These asteroid miners, any short term business plan?

[KelvinZero]

My kneejerk reaction, and I guess many share it, is that anyone investing in asteroid mining today will have a very long wait before they get a payout from platinum sold on earth, or even the sale of propellant to a depot in earth orbit.

On the other hand there are two companies with some rich backers who presumably know something about money, and they both seem to be following a similar plan e.g. focusing on telescopes first.

Can anyone see a shorter term, more plausible business plan behind these startups?

Is for example there going to be a way that they can start making money selling the information from these small telescopes? Or could small ion powered probes be about to become so absurdly cheap that they fit into a companies PR budget? Could they be a way of showing off technology they have a good business case for developing anyway?

[Elmar Moelzer]

My kneejerk reaction, and I guess many share it, is that anyone investing in asteroid mining today will have a very long wait before they get a payout from platinum sold on earth, or even the sale of propellant to a depot in earth orbit.

On the other hand there are two companies with some rich backers who presumably know something about money, and they both seem to be following a similar plan e.g. focusing on telescopes first.

Can anyone see a shorter term, more plausible business plan behind these startups?

Is for example there going to be a way that they can start making money selling the information from these small telescopes? Or could small ion powered probes be about to become so absurdly cheap that they fit into a companies PR budget? Could they be a way of showing off technology they have a good business case for developing anyway?

From what I have seen in the past 35+ years, there is nothing related to space that is short term

[WiresMN]

PR has stated that they plan to sell time on the Akrid 100's for both space and earth observation. I believe the also plan to sell the telescopes as well. PR has claimed that they are already profitable. I suspect the ate counting their NASA contract in the P&L.

[Robotbeat]

My kneejerk reaction, and I guess many share it, is that anyone investing in asteroid mining today will have a very long wait before they get a payout from platinum sold on earth, or even the sale of propellant to a depot in earth orbit.

On the other hand there are two companies with some rich backers who presumably know something about money, and they both seem to be following a similar plan e.g. focusing on telescopes first.

Can anyone see a shorter term, more plausible business plan behind these startups?

Is for example there going to be a way that they can start making money selling the information from these small telescopes? Or could small ion powered probes be about to become so absurdly cheap that they fit into a companies PR budget? Could they be a way of showing off technology they have a good business case for developing anyway?

In the case of Planetary Resources, the answer to your question is: Of course! They're already getting a (tiny) grant (SBIR or somesuch) to develop deep space laser communication. PR also explicitly talked about selling data and such to NASA. I think both companies (most explicitly Deep Space Industries) talked about selling samples to the scientific and collector markets. PR is intending to use their microsats to do cheap Earth imagery, as well.

PR is talking about a Kickstarter campaign where they "sell" (or, rather, use as Kickstarter rewards) the capability to take a directed-at-specific-spot-on-Earth (you choose) picture for about $100, which costs usually around $10k for a typical Earth imagery satellite. They've got other ideas, as well.

And this is where I think Planetary Resources has a significantly stronger case for sticking around long enough to be relevant: They have a LOT of short-term possibilities, whereas Deep Space seems primarily concerned with the quite long-term goals.

[WiresMN]

Both companies are going to be building their own laser communication network. They could/ may sell time on that to NASA or others. There is s nerd for more bandwidth out there.

[KelvinZero]

Could they close a business case on things like this though? Thats what Im looking for. Just as for spaceX, they have to be a functioning business independent of their ultimate dream.

How about this: could they be aiming to own the government funded asteroid planetary science business? Just by existing, would the government be forced to use them if it wants to gather information there?

Perhaps they foresee government interest in missions on the order of a billion dollars being performable by a swarm of probes each closer to a million dollars (not real numbers) so for the small price of one or a few of these probes, they effectively own the rights to a future project worth two or three orders of magnitude more.

[rklaehn]

My kneejerk reaction, and I guess many share it, is that anyone investing in asteroid mining today will have a very long wait before they get a payout from platinum sold on earth, or even the sale of propellant to a depot in earth orbit.

On the other hand there are two companies with some rich backers who presumably know something about money, and they both seem to be following a similar plan e.g. focusing on telescopes first.

Can anyone see a shorter term, more plausible business plan behind these startups?

Planetary resources are backed by some seriously rich people, so they don't have to make a profit anytime soon. They could just be an expensive hobby or long term investment of one of the backers. Kind of like blue origin.

Nevertheless there are many things that PR could do with even their first generation of satellites that would be profitable: they could build a cheap constellation of arkyd 100 for earth observation that would provide near real time coverage for google maps. How much is that worth, especially if your competitors can't offer anything comparable?

DSI don't have the same kind of backing, so they will have to find a way to make a profit with the first missions. We will see if they can pull it off. If they can somehow get the first mission funded I think selling sponsoring/data/asteroid material for subsequent missions would be viable. The difficult part is the funding the first missions, because selling sponsoring/data/asteroid material only works if you have a track record.

[WiresMN]

Planetary resources are backed by some seriously
rich people, so they don't have to make a profit
anytime soon. They could just be an expensive
hobby or long term investment of one of the
backers. Kind of like blue origin.

Chris  Lewicki has stated a few times that PR was setup to create profit from the start. They will be an information and services company long before they mine an asteroid.  So I agree that they will sell time on the telescopes. I also remember someone from PR saying that they may sell the 100's for earth or space observation. Can't find the quote right now.

edit to Chris Lewicki for clarity
 

[QuantumG]

Planetary resources are backed by some seriously rich people, so they don't have to make a profit anytime soon. They could just be an expensive hobby or long term investment of one of the backers. Kind of like blue origin.

Most of those rumors didn't pan out.

Until a startup company announces its funding and third parties confirm it, they're actually broke.

[Robotbeat]

Planetary resources are backed by some seriously rich people, so they don't have to make a profit anytime soon. They could just be an expensive hobby or long term investment of one of the backers. Kind of like blue origin.

Most of those rumors didn't pan out.

Until a startup company announces its funding and third parties confirm it, they're actually broke.

On the plus side, if they aren't spending any money (i.e. if they're running out of someone's basement or garage), they can continue indefinitely.