world in sending nanoprobes to outer space to mine platinum.Aidan Powlesland, who is standing for parliament in the rural seat of South Suffolk, told BuzzFeed News he wants to set aside £100 million for "an interstellar colony ship design" and £30 million for an "interstellar nano-probe fleet design" designed to attract the attention of Russian investor Yuri Milner, and will provide a £1 billion prize to any private company that can mine the asteroid belt by 2026.
Evacuated spheres light enough to float in air will always buckle under atmospheric pressure on Earth, for any known material.
Quote from: envy887 on 04/24/2017 01:34 pmEvacuated spheres light enough to float in air will always buckle under atmospheric pressure on Earth, for any known material.Is there a middle ground though? If you are advanced enough to make a hollow sphere in space, then you can probably make other shapes as well like wings, and can probably find some gaseous internal pressurant too, like oxygen. Give it enough internal pressure not to crumple.I'm thinking something like JP Aerospace airship to orbit, only in reverse. Humongous slightly negative byuoyancy flying wing made out of platinum, coming from orbit. Would that work, physics wise?
There's a reason that most meteors that enter the Earth's atmosphere explode before reaching the surface.
I think it is also worth investigating methods to bring high value raw material to the earths surface that are more brutish, yet possible more economical & within existing technological capability.Here is my proposal:1. Baseline mass return is around 1000ton or less, which is in the ballpark of the Asteroid redirect mission profile.2. Space mining will focus on precious metal initially. Returning low value metals like nickel & iron just may never be worth it, & they are probably worth more to use in space for building structures. This example will use platinum.3. I think in space refining will need to separate the Pt from the bulk of the asteroid material. This is where the majority of operational cost will be.4. Once separated & refined, it will be melted & formed into a slug/projectile. Some Ni/Fe may be utilized as sacrificial material on the blunt end, & as a casing for the Pt that will undergo entry heating as it encounters earths atmosphere. 5. A 1000 ton slug of Pt would be around 4.46 meter in diameter, if it was made spherical. Ideally I would make it cylindrical, with a Ni-Fe blunted nose. The value of the Pt metal is around $31 Billion USD ( around 7-8 years of annual planetary consumption of Pt ) 6. Precision crash land it somewhere in the arctic ocean, where ocean depth is around 1000m, but basically within the capability for robotic retrieval equipment.An object of this size entering the earths atmosphere at a 45 degree angle at 20 kps would likely survive entirely intact on the seafloor. ( I entered the parameters in this interesting model ) You could also separate the 1000 tons into multiple projectiles to customize the impact events to minimize material loss and environmental impact.http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/So for $31 Billion USD sitting at a well defined location on the seafloor: A. Can technology be made to retrieve the metals for circulation into global Pt demand and still make money?B. Can a space mining company make and acceptable environmental impact arguments of conducting sub megaton impact events in an ocean vs. the impact of conventional mining?Seems plausible to me.
6. Precision crash land it somewhere in the arctic ocean, where ocean depth is around 1000m, but basically within the capability for robotic retrieval equipment.
www.sciencealert.com/a-new-type-of-artificial-photosynthesis-cleans-the-air-and-produces-energy#.WSmDe3F2xeg.linkPlease read all of it . Cheers Floss
Quote from: Stan-1967 on 05/27/2017 01:36 am6. Precision crash land it somewhere in the arctic ocean, where ocean depth is around 1000m, but basically within the capability for robotic retrieval equipment.Why an ocean impact?
If you want something that works physics-wise, don't use JP Aerospace as your inspiration.
Quote from: Paul451 on 05/27/2017 10:48 amQuote from: Stan-1967 on 05/27/2017 01:36 am6. Precision crash land it somewhere in the arctic ocean, where ocean depth is around 1000m, but basically within the capability for robotic retrieval equipment.Why an ocean impact?When the projectile lands, there is still around 90% of the kinetic energy left,
Quote from: Stan-1967 on 05/27/2017 02:14 pmQuote from: Paul451 on 05/27/2017 10:48 amQuote from: Stan-1967 on 05/27/2017 01:36 am6. Precision crash land it somewhere in the arctic ocean, where ocean depth is around 1000m, but basically within the capability for robotic retrieval equipment.Why an ocean impact?When the projectile lands, there is still around 90% of the kinetic energy left,How do you come to that conclusion? That re-entry only reduces velocity by 6 percent?
