Asteroid mining firm set to deploy its first satellite - Polidicks

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;47674226]Sorta putting this in perspective: Small meteorites can sell upwards of $150 if they are made of iron. I still have this little fella' I found in Arizona next to me: [t]http://i.imgur.com/2vjWpcG.jpg[/t] I have yet to get it appraised, but I'm hoping for the best. [editline]6th May 2015[/editline] IIRC, one asteroid was calculated to have enough iron to suit every industry on Earth for the next three hundred or so years. Not only that, one mineral is up there that we really fucking need down here... Gold.[/QUOTE] Forget the fucking Gold man, can you imagine what it would be like if we started finding Platinum and other rare earth shit?

[QUOTE=ironman17;47673111]Yeah man, all those rare earths we need for advanced computers and whatnot. If we want to build a ton of oracles like our good friend Watson, we need those minerals.[/QUOTE] Access to more readily available rare-earth materials (that we didn't need to destroy the landscape to acquire on top of that) will have huge implications on anything that uses them. Things that were impractical due to their scarcity/cost will be viable, which is awesome.

Could we just force asteroids to crash in some middle of nowhere desert and then harvest the crater? Good luck not sounding criminally insane proposing that, though.

[QUOTE=OvB;47674640]Could we just force asteroids to crash in some middle of nowhere desert and then harvest the crater? Good luck not sounding criminally insane proposing that, though.[/QUOTE] That would require us to decelerate an asteroid, which I'll assume is a fair bit harder than nudging it into orbit. Plus asteroids have no means of slowing themselves down in our atmosphere other than air friction/density, and the immense temperatures and stresses of re-entry means that they could break up and land where-ever the fuck they want. Plus even deserts harbor wildlife, so there's environments repercussions as well, not to mention the fuck-huge crater and dust-cloud it would kick up which would cause further damage, and that's if it [i]doesn't[/i] utterly destroy where-ever it happens to land. [editline]6th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Rapscallion92;47674470]Forget the fucking Gold man, can you imagine what it would be like if we started finding Platinum and other rare earth shit?[/QUOTE] Palladium is also a very rare and useful metal, though it's also commonly found with platinum so same diff either way.

The misconception about mining asteroids in space is that people believe that we are mining for mostly rare earth metals. Technically, once we start mining, the rare earth metals would be pretty valuable, but after a few decades or so, those rare earth metals are actually going to be byproducts while the most valuable stuff will probably be iron, carbon, ice, and other regular metals that could be used in space.

[QUOTE=Bobv2;47672664]Is this the average asteroid or just the best prospects? I'd imagine some asteroids would be really small and hardly worth harvesting.[/QUOTE] Asteroids are mostly full of various minerals. If memory serves every asteroid is full of metallic elements of varying types. [editline]7th May 2015[/editline] Honestly I'm surprised we haven't pulled asteroids back to earth already. It doesn't seem THAT hard. Build a probe or small satellite designed to fly to the asteroid belt, land on a suitable asteroid, attach to it with a couple of drills that bore into the asteroid and secure the probe to it, then fly it back to earth. Sure it might take a while, couple of years right? But it's worth it. Set the asteroid on a high earth orbit out of the way of everything else, then send up a crew to start cutting it up and bringing the pieces back to earth. [editline]7th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=daylightbeast;47673623]I know quite a lot about this area (wrote an dissertation on it). It is quite a deceiving fact, you can find mass's of platinum group metals (more than has ever been mined in the history of earth) on on 500m diameter asteroid. However this would obviously crash the prices.[/QUOTE] Which is why a smart entrepreneur would either A) Only use the elements to build things and sell the product B) "trickle" the elements into the market slowly, keeping the majority of the material as a surplus Or better yet do both.

[QUOTE=OvB;47674640]Could we just force asteroids to crash in some middle of nowhere desert and then harvest the crater? Good luck not sounding criminally insane proposing that, though.[/QUOTE] Might be easier to actually put one into orbit, then send shuttles up and back to mine it. [editline]asdf[/editline] Oh I know we could slam it into the moon then harvest it with various space missions. [editline]asdf[/editline] This is how we unwittingly end ourselves isn't it?

[QUOTE=OvB;47674640]Could we just force asteroids to crash in some middle of nowhere desert and then harvest the crater? Good luck not sounding criminally insane proposing that, though.[/QUOTE] Anything small enough to not fuck up huge amounts of shit would either burn up in entry or not be worth it Anything large enough to be worth it would cause irreparable damage to local ecosystems and possibly cause a natural disaster to kick off (triggering an earthquake or tsunami for example) Also good luck getting any country to agree to "Hey guys can we crash an asteroid into your land?" [editline]7th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Naelstrom;47675903]Might be easier to actually put one into orbit, then send shuttles up and back to mine it. [editline]asdf[/editline] Oh I know we could slam it into the moon then harvest it with various space missions.[/QUOTE] Yeah, actually that's not a bad idea. There's not much risk of damaging anything by crashing asteroids into the moon, and it wouldn't be that hard to set up a semi-permanent mining base there with enough capital. The only problem I could see arising, though, is the whole "No one owns the space" treaty thing we have. I could imagine SOMEONE having a problem with a company crashing asteroids into the moon to mine them.

[QUOTE=Swebonny;47673847]Hah yeah, they were talking about the Earth being too damn bright. But I think they'll fix it before the launch.[/QUOTE] What? No! I don't want them to dim the earth! [editline]7th May 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=OvB;47674640]Could we just force asteroids to crash in some middle of nowhere desert and then harvest the crater? Good luck not sounding criminally insane proposing that, though.[/QUOTE] You'd have to decelerate it which requires lots of fuel and lots of accuracy. :v: I can imagine the news report already: "Contact with probe lost while decelerating asteroid, scientists have no idea where it will hit"

we're at the point in history where we decide which sci-fi video game to follow

This is pretty damn cool. They ought to do a joint venture with SpaceX, would probably speed things up etc.

[QUOTE=SIRIUS;47676098]we're at the point in history where we decide which sci-fi video game to follow[/QUOTE] Mass Effect, minus the reapers, please

I wonder how this will affect precious metals. For thousands of years, gold has been valuable because it's rare. You can plow up an entire field and only end up with one brick worth of gold. But now, [I]supposedly[/I], they could just crush and random asteroid and process it down to it's raw elements. Also, I wonder how this will affect the economy in general. The government always wants economic growth, but infinite growth is impossible when confined to Earth. But space is relatively infinite to mankind, so maybe we will have a future where hundreds of trillions of humans live in space. Trillions, hows that for economic growth?

[QUOTE=OvB;47674640]Could we just force asteroids to crash in some middle of nowhere desert and then harvest the crater? Good luck not sounding criminally insane proposing that, though.[/QUOTE] No government would allow this.

[QUOTE=Satane;47676412]They'd probably make a machine that ejects parts of the asteroid as means of propulsion.[/QUOTE] Great idea! So now there are two pieces of rock hurtling towards the Earth and one of them is going even FASTER

as soon as they start this up they have to kickstart mining 241 Germania, that's easily one of the richest strikes up there that is known of at present.

Time to buy into this company. Maybe in 50 years it would be the next standard oil

As a miner, i have alway dreamed to mine in space. Guess ill be dead before anyway. Working at niobec feels like being in a different world, over 2000ft deep and more or less 40km of tunnel.

They do internship programs with my university and I've been trying to meet with a grad student who interned with them to try to weasel my way in I'd probably faint on the spot if I got any kind of internship with these guys. They sorta get the top picks though and I'm anything but :v

Pretty sure this is illegal under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.