Prospecting the Solar System

[_Augustus_]

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

Planetary Resources, if I recall correctly, put a cubesat payload onto an Antares rocket and, lucky for them, it exploded. Then they had to try again by launching it on a Falcon 9 (which was more successful, I think).

Yep. Unfortunately, they've been completely silent since then.

[Stargate525]

It's going to be terrible for the first company to do it; there are asteroids that, if they're even partially made of what we think they are, will utterly crash the rare earths market. Iridium will, for a time, be as cheap as copper.

Only way to keep making money is to cartelize it and release it a little at a time. That won't go over well with the public. I honestly think we'll need to have a permanent presence on a different system body for it to become viable; cheaper to mine the asteroid, drop the ore near the colony, refine, and build whatever, than ship the finished goods out of Earth's gravity well.

[todofwar]

15 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

It's going to be terrible for the first company to do it; there are asteroids that, if they're even partially made of what we think they are, will utterly crash the rare earths market. Iridium will, for a time, be as cheap as copper.

Only way to keep making money is to cartelize it and release it a little at a time. That won't go over well with the public. I honestly think we'll need to have a permanent presence on a different system body for it to become viable; cheaper to mine the asteroid, drop the ore near the colony, refine, and build whatever, than ship the finished goods out of Earth's gravity well.

I think the prohibitive costs of mining asteroids will work well enough to prevent the rare metal market from crashing. You get a few tons of iridium let's say, that's allot sure, but you would sell it high enough to recoup costs which would be only a bit cheaper. Also, increasing supply will lead to an increase in uses for it. Trust me, every chemist I know hates working with earth abundant metals, the rarer ones do everything much better. If you told me that I could have unlimited iridium, I would find all kinds of uses for it.

[Bill Phil]

28 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

It's going to be terrible for the first company to do it; there are asteroids that, if they're even partially made of what we think they are, will utterly crash the rare earths market. Iridium will, for a time, be as cheap as copper.

Only way to keep making money is to cartelize it and release it a little at a time. That won't go over well with the public. I honestly think we'll need to have a permanent presence on a different system body for it to become viable; cheaper to mine the asteroid, drop the ore near the colony, refine, and build whatever, than ship the finished goods out of Earth's gravity well.

I suspect that the resources from mining asteroids won't get to Earth, at least for a while. Rather, they would mostly be used in space.

[Montieth]

Getting rare and expensive metals cheaply will be a boon for technology and development. Aluminum used to be more expensive than gold. Now, due to refining techniques that were not around until electric arc furnaces, aluminum is used in everything, imagine large aircraft without aluminum....

Edited October 9, 2016 by Montieth

[Thor Wotansen]

Like others have said, most material mined from asteroids will most likely be used for construction on other planetary bodies or in space.  Just think how cheap space travel will become when the only thing we need to bring from Earth is people.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Thor Wotansen said:

Like others have said, most material mined from asteroids will most likely be used for construction on other planetary bodies or in space.  Just think how cheap space travel will become when the only thing we need to bring from Earth is people.

Yes, the first thing is water for fuel and life support. Second is materials just shielding is useful. Think sandbags. next structural stuff like steel and aluminium. 
Extraplanetary launchpads and OSE workshop captures this well but you should need seeds from with stuff you could not make and the parts are heavier, however if you launch from Pol that is not an major issue  One lesson learned just from KIS, its no junk outside of Kerbin SOI, just resources. 
 

[Stargate525]

16 hours ago, todofwar said:

I think the prohibitive costs of mining asteroids will work well enough to prevent the rare metal market from crashing. You get a few tons of iridium let's say, that's allot sure, but you would sell it high enough to recoup costs which would be only a bit cheaper. Also, increasing supply will lead to an increase in uses for it. Trust me, every chemist I know hates working with earth abundant metals, the rarer ones do everything much better. If you told me that I could have unlimited iridium, I would find all kinds of uses for it.

If we assume 'a few tons' of iridium is 3, the market value for that is currently 56 million dollars. If the asteroid miner is reusable (ie, redirects, then moves to a different target, etc.), you can recoup that quickly.

http://www.asterank.com/ has a listing of asteroids, and their estimated value in raw materials. There are hundreds that would, if mined, net hundreds of trillions of dollars in material.

[Diche Bach]

On 10/9/2016 at 7:00 PM, Stargate525 said:

If we assume 'a few tons' of iridium is 3, the market value for that is currently 56 million dollars. If the asteroid miner is reusable (ie, redirects, then moves to a different target, etc.), you can recoup that quickly.

http://www.asterank.com/ has a listing of asteroids, and their estimated value in raw materials. There are hundreds that would, if mined, net hundreds of trillions of dollars in material.