I would suggest that by the time it is economical to refine platinum from asteroids we'll have large scale, reusable craft flying frequently between the Earth's surface and space. Think ITS flying weekly, at least. At that point, returning the platinum to the surface of the Earth is a non-issue -- we'll just carry it down on the ITS-scale ships that are flying regularly anyway. That will be cheaper than building some kind of heat shield around a giant slug of platinum then dredging it up from the bottom of a lake.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 05/28/2017 07:30 amI would suggest that by the time it is economical to refine platinum from asteroids we'll have large scale, reusable craft flying frequently between the Earth's surface and space. Think ITS flying weekly, at least. At that point, returning the platinum to the surface of the Earth is a non-issue -- we'll just carry it down on the ITS-scale ships that are flying regularly anyway. That will be cheaper than building some kind of heat shield around a giant slug of platinum then dredging it up from the bottom of a lake.Are you suggesting that ITS scale ships will match the orbit of asteroid ore shipments, or all ore shipments will be have to be placed into an earth orbit for pickup by a ITS ship?
Sounds expensive in DV and propulsion hardware cycles. There's a lot of hand waving in that scenario.It's also dismissive & unfounded to automatically assign high technical hurdles to something unknown.
The "heat shield" could end up being incredibly simple if made of sacrificial nickel:iron.
Assuming high complexity
reminds me of when SpaceX signaled their intention to land rockets downrange at sea. Speculators were suggesting Musk should buy the SeaLaunch platform, or procure a decommissioned aircraft carrier, & other complicated bunk. What happened? He bought a cheap barge and welded some plate steel to the deck.
... I'm more interested in how to extract & concentrate the metal, as well as ideas how to capture market share without crashing global prices.
The global annual supply of PGMs is worth around ~$12 billion at current prices, for roughly 500 tons of refined material ( palladium + platinum being around 45% + 45% of it ).Nearly 70% of the total supply goes to automotive catalysts, with jewelry grabbing a second good slice.
Quote from: Stan-1967 on 05/29/2017 03:43 pm... I'm more interested in how to extract & concentrate the metal, as well as ideas how to capture market share without crashing global prices. edited & snipped...I think there are two possible models of development: aim to supply maybe 10-20% of the annual market, effectively creating another significant supply region besides South Africa and Russia, with the corresponding price drop. Still serving existing markets. It's tough to come up with feasible numbers for developing such a venture and seeing returns on a reasonable timescale.Or, aim to increase the supply by some insane amount, like 5x current actual demand, crash prices and expect new demand and applications to emerge. They would have to be new, as there is simply no way jewelry and diesel engine catalysts will soak up that much even at drastically lower material prices. Unless such a new application is identified/mapped out, nobody will invest in this venture due to massive capital investment at insanely high risk.Which i think basically comes back to - should space PGMs mining ever be developed, it won't be purely market driven, it'll need significant upfront public investment for R&D and risk reduction of related technologies. Most likely this investment can come from countries that are either resource scarce or see it as strategic value. China, maybe.
PGM extraction would be by product of iron and other metals extraction. Its not worth mining on its own. In case of asteriods the iron be used for in space construction.
For high value metals like gold and platinum, they could be returned to earth in reusable 2nd stage. ... the metals can be delivered to LEO on water/fuel tanker as secondary payload. A 1t gold would take up very little space in 2nd stage but could add a few $M to mission profit for normally unprofitable return leg.
The upfront costs for 2way transport system, which requires ISRU fuel and large mining infrastucture would cost $10-100B.
Asteriod mining still has less up front costs... Thermally heated water by sunlight is enough...
In case of moon... adding gold extraction is not as expensive as starting from scratch.
It all comes down to transport costs which ISRU water extraction should lower by factor or 2.
In the main belt, sunlight is only about 10% of Earth's flux, or ~140 W/m2. So what scale of solar-powered infrastructure would you have to deploy there, to extract water in bulk, purify it, store it, heat it, and use it as propellant for Earth-return? It would be infrastructure at a rather significant scale, I'd think.
And the separation could be done more easily on Mars.
Quote from: LMT on 09/24/2017 12:43 pmAnd the separation could be done more easily on Mars.Care to elaborate?
The DSI and PR are targetting NEA not belt asteriods.
As for lunar gold there is theory that gold dust has accumulated in polar craters, dust is carried by electrostatic charge until drops out at poles. If correct it could be profitable byproduct...
