Diamandis and Simonyi Planetary Resources Company Announcement and Notes

[Wyvern]

What would the most cost-effective way of getting the metals down to Earth?

Can that question be answered yet?

Oh and NBF just released a series of articles on his site arguing that PR can make billions just with it's small telescopes.

Here's one article that I find interesting.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/04/planetary-resources-could-use-passively.html

Is the information there accurate?

[Danderman]

What would the most cost-effective way of getting the metals down to Earth?

Can that question be answered yet?

I think that everyone would agree that, once refined, getting the processed ore back to Earth would be fairly trivial (in the sense that the ore would be so valuable that there would be many ways to return the ore to Earth on an economical basis).

[go4mars]

What would the most cost-effective way of getting the metals down to Earth?

Making heat shields out of lower value byproducts, or otherwise designing ingots to minimize high-value losses upon atmospheric entry.  Land them rapid-fire into a deep lake (or a few of them so the lake is never on the wrong side).  Collect from the bottom.  Perhaps with conveyor belts (depending on frequency).   Shoot them with capacitors/linear accelerators.  Perhaps solar powered. 

But this is true:

I think that everyone would agree that, once refined, getting the processed ore back to Earth would be fairly trivial (in the sense that the ore would be so valuable that there would be many ways to return the ore to Earth on an economical basis).

[Danderman]

Here's one article that I find interesting.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/04/planetary-resources-could-use-passively.html

Is the information there accurate?

No. The qualified customer with billions of dollars is not named. Therefore, the article is no valid than if I claimed that they are going to make trillions because aliens will buy asteroids from them.

BTW, a better way to image GEO satellites is to send an Arkryd satellite to GEO and let it float around. Please give me a billion dollars to do so.

[Mongo62]

What would the most cost-effective way of getting the metals down to Earth?

Can that question be answered yet?

I don't know the answer, but it did occur to me that almost all the asteroids that are likely to be mined have some quantity of "organics" or at least bound H20.

So first of all I think that it makes sense to only return the most high-value products to Earth.  (Heck, as long as they are there, the robotic mining/refining operations can stockpile the lower-value, but still industrially useful materials, for the day that it becomes feasible to return them to Earth or elsewhere as well.  The machinery is already on site and paid for, and solar energy is basically free, so why not?) So for a million tonne asteroid, we are looking at a few hundred tonnes of PGMs and Gold (and possibly about the same mass of other substances such as Rhenium and Robotbeat's "black diamonds") to be immediately returned to Earth.  How long it takes to get this back to Earth does matter, in terms of interest costs if nothing else.  So the fastest reasonable means would be best, and that means chemical propulsion.

I would look into creating propellant in situ.  You only need enough to boost the several hundred tonnes of high-value materials (plus its cargo carrier) into a suitable destination, possibly into high Lunar orbit, or more likely directly to Earth in some sort of reentry vehicle.  (Such a vehicle could be lightweight enough to have been made Earthside and sent to the asteroid with the mining and processing equipment.  I would expect the total mass sent to the asteroid, including everything, to be on the order of a hundred tonnes or so -- provided that everything is automated and no humans are sent along.)

Even if the asteroid was entirely "dry", you could still send powdered asteroid through the focus of a solar furnace and use it as reaction mass.  Not terribly efficient due to the high molecular weight of the vapour plume, but solar energy is effectively free, and the reaction mass is otherwise almost worthless.  The big improvement in transit time over SEP would be worth it, in my opinion.

[advancednano]

Here's one article that I find interesting.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/04/planetary-resources-could-use-passively.html

Is the information there accurate?

No. The qualified customer with billions of dollars is not named. Therefore, the article is no valid than if I claimed that they are going to make trillions because aliens will buy asteroids from them.

BTW, a better way to image GEO satellites is to send an Arkryd satellite to GEO and let it float around. Please give me a billion dollars to do so.

I wrote the article.

The customers -
1. Disrupt the satellite imaging market. That market is already over $1.5 billion per year. Governments are the main buyers of satellite imaging. A lot of small scopes will provide more timely images.

2. Another customer. Google Earth. Google sells ads and sells licenses to Google Earth. They will be able to have higher resolution and more timely images.

3. Passive arrays of telescopes can have images combined to create higher resolution.

4. Later the Arkyd 200 with propulsion and laser station keeping can enable interferometers and ultimately hypertelescopes.

A lot of cheap space telescopes will enable disruption of satellite imaging and satellite data markets.

Cheap space telescopes themselves have a market for a few hundred to a few thousand based on price. Customers space museums, ground observatories, universities. There is already $5-6 billion spent each year on earth observing satellites. Planetary resources by getting costs down by 100 times will be able to grab a big chunk. Passive arrays of a few satellites to boost resolution will still have over 10 times cheaper.

