Asteroid Mining start-up company?

[Guest Adam]

ASTEROID MINING PLANS REVEALED BY PLANETARY RESOURCES, INC.

Expanding the resource base of humanity to include the solar system

 

Seattle, Wash. – April 24, 2012 – Planetary Resources, Inc. announced today its plan to mine Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) for raw materials, ranging from water to precious metals. Through the development of cost-effective exploration technologies, the company is poised to initiate prospecting missions targeting resource-rich asteroids that are easily accessible.

Resource extraction from asteroids will deliver multiple benefits to humanity and grow to be valued at tens of billions of dollars annually. The effort will tap into the high concentration of precious metals found on asteroids and provide a sustainable supply to the ever-growing population on Earth.

A single 500-meter platinum-rich asteroid contains the equivalent of all the Platinum Group Metals mined in history. “Many of the scarce metals and minerals on Earth are in near-infinite quantities in space. As access to these materials increases, not only will the cost of everything from microelectronics to energy storage be reduced, but new applications for these abundant elements will result in important and novel applications,” said Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc.

Additionally, water-rich NEAs will serve as “stepping stones” for deep space exploration, providing space-sourced fuel and water to orbiting depots. Accessing water resources in space will revolutionize exploration and make space travel dramatically more economical.

“Water is perhaps the most valuable resource in space. Accessing a water-rich asteroid will greatly enable the large-scale exploration of the solar system. In addition to supporting life, water will also be separated into oxygen and hydrogen for breathable air and rocket propellant,” said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc.

Of the approximately 9,000 known NEAs, there are more than 1,500 that are energetically as easy to reach as the Moon. The capability to characterize NEAs is on the critical path for Planetary Resources. To that end, the company has developed the first line in its family of deep-space prospecting spacecraft, the Arkyd-100 Series. The spacecraft will be used in low-Earth orbit and ultimately help prioritize the first several NEA targets for the company’s follow-on Arkyd-300 Series NEA swarm expeditions.

Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, said “Our mission is not only to expand the world’s resource base, but we want to increase people’s access to, and understanding of, our planet and solar system by developing capable and cost-efficient systems.”

“The promise of Planetary Resources is to apply commercial innovation to space exploration. They are developing cost-effective, production-line spacecraft that will visit near-Earth asteroids in rapid succession, increasing our scientific knowledge of these bodies and enabling the economic development of the resources they contain,” said Tom Jones, Ph.D., veteran NASA astronaut, planetary scientist and Planetary Resources, Inc. advisor.

Planetary Resources is financed by industry-launching visionaries, including Google CEO Larry Page and Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman of Hillwoodand The Perot Group, who are committed to expanding the world’s resource base so that humanity can continue to grow and prosper:

• Eric E. Schmidt, Ph.D., Executive Chairman of Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “The pursuit of resources drove the discovery of America and opened the West. The same drivers still hold true for opening the space frontier. Expanding the resource base for humanity is important for our future.”
  

• K. Ram Shriram, Founder of Sherpalo, Google Board of Directors founding member and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “I see the same potential in Planetary Resources as I did in the early days of Google.”
  

• Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “The commercialization of space began with communications satellites and is developing for human spaceflight. The next logical step is to begin the innovative development of resources from space. I’m proud to be part of this effort.”
  

The company’s advisors include film maker and explorer James Cameron; General T. Michael Moseley (Ret.); Sara Seager, Ph.D.; Mark Sykes, Ph.D.; and David Vaskevitch.

Founded in 2009 by Eric Anderson and Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Planetary Resources, Inc. is establishing a new paradigm for resource utilization that will bring the solar system within humanity’s economic sphere of influence by enabling low-cost robotic exploration and eventual commercial development of asteroids. For more information, please visit www.PlanetaryResources.com.

 

 

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Wow this is crazy, crazy, crazy. I don't believe this is happening. wowowowowowowowowowowow.

[tontonz1]

skipping cog neuro just to catch this!

[Guest Rambo]

just started streaming right now http://www.spacevidcast.com/live/

[Guest KY]

most idm 2013, duh

[Guest iep]

www.PlanetaryResources.com.

 

so it IS real. pretty fucking idm, yes.

[joshuatxuk]

whoops

 

My first thought as well.

[tontonz1]

sounds like the majority of the next decade will be concentrated on maintaining the archid(sp?) in space with robots and testing the reliability of opticomm (optical communication) for researching the best near-earth orbit asteroids. i'll highlight some points that I found interesting and definitely things to think about.

 

they highlighted that an ice meteor (forget the name of it was..chorite i think) had enough water to fuel all of the space programs in its entire history. so maybe they will use these meteors to jump from location to location. not entirely sure how they would go about synthesizing liquid hydrogen in space, because that sounds extremely dangerous and expensive.

 

another thing that was highlighted during Q&A was that they were focusing on mainly robotics to perform the research and extraction of resources because of the cost efficiency. however they will definitely need to consider making a team for on-site repairs as I'm sure much of the equipment will probably suffer damage from flying debris.

 

in terms of cost, they were talking about having a target goal of mission expenditures in the tens of millions of dollars, where as current space missions cost hundreds of millions and even upwards to billions. they were not exactly clear on how they would reduce cost except for the fact that the missions would be mainly robotic and the company will work relatively small to reduce labor cost. they even said that if you were looking for a job do not come to us simply because of that mico-managing philosophy.

 

they estimated that there were around 9,000 near-earth orbit asteroids, and about a few hundred of them were likely candidates for excavation. they want to reduce the pool down to 10-20 asteroids that will generate the most profit and will be the closest in proximity.

 

a small little blurb that was said was that they would also utilize the company for earth observations and possibly preventing asteroids that could collide with the earth.

 

i think a major concern would be potential collisions from other asteroids and how they could go about preventing it.

 

overall it sounds very promising but i think the main fear is that the company will tapout before they ever get to do the mining.

[Guest Benedict Cumberbatch]

increase GDP!

[Guest Gary C]

Supposedly signing up for the newsletter is in some way an application to be involved.

 

I guess they might have competitions much later, but of course it'll be real pilots, engineers and miners who actually get the jobs. Either way, if anyone's been saying that they're willing to be fired into merciless space and spend months at a time in a sardine tin, maybe it's your best chance.