Holy crap! The database I was imagining Marcus Perrson and Elon Musk should team up to collect and then sell off is already public!? 

Wow, even if that data is just totally seat of the pants, that is pretty breath-taking. Com'n Elon! Surely you'd rather get filthy rich AND lead humanity into a headlong rush to space instead of just dying on Mars for nothing but a good visa!?

Somebody is going to figure out how to grab some of that loot and then you will see some serious action . . . every nation without enough scientists to make a bottle rocket and every entrepreneur with two-bits to rub together will be tripping all over themselves to get up there and grab their piece of the pie . . . shortly after that there will be some violence I'm sure, though hopefully everyone will have the good sense not to get too carried away and let the bureacrats/lawyers step in to sort out "who owns what . . ."

Basically, until there "is" something to fight over, space is irrelevant. By putting that in quotes I mean two things: 1. I don't think any of it is worth "fighting over," but it is is perceived as of value then someone will; 2. There almost assuredly ARE things of value up there, but it isn't in the minds of those who have the avarice, power and ambition to grab it yet, ipso facto there is not as yet something to fight over . . .

[DerekL1963]

On 10/9/2016 at 4:00 PM, Stargate525 said:

http://www.asterank.com/ has a listing of asteroids, and their estimated value in raw materials. There are hundreds that would, if mined, net hundreds of trillions of dollars in material.

Mined and processed and returned to earth (in significant quantities).  The sticking point is that of the three, we have no idea how to do the first two - and machinery for doing so tends to very large and very heavy.

[Diche Bach]

Just now, DerekL1963 said:

Mined and processed and returned to earth (in significant quantities).  The sticking point is that of the three, we have no idea how to do the first two - and machinery for doing so tends to very large and very heavy.

Definitely all valid points. But then we have seemingly confused multi-millionaires rambling on about sending people to Mars for no apparent reason than bragging rights, and the technological obstacles there are AT LEAST a non-negative product of the obstacles involved in "asteroid mining" (setting aside hair-brained suicide missions) times some multiplicand. Concocting space schemes that face numerous financial and technical obstacles for no reason other than the romantic notion of exploring is one thing; concocting similar schemes that stand to make lots of money is another thing!

In sum, if you want the bragging rights of putting people on Mars, wouldn't it be wise to master asteroid mining first? You know, figure out all the gizmos, build up a body of experts who can run the missions/build the stuff, AND make enough cash to fund the space program(s) at a rate 5 times what they currently "earn" for the next 100 years?

Is "mining" just not sexy enough? Does it just not push the right buttons in the minds of posh Gen-Xer and Millenial Pajama-Person Wannabes?

There was a bumper sticker on the door of one of my Geology profs "If it can't be grown, then it must be mined." Mining is badass. Mining is cool. Mining in space is extra badass and cool. Why can't the Elon's and any other over-the-top space mogul types get a buzz going about mining asteroids instead of all this stupid "Go to Mars" crap!? What do you got on Mars? Rusted dirt that is what! and way more gravity to deal with too!

Ha, the funny thing about those $ estimates . . . seems the highest net profit estimate is one called Ryugu . . . $95 bn . . . cannot even make a dent in the U.S. Federal Debt! 

[DerekL1963]

13 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

In sum, if you want the bragging rights of putting people on Mars, wouldn't it be wise to master asteroid mining first?

That would be about as wise as mastering woodcarving before taking on the Daytona 500.  The two things are completely unrelated.

[Diche Bach]

Just now, DerekL1963 said:

That would be about as wise as mastering woodcarving before taking on the Daytona 500.  The two things are completely unrelated.

It is my understanding that, in order for there to be any meaningful visitation of Mars (or any extraterrestrial body including the Moon) by humans in situ resource extraction/processing/utilization (including the use of local materials to fabricate gas and soil substrates which can sustain life . . .) is requisite, no?

At the time the Apollo missions were quite meaningful, but essentially repeating the same mission profile to either the Moon or any other body doesn't strike me as "meaningful" any longer.

How do you see mining asteroids and sending humans to Mars as being so totally different?

[DerekL1963]

7 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

How do you see mining asteroids and sending humans to Mars as being so totally different?

0.o  Let's see...  Well, there's gravity.  And atmosphere.  And they're starting with completely different raw materials in search of complete different bulk products.  And the presence of humans to supervise and perform preventative and corrective maintenance.  And...

How are they not totally different?