[Danderman]

The customers -
1. Disrupt the satellite imaging market. That market is already over $1.5 billion per year. Governments are the main buyers of satellite imaging. A lot of small scopes will provide more timely images.

I agree that this a market worth some hundreds of millions of dollars, but not billions. Whether small telescopes can supplant the existing systems is questionable.

However, there is a technical issue: telescopes designed to detect small faint objects don't like being pointed at the relatively bright Earth. That's why Hubble doesn't produce .01 meter resolution maps of the Earth.

[Prober]

http://news.yahoo.com/asteroid-mining-is-awesome--but-newt-gingrich’s-moon-base-is-loony--huh-.html

Someone was thinking for a change at ABC news.

Asteroid mining is awesome, but Newt Gingrich’s moon base is loony. Huh?

[QuantumG]

Apparently Neil deGrasse Tyson will be talking about Planetary Resources on The Daily Show. For some reason I doubt he'll even mention how much all this proves wrong his claims that only governments do exploration.

Where'd you hear about this? I Googled for a link, but couldn't find one.

It was on yesterday in the first segment of the show.

Thankfully they limited him to a one or two word reply, so he couldn't contradict himself too much.

[robertross]

Here's a thought for the thread, as it 'could' be considered related:

What are the chances that something could exist in an asteroid that may not be desireable to have here on the Earth (thinking of the movie Andromeda Strain).

Obviously if they perform some sort of high temperature extraction process, that 'could' be effective in killing any organisms that might be tagging along. And for that matter, anything that tags along FROM the Earth and gets irradiated, and then returns in some mutated form, could pose a hazard.

Again, just food for thought, nothing that would require serious consideration at this stage.

[ChefPat]

What would the most cost-effective way of getting the metals down to Earth?

An Ablative Ceramic Heat Shield made from Asteroid materials should be no problem compared to the actual mining of an Asteroid.

[ChefPat]

Here's a thought for the thread, as it 'could' be considered related:

What are the chances that something could exist in an asteroid that may not be desireable to have here on the Earth (thinking of the movie Andromeda Strain).

Obviously if they perform some sort of high temperature extraction process, that 'could' be effective in killing any organisms that might be tagging along. And for that matter, anything that tags along FROM the Earth and gets irradiated, and then returns in some mutated form, could pose a hazard.

Again, just food for thought, nothing that would require serious consideration at this stage.

Party Pooper.

[Proponent]

Here's a thought for the thread, as it 'could' be considered related:

What are the chances that something could exist in an asteroid that may not be desireable to have here on the Earth (thinking of the movie Andromeda Strain).

Obviously if they perform some sort of high temperature extraction process, that 'could' be effective in killing any organisms that might be tagging along. And for that matter, anything that tags along FROM the Earth and gets irradiated, and then returns in some mutated form, could pose a hazard.

Again, just food for thought, nothing that would require serious consideration at this stage.

Even if the intention is to heat all material gathered to a very high temperature, it's likely that the spacecraft will accumulate bits of asteroidal dust that have not been heated.

[Robotbeat]

Here's a thought for the thread, as it 'could' be considered related:

What are the chances that something could exist in an asteroid that may not be desireable to have here on the Earth (thinking of the movie Andromeda Strain).

Obviously if they perform some sort of high temperature extraction process, that 'could' be effective in killing any organisms that might be tagging along. And for that matter, anything that tags along FROM the Earth and gets irradiated, and then returns in some mutated form, could pose a hazard.

Again, just food for thought, nothing that would require serious consideration at this stage.

Even if the intention is to heat all material gathered to a very high temperature, it's likely that the spacecraft will accumulate bits of asteroidal dust that have not been heated.

Earth is hit with tons of asteroidal material every year. And the larger pieces aren't necessarily sterilized on the inside. If the asteroids were strewn with Andromeda Strain, we'd already have had it, several times throughout history. (Heck, perhaps that's exactly what we're descended from.)

[Proponent]

What I'm saying is that even with an on-board heating cycle, it's inevitable that some uncooked asteroid dust will be brought to earth.  I agree that meteors have been doing that for years, so it shouldn't be a big deal.  Whether policy-makers will take that view, however, remains an open question.

[Dalhousie]

Desalination is pretty widely used in the Middle East and North Africa.

Seawater is 96.5% water and desalinisation is only marginally economic.

[krytek]

What would the most cost-effective way of getting the metals down to Earth?

An Ablative Ceramic Heat Shield made from Asteroid materials should be no problem compared to the actual mining of an Asteroid.

I think it could be awesome if they could actually make stuff in situ and only then bring it back. Imagine the label "Made in space", you can't beat that 

[jded]

Even if the asteroid was entirely "dry", you could still send powdered asteroid through the focus of a solar furnace and use it as reaction mass.  Not terribly efficient due to the high molecular weight of the vapour plume, but solar energy is effectively free, and the reaction mass is otherwise almost worthless.  The big improvement in transit time over SEP would be worth it, in my opinion.

