Another Sunday and another day to just kick back and enjoy the people around me….unless the world ends I will not be posting anything like the stuff I do during the week….take some time off and enjoy life…..and argue with my daughter and granddaughter…..cannot think of a better way to spend my day……
I have heard the next “Last Frontier” will be space and especially the minerals and stuff that is found there…..the first out there will make a fortune and become the stuff of SciFi novels and movies……(think the “Expanse”)…….
News this past week makes the idea of space mining just a little more like reality….
A prospective asteroid mining company has taken a major step towards beginning operations in the next 10 years. Deep Space Industries (DSI) has announced plans to launch a demonstration spacecraft to test some of the technologies that will be needed to find and utilize asteroid material.
Now, asteroid mining is probably something that still feels like it’s far off in the future at the moment. But last week, DSI said that it will partner with Luxembourg (via their Space Resources initiative) to develop the various technologies needed to start asteroid mining. The first result of this partnership is a spacecraft called Prospector-X, which is a small vehicle that will be launched into low Earth orbit within a year.
Source: Asteroid Mining Just Moved A Step Closer To Being A Reality | IFLScience
If successful we just need to sit back and see who does what and why….will it be for the good of the planet or just another exercise in greed?
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
Yes,Star Wars!
🙂
NASA can’t even get into orbit anymore without hitching a ride from the Ruskies. Nobody has been to the moon in -uh- almost 50 years? Even the multi-billionaire “geniuses” running private space programs are struggling to break Earth’s atmosphere ….I think the chances of asteroid mining happening are about the same as the US getting Single Payer Healthcare…AND cutting the military budget in half!
Physically, this is a colossal undertaking. NASA takes years and spends billions on one-way tickets for little robots that skitter around the Martian surface using solar power. Mining requires much more powerful and complicated equipment. They have to drill deep into the surface, analyze minerals, and then collect them. Oh, yeah…and then take them home. This requires a more expensive & difficult 2 way trip. Just the additional weight of a mining mission will send the budget…..wait for it…..into orbit!
So, unless they already know of some asteroids that are made entirely out of gold & platinum, I can’t possibly see how this could ever be a profitable venture. Shit, the American coal mining industry is crumbling, even though there is an enormous demand for their product. The coal industry virtually owns local government and can operate as they please. (See: Mountaintop Removal) Yet the profit is not enough for the shareholders.
I believe that the landing and tests on that asteroid a couple of years ago showed that there are minerals and lots of them…
Yeah, unlike Earth which has no minerals and is impossible to get to anyway. The whole thing reeks of a “pump & dump” stock scheme to me. Hi-tech mining is the new “gold rush”…so to speak. Millions of suckers trek to the Yukon to find nothing. The only folks making money are the suckers selling the dream (& the equipment).
The resources used to get there, mine, & get back will outweigh whatever (ordinary minerals) they bring back. It’s a lot cheaper to just sit & wait for the asteroids to come to us. Any day now. Pleeeease!
“The only folks making money are the suckers selling the dream (& the equipment).”
Oops, that should have been…
“The only folks making money are the people selling the dream (& the equipment) to the suckers.”
Excess in GREED, of course. dru
dru,you have a very low opinion of humanity…grin
Penny, yup…grin. dru
The American way…