[Diche Bach]

Just now, DerekL1963 said:

0.o  Let's see...  Well, there's gravity.  And atmosphere.  And they're starting with completely different raw materials in search of complete different bulk products.  And the presence of humans to supervise and perform preventative and corrective maintenance.  And...

How are they not totally different?

Well, they are both beyond the Earth's SOI, which is supposedly "half way to anywhere."

I'm honestly having a bit of trouble understanding your point. It almost seems as if you are suggesting that, launching a rocket versus launching a rocket with a gerbil in it, versus launching a rocket with a human in it, versus launching a Mercury rocket, versus launching Gemini rocket, versus launching an Apollo rocket, versus launching any other space craft are all completely unrelated to one another and the technology/procedures discontiguous?

[Stargate525]

1 hour ago, DerekL1963 said:

Mined and processed and returned to earth (in significant quantities).  The sticking point is that of the three, we have no idea how to do the first two - and machinery for doing so tends to very large and very heavy.

I suspect that the very first 'mining' operations are going to involve targeted impacts of the meteor (either in whole or in parts) onto designated zones. The resulting debris is then mined out and smelted as normal, and the process is repeated.

[DerekL1963]

8 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

I'm honestly having a bit of trouble understanding your point.

*points at my apple*  That's an apple.  *points at your orange*  That's an orange.

Seriously, you don't grasp that two very different operations are the in fact two very different operations?  What's hard to understand?

[Diche Bach]

Seems Planetary Resources, Inc.is still alive and kicking. The sat which was destroyed in the accident a few years back was "replaced" and is now up there doing its thing. Only 60 employees, but a seemingly impressive list of investors, including Bechtel. Also seems like a pretty reasonable "low profile/low hype" business model. Pretty cool

1 minute ago, DerekL1963 said:

*points at my apple*  That's an apple.  *points at your orange*  That's an orange.

Seriously, you don't grasp that two very different operations are the in fact two very different operations?  What's hard to understand?

Oh sure, I get it now that you've clarified it 

Launching a robot to rendezvous with an asteroid and extract stuff from it so as to build a "mining base" is completely different than launching a robot to rendezvous with Mars, land, and extract stuff from it so as to build a "mining base."

[DerekL1963]

5 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Launching a robot to rendezvous with an asteroid and extract stuff from it so as to build a "mining base" is completely different than launching a robot to rendezvous with Mars, land, and extract stuff from it so as to build a "mining base."

No offense, but did you even read the list of differences I posted?  In extremely abstracted (to the point of meaninglessness) comparisons, yeah, they seem the same.  But in actual engineering, those differences matter, they matter a great deal.

This is the Science and Spaceflight forum, for silly word games I recommend the Forum Games forum.

[Diche Bach]

Just now, DerekL1963 said:

No offense, but did you even read the list of differences I posted?  In extremely abstracted (to the point of meaninglessness) comparisons, yeah, they seem the same.  But in actual engineering, those differences matter, they matter a great deal.

This is the Science and Spaceflight forum, for silly word games I recommend the Forum Games forum.

Is this what you mean?

32 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

0.o  Let's see...  Well, there's gravity.  And atmosphere.  And they're starting with completely different raw materials in search of complete different bulk products.  And the presence of humans to supervise and perform preventative and corrective maintenance.  And...

How are they not totally different?

My point is: it seems silly to spend billions of dollars to send people to Mars, unless you have the technology to:

A. send robots to Mars years in advance, which

B. Mine materials from Mars and then,

C. Build factories on Mars ("mining base") so that when people arrive on Mars they already have
D. Structures, some tools, fuel, air, soil, water, maybe even some crops growing and most importantly plenty of shielded habitation with enough energy stored up to keep it environmentally stable and to sustain life for several years (nothing worse than getting stuck on Mars by virtue of a miscalculation/accident and having a dozen explorers starve/freeze to death . . .)

I can see considerable overlap between the technologies and procedures of "Mining Asteroids" and "Mission to Mars" right up through about half of point (D). Depending on if humans are ever going to go to the asteroid, then the whole bit about life support, soil, atmosphere, etc., can be left out.

Yes as you point out Mars has more gravity than even the largest asteroid and also has an atmosphere, something no asteroid has.

However, landing things on large bodies and landing things through atmospheres are fairly well matured areas of space science eh? Thus, the idea I had in my social scientists word-game mind was: the requisite technologies/procedures which have yet to be mastered, much less perfected overlap sufficiently between serious long-term human visitation of Mars and asteroid-mining that it makes sense to see the latter as the higher priority for any sensible investor/entrepreneur/visionary.