Hi, first post - not a very important thought, but still...

In case of a dry Fe/Ni asteroid, maybe railguns are worth looking into - wouldn't all the leftover Fe/Ni make a good material for projectiles? Of course the flyback vehicle would need a lot of solar power, big capacitors and the in-situ made projectiles would all need to hold to standard shape and composition pretty closely...

[Warren Platts]

If you are going to engage in conspiracy theories, you might want to consider that the swarm of small telescopes to be launched into orbit might instead be a 24 hour monitoring system for Homeland Security to watch you day and night.

Would the swarm have enough resolution to differentiate which finger I just went outside and raised?  Or do I need to wait ten years and go outside and try again?

You won't have to wait long (nextbigfuture.com):

Planetary Resources will be putting up hundreds of inexpensive space telescopes with 9 inch mirrors, 2 meter resolution and sub-arcsecond pointing. The passive constellation method for boosting image resolution could achieve centimeter resolution.

Thanks for the article(s) nano!

As for the size of the market, there is this and this as well:

High-Resolution Optical Data

Sales of commercial data reached $1.3 billion in 2010 and continue to grow strongly. The U.S. government remains by far the largest consumer of commercial EO data, primarily for defense purposes through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Following consolidation in the U.S. industry, the industry has grown strongly—by a 23 percent compound annual growth rate during the last five years—largely in response to growing requirements for defense applications. Furthermore, the private sector is showing signs of increased development, particularly for location-based applications.

In total, 83 percent of all commercial data sales are from optical solutions. The remaining 17 percent come from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data solutions. Somewhat unsurprisingly, sub-1-meter-resolution datasets represent the bulk of data sales, such as data provided by U.S.-based operators DigitalGlobe and GeoEye. Because the U.S. Department of Defense is the key customer for image intelligence applications, customers show a clear preference for high resolutions and higher accuracy data sources.

For those who like differential equations, here is a fat pdf for you that explains the theory that PRI will be using but did not mention at the presser:

http://planetimager.com/docs/Orbiting-Constellations.pdf

[HappyMartian]

  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--

21 Lutetia
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_Lutetia#Composition
"Lutetia has irregular shape and is heavily cratered with the largest impact crater reaching 45 km in diameter. The surface is geologically heterogeneous and is intersected by system of groves and scarps, which are thought to be fractures. It has a high average density meaning that it is made of metal rich rock."

And, "The Rosetta flyby demonstrated that the mass of Lutetia is (1.700 ± 0.017)×1018 kg,[3] smaller than the pre-flyby estimate of 2.57×1018 kg.[13] It has one of the highest densities seen before in asteroids at 3.4 ± 0.3 g/cm3.[2] Taking into account possible porosity of 10–15%, the bulk density of Lutetia exceeds that of a typical stony meteorite."

And, "Together with the high density of Lutetia these results indicate that it is either made of the enstatite chondrite material or may be related to metal-rich and water-poor carbonaceous chondrite of classes like CB, CH, or CR."


Compare 21 Lutetia to:


16 Psyche
At: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche
"16 Psyche (play /ˈsaɪkiː/ SY-kee;[5][5] Greek: Ψυχή)[5] is one of the ten most massive main-belt asteroids. It is over 200 kilometers in diameter and contains a little less than 1% of the mass of the entire asteroid belt. It is the most massive metallic M-type asteroid."

And, "Radar observations indicate a fairly pure iron–nickel composition."

And, "Psyche appears to be a genuine case of an exposed metallic core from a larger differentiated parent body. Unlike some other M-type asteroids, Psyche shows no sign of the presence of water or water-bearing minerals on its surface, consistent with its interpretation as a metallic body."


Expensive mining operations tend to do very long-term planning for extracting and transporting valuable resources. And if you are seriously going to mine a large asteroid for a very long period of time, it might make a lot of sense to bring a powerful catapult to that asteroid. And yes, we are beginning to build powerful catapults. 

"The EMALS is being developed by General Atomics for the U.S. Navy's newest Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carriers."
And, "The EMALS' 300-foot (91 m) LIM will accelerate a 100,000-pound (45,000 kg) aircraft to 130 knots (240 km/h)."
And, "EMALS' energy-storage subsystem draws power from the ship and stores it kinetically on rotors of four disk alternators.[4] Each rotor can store more than 100 megajoules, and can be recharged within 45 seconds of a launch, faster than steam catapults."
From: Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System
At: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_Aircraft_Launch_System   


Both 16 Psyche and 21 Lutetia should be checked out very closely by all those folks who might want to do some long-term asteroid mining.