Quote from: Paul451 on 09/25/2017 09:30 amQuote from: LMT on 09/24/2017 12:43 pmAnd the separation could be done more easily on Mars.Care to elaborate?See the OEMF2017 presentation for an intro.
Quote from: LMT on 09/25/2017 11:53 amQuote from: Paul451 on 09/25/2017 09:30 amQuote from: LMT on 09/24/2017 12:43 pmAnd the separation could be done more easily on Mars.Care to elaborate?See the OEMF2017 presentation for an intro.Nothing you've linked to justifies your assertion.
Quote from: LMT on 09/25/2017 03:30 amIn the main belt, sunlight is only about 10% of Earth's flux, or ~140 W/m2. So what scale of solar-powered infrastructure would you have to deploy there, to extract water in bulk, purify it, store it, heat it, and use it as propellant for Earth-return? It would be infrastructure at a rather significant scale, I'd think.One would hope you could build that infrastructure out there from local materials, and then it'd be an exponential expansion of capability.
Quote from: Paul451 on 09/25/2017 03:38 pmQuote from: LMT on 09/25/2017 11:53 amQuote from: Paul451 on 09/25/2017 09:30 amQuote from: LMT on 09/24/2017 12:43 pmAnd the separation could be done more easily on Mars.Care to elaborate?See the OEMF2017 presentation for an intro.Nothing you've linked to justifies your assertion.Sure it does. Manned operation under planetary gravity makes aqueous separation chemistry far easier. See esp. the ISS ECLSS history. Relevant, yes?
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 09/25/2017 10:19 amThe DSI and PR are targetting NEA not belt asteriods.I know. If you limit asteroid prospects to NEAs, it's slim pickings. There is no known NEA equivalent to 16 Psyche, for example.
Here link to Warrens lunar gold theory thread. Needs rover with right sensors to prove it one way or another.
"it is difficult to identify any single lunar resource that is likely to be sufficiently valuable to drive a lunar resource extraction industry which has near-term profit as an objective..."
Quote from: LMT on 09/25/2017 12:05 pmQuote from: TrevorMonty on 09/25/2017 10:19 amThe DSI and PR are targetting NEA not belt asteriods.I know. If you limit asteroid prospects to NEAs, it's slim pickings. There is no known NEA equivalent to 16 Psyche, for example.With over million NEAs, there is no need to go asteriod belt. Extracting and processing metal from regolith is easier than from likes of Psyche. Most ore processing starts by crush material then sorting, with regolith asteriods have done it for us.Water extraction from same asteriod as metal is just as important. Without water there is no propulsion to return metal to market place.
It would be nice to find an NEA with commercial ore. Preferably one big enough to justify the trouble.Meanwhile, since a NEO has perihelion within 1.3 AU, and Mars perihelion is 1.38 AU, I suggest we designate Mars as a "Near-Earth Mostly Object" (NEMO).If we apply this "NEMO" designation to Mars, we can start thinking of Mars as a Near-Earther, and reset our space-mining expectations accordingly.All in favor?
Quote from: Paul451 on 09/25/2017 03:38 pmQuote from: LMT on 09/25/2017 11:53 amQuote from: Paul451 on 09/25/2017 09:30 amQuote from: LMT on 09/24/2017 12:43 pmAnd the separation could be done more easily on Mars.Care to elaborate?See the OEMF2017 presentation for an intro.Nothing you've linked to justifies your assertion.Sure it does. Manned operation under planetary gravity makes aqueous separation chemistry far easier.
Manned operation under planetary gravity makes aqueous separation chemistry far easier. See esp. the ISS ECLSS history. Relevant, yes?
Any drum-centrifuge would do the same job.
Again, relevant, yes?
Quote from: LMT on 09/26/2017 12:25 pmAgain, relevant, yes?Very marginally relevant, yes.And Paul451 has a point. Dumping giant articles on people and saying "that refutes you" isn't helpful. You have an agenda, everyone knows it... it's right in your user ID. That's fine. But don't let your agenda color how you participate here. I could have PMed this but PMs don't do much good with certain classes of user.
Have any of this analysis projected the increased demand due to new technologies enabled by cheaper PGMs?The reason the stuff is valuable is its use as a catalyst in energy and other technologies. Business cases for some reactions might be radically changed.
Could I suggest that this thread is in the wrong sub-forum, in that it's unlikely asteroid prospecting or exploitation will involve crewed spacecraft?