Assuredly there are minerals on Mars, and perhaps even anomalously valuable ones which are easy to access. However, I suspect that most of what you will find in abundance on the surface is pretty common and no more "densely" packed than on Earth. Long-term mining on Mars (as well as tourism and scientific development) _would_ seem to be promising commercial ventures. But before any of that can make money, some basic infrastructure needs to be in place, meaning automated mining robots.

Automated mining robots are presumably abig part of what "mining asteroids" is going to amount to, and for whatever reasons, the forces of nature and stochastics have (supposedly) seen fit to pack relatively large quantities of rare minerals into some asteroids. Thus, mining asteroids would seem to be a more promising profitable venture than any other prospective profitable venture in space (apart from just carrying up loads of stuff to the ISS, which is not going to last forever, unless the enterprise of the ISS expands) and the mining/refining/automated manufacturing technologies (not to mention the launch, navigation, and many other supporting technologies) would seem to overlap considerably with the "entry level" technologies requisite for "Mission to Mars."

 

[todofwar]

On Sunday, October 09, 2016 at 7:00 PM, Stargate525 said:

If we assume 'a few tons' of iridium is 3, the market value for that is currently 56 million dollars. If the asteroid miner is reusable (ie, redirects, then moves to a different target, etc.), you can recoup that quickly.

http://www.asterank.com/ has a listing of asteroids, and their estimated value in raw materials. There are hundreds that would, if mined, net hundreds of trillions of dollars in material.

Right, and to get a profit you would probably have to sell all that at close to 56 million dollars. Not saying the profit isn't there, just that you won't be crashing the price anytime soon. 

[Stargate525]

31 minutes ago, todofwar said:

Right, and to get a profit you would probably have to sell all that at close to 56 million dollars. Not saying the profit isn't there, just that you won't be crashing the price anytime soon. 

Dumping 3 tons of iridium on the market is almost a third of the entire planet's production. the sheer AMOUNT of it will crash the market, or at the very least make it dip significantly.

[todofwar]

1 minute ago, Stargate525 said:

Dumping 3 tons of iridium on the market is almost a third of the entire planet's production. the sheer AMOUNT of it will crash the market, or at the very least make it dip significantly.

You wouldn't just dump it though, you would sell at a price that recouped losses with reasonable profits factored in. You would have the ability to corner the market and practically set your own price. Other manufacturers may go out of business, but if you managed to get it that much cheaper it would obviously invite competition. And that results in cheaper access to space. So, win.

[DerekL1963]

17 minutes ago, todofwar said:

You wouldn't just dump it though, you would sell at a price that recouped losses with reasonable profits factored in.

That's easy to say, more difficult to do, especially if you're running on borrowed money and have to pay interest.  And you have to recoup not only the direct costs and overhead, but also repay the capital costs before you can start turning a profit.

And that's the big problem right now - we simply don't have the information to assign reasonably reliable values to any of those.

[Diche Bach]

51 minutes ago, todofwar said:

You wouldn't just dump it though, you would sell at a price that recouped losses with reasonable profits factored in. You would have the ability to corner the market and practically set your own price. Other manufacturers may go out of business, but if you managed to get it that much cheaper it would obviously invite competition. And that results in cheaper access to space. So, win.

This is the essence of my interest in this topic, and if anyone either read the original post, or goes back and tries to make sense of it this may be clear.

Right now, apart from communications satelllites (where costs have apparently gone higher for infrastructure and capital investments, despite the fact the services that infrastructure provides have got cheaper) "space does not make money" for anyone, other than the small fraction of humanity who have jobs in space stuff. The only economically useful things "space" is good for seem to be: 1. satellite services (primarily data transmission, but remote sensing too I suppose); 2. science, which does have some profitability to it as a result of patents, marketing, etc.

Guys like Elon supposedly have this "vision" to make an audacious impact that accelerates humanity into full-fledged "spacefaring species" status. That is a laudable goal, but I don't think putting the cart before the horse--or rather putting manned-expeditions to Mars before the mastery of robotic mining armies--makes much sense. No matter how romantic any of us are about space, our species is never going to "get out there" in any appreciable numbers based simply on "romantic notions." There have to be pragmatic reasons for the huge investments and risks to be taken, and there have to be successes that will prompt competition for a piece of that risk/reward deal. This is the reason any species expands into new niches and it is the reason we humans have colonized the entire planet. Space will be no different, no matter how appealing Elon's vision might be. I'd bet on the quiet engineering firms like Planetary Resources who are actually trying to figure out how to make money from stuff out there. They are the real heroes because once they prove it can be done, throngs will be following them and they will have done what Elon claims he wants to do.