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Commercial Asteroid Hunting [merged]


ozman

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Who would have thought that within a year, we'd have multiple, competing asteroid mining startups? Deep Space Industries, which will hold its official launch on Tuesday at Santa Monica's Museum of Flying, is the latest of several ambitious private companies to announce plans for the final frontier: in its case, to prospect near-Earth asteroids with an eye towards using materials in them to build a permanent presence in space. In 2015, it says it will begin sending unmanned "FireFly" spacecraft to explore asteroids that fly near Earth, followed by heavier "DragonFly" craft that will bring back samples from likely candidates between 2016 and 2020.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=dsi%20asteroid&source=newssearch&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCoQqQIoADAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2013%2F1%2F22%2F3901138%2Fdeep-space-industries-asteroid-mining-operation-revealed&ei=pVH-UMmzCMb3qQHPw4DABw&usg=AFQjCNHU_AsUD4e0vdbOz2qAUAEeKk2TZQ&bvm=bv.41248874,d.aWM

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Commercial Asteroid Hunters announce plans for new Robotic Exploration Fleet

World's First Fleet of Asteroid-Hunting Spacecraft Announced by Deep Space Industries.

Deep Space Industries announced today that it will send a fleet of asteroid-prospecting spacecraft out into the solar system to hunt for resources to accelerate space development to benefit Earth. These "FireFly" spacecraft utilize low-cost cubesat components and get discounted delivery to space by ride-sharing on the launch of larger communications satellites.

"This is the first commercial campaign to explore the small asteroids that pass by Earth," said Deep Space Chairman Rick Tumlinson (who signed up the world's first space tourist, led the team that took over the Mir space station, was a Founding Trustee of the X Prize, and Founded Orbital Outfitters, the world's first commercial space suit company.) "Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of our space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago."

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I just can't see it being economically viable with out current technology. Very ambitious but I want it to work.

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parking a processing station at the la grange point and useing magnetic feilds to catch the solar winds to "puff" out to the astoid feild is current state of the art ... getting the astroid back to the earth , and then to the la grange is the hard part . getting people to undertake this will easily be done.... building the return/reentry vehicals at the proccessing station , to get the proccessed material on the ground will need unknown technology .

this first step is likly going to be the hardest , the first companys will not likly be the end winners , what ever the plan , it will likly change 100 times befor the best solutions is found....

frankly speaking , the only sure thing that can be said , those who go this way , are the finest the human race has to offer ..

that perfect blend of hope and madness , adventure and dreamer , technology and jerry rig , bailing wire and magic .

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I just can't see it being economically viable with out current technology. Very ambitious but I want it to work.

... So bringing back valauble minerals which properties could be amazing at least... isnt economically viable ?! And it will work they are at the end unmanned vehicles which even more increases the chance of success. I already see Orbital sci. corp. drooling on income and discoveries. :)

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more important... no regulations , no taxes , no envirormental impact studys , no one telling you what is politicaly correct , no agency people to sweet talk to get blast furnace permits operational and then get ore up and running ... simplicity itself , you only have to think about how... not the paper work .

and the best part is... you do not have to worry about a blue tufted sparrow nesting in the heart of your plant... and shutting everything down .

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that's cool!but why is it always in like 2-4 years since they launch it though that kinda too long and slow for my personal taste the faster the better.better sooner than later i always say.that's just me speed counts and matters.but what kind of things are you guys going to mine from the asteroids like minerals and that kind of stuff right.

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that's cool though i wish they didn't take long to launch and arrive there!speed counts and fast results i like and love and prefer.what space industies are leading this mission(s)?

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This is badass its not like its a scenario of blowing a bunch of money to achieve mainly scientific research. They are companies, blow large amounts of money, which means they acknowledge they can make large amounts of money.

This is a model based on being self sufficient, not tax-payer dependent. I'm sure we all know this. But the possibilities that profit brings science can be just as beneficial.

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... So bringing back valauble minerals which properties could be amazing at least... isnt economically viable ?! And it will work they are at the end unmanned vehicles which even more increases the chance of success. I already see Orbital sci. corp. drooling on income and discoveries. :)

They're not aiming for 'amazing properties', it will just be a case of whether they can return enough of whatever material to make it profitable.

I just don't think we're there yet.

Having said that, I have no idea the value of what they'll be bringing back or the volumes required to sufficiently outweigh the costs.

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Funny there talking about using 3D printers for manufacturing. Shows a leap in manufacturing tech if it can be pulled off.

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I suppose if it was worth it I'd be behind it, but as far as I can tell there isn't much in asteroids that could be that worth it. Most of them are primarily nickel and iron, and in rarer cases chromium. Nothing too spectacular really. Its not like we're finding solid gold or platinum nuggets floating around or anything.

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i need to brake this into at least 5 topics

1) astroid proccessing 2) aquire and transport 3) sales and manufacturing 4) personel and emplyment 5) other subjects

1) parabolic reflectors aimed at the sun would not have to be very large to melt pretty much any rock found in space...

give me a parabloic reflector 500 meters in diameter with a gyro metric guidance system and the big problem is collecting the liquid metal in a centrafuge and spinning out the iron and silicone ... frankly , taking it to the moon after primary refinement sems more likly... zero gravity makes things hard to controll .

toroidal magnets made of glass tubing with yttrium , copper , carbon and oxygen film coated on the inside surface.... then etched so you have a thin electromagnet super conductor ring , 2 kilometers in diameter which makes a feild that effects the stream of particals of the solar wind that have a ion charge ( about 20% ) would use the " mary poppins " lifter to get out from the earths orbit... once you have attached a line onto a astroid ... aim the same 3 or 4 toroidal super conductor magnets at the largest magnet in the sky.... ( the sun ) ... and suck your way back to earth useing the very same solar wind as your propellant ( and a magnetic feild as the drive )

3) frankly , the goverment is not the greatest deep pocket... they change the rules like a traffic light ( green one second and red the next ) ... far better is to use the construction materials in orbit to build stuff... and build gold and silver , platnium and rare earth materials into re-entry vehicals... that you very carefully snag... and sell when its on the ground ...

at 10,oo.oo a pound to get stuff into orbit , it pays for it self to keep stuff in orbit ... the first service bays that need to be put in place are strip shops , that take pirated satilights and turns them into spare parts for other satilights ..... repare shops , and storage bays .... manufacturing and machine shops can come later... cattle drives , collecting and recycling old satilights seems the first profitable enterprises

4) getting people to fly in space is not high on the list of things to do.... building telepresents communications centers with people on the ground who can operate space craft like a remote controlled air plane or a model car on a 24 / 7 / 365 is first thing on the runway .. you need craft in space , and you need people on the ground driving it .

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5) oooops , forgot to add ... 99.999% of all matter is hydrogen... oxygen is so reactive that nearly every astoid has some oxygen in marginal to un-useable forms ... nickel and iron are very common in heavy astroid ... soft astroids will be 80% silicone , carbon and trace metals ... comets are something else completely ... comet chasing may well be the big game hunters target of choice... untill you have large scale parabolic furnases in place and a good understanding of the problems and practices of near zero gravity shop processing .... aquiring material for the technoids is for the cowboys . but we are talking the wild west in near zero gravity

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undiscovered country

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Red Dwarf becomes reality !

Hopefully they won't bring back space mumps to earth,smeg!!!

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