Inb4 a bunch of naysayers try to ruin my hopes for the future of space exploration.

Plantary Resources seems to be well on the way to being funded already, and sounds credible. This guy is only writing science fiction unless he can get funding somewhere.

One thing I wonder about with asteroid and comet mining is whether you would need to decontaminate the materials of radiation before they would be safe. If you're building anything that people are going to be around, you wouldn't want to use radio actively contaminated metals.

Initially, I can see a demand for fuels, water, air, etc. but nobody is building anything in space that would need raw metals yet.

There's also the huge engineering challenge of processing anything in space. Without gravity, you can't refine with the same methods we use here. All your storage tanks, pumps, etc would need to be designed from scratch to work in zero G.

There's also the huge engineering challenge of processing anything in space. Without gravity, you can't refine with the same methods we use here. All your storage tanks, pumps, etc would need to be designed from scratch to work in zero G.

Somehow I got more excited about this while reading your post than before!

Within a decade they will have absconded with their investors money and have nothing to show for it, except some lines drawn on some fancy documents.

"Deep Space Industries predicts that, in a decade," - Article

It is idiocy from the word go. Like announcing an immediate bigfoot expedition to the moon to return the beast's hoard of gold.

Anyone who gets "excited" about this nonsense needs to develop a foot licking fetish so that they can have an excuse to seek psychatric treatment.

They are yammering nonsense about launching probes to asteroids within 2 years, and their ships will be called "fireflies".

Next week they will probably announce that some chick named "river" is going to be "piloting" them.

http://www.youtub...i1ZvCNzA

Technology treshold are the key words. We are probably not there yet, but in a few decades our robots will be crawling around many places in the solar system. Personally I look more forward to the future science missions of e.g. NASA.

Meteors aren't "radioactive" so asteroids and comets aren't either.

No thinking person believes that NASA is going to outlive the U.S.

"Personally I look more forward to the future science missions of e.g. NASA." - La7dfa

Why do you?

It is idiocy from the word go. Like announcing an immediate bigfoot expedition to the moon to return the beast's hoard of gold.

This analogy would only work if we knew that Bigfoot was on the moon and was hoarding gold. In which case damn straight we need to get that treasure from that greedy old Sasquatch.

US company aims to 'harvest' asteroids

USA cannot manage even the ISS maintenance at the 220 km altitude... For what the asteroids should be good for?

There's also the huge engineering challenge of processing anything in space. Without gravity, you can't refine with the same methods we use here. All your storage tanks, pumps, etc would need to be designed from scratch to work in zero G.

"The company has developed a 3D printer called the MicroGravity Foundry that can transform raw asteroid material into complex metal parts. It is designed to operate in microgravity Earth-orbit conditions." From an article on telegraph.co.uk about the same topic.

This would be the first product the company has ever produced to my knowledge.

Where was it tested? Where will they get the metal? How will they purify it? How will they dig it? How will they transport it to the printer? And how well they get the fuel to fly it back to earth?

They have developed NOTHING of course.

"The company has developed a 3D printer called the MicroGravity Foundry" - Telegraph

SCAM.

keep hiding Scott.

http://www.youtub...4ZU73_4c

well, it has been pretty well established that the Moon has significant voids in it just waiting to be lined with tanks of water and living quarters.

Since the economy of the future will not be owned by the Dis-United States, it will be China that builds habitation there.

Good Night, America!

Maybe in the 22Th century asteroid mining will be economically wise.
Meanwhile, it's 10.000 times cheaper to mine earth resources.

Investors will be ripped of their resources.
Mr. Cameron, don't through your money away, please, use it to fund other wonderful movies

repeated comment

USA cannot manage even the ISS maintenance at the 220 km altitude...

If you've been looking for the ISS at 220 km, you won't find it there.

Disregarding that error, how are you dissatisfied with the maintenance? The fact that we rarely hear of maintenance issues says to me otherwise.

Maybe in the 22Th century asteroid mining will be economically wise.
Meanwhile, it's 10.000 times cheaper to mine earth resources.

Investors will be ripped of their resources.
Mr. Cameron, don't through your money away, please, use it to fund other wonderful movies

Given the choice of pretending to live in a fantasy land for a couple more hours vs. contributing to an effort to move our species forward into space, I'd happily choose the latter.

Figuring out how to do things in space is hard, and most of the efforts to learn how will largely be failures. Thus, lots of people will lose money. So bear that in mind when you choose to invest. But don't just assume all these efforts are nothing more than a scam.

Civilization is about to hit the wall.
There is only one way out of this cul-de-sac. Straight up.
Don't like it? Don't have to.

A US company said Tuesday it plans to send a fleet of spacecraft into the solar system to mine asteroids

*sigh*.

At least someone's trying, but they have the wrong idea.

Launching "Fleets" of spacecraft is exactly what they should be attempting to avoid.

They need to be developing the space-based refining technologies (which they admittedly can't do without an experimental vessel). And they need to be developing space-based production facilities for robotics and RAW MATERIAL cargo-grade ship production in space, not on Earth.

The idea is to launch as close to nothing from Earth as possible.

The repeated, cumulative launch costs of "Fleets" of ships would quickly eat up the entire profit margin if they attempt to do this in ANY way similar to what NASA or other private space agencies have done.

2001 had it right. Self replication is the key, and does not necessarily require nano-technology, just good macro technology.

"The company has developed a 3D printer called the MicroGravity Foundry that can transform raw asteroid material into complex metal parts. It is designed to operate in microgravity Earth-orbit conditions." From an article on telegraph.co.uk about the same topic.

Assuming this is true and not a scam, how will they actually mine the materials from the asteroid?

From what I've seen, Gold and Platinum appear mostly in metallic asteroids, but metallic asteroids are largely, as the name says, a monolithic piece of iron and nickel. They will need lasers of enormous power to cut this, because conventional tools will break down due to over heating, since you can't dissipate heat fast enough in vacuum to use conventional drills or cutting tools.

In order to produce enough power to operate a cutting laser large enough to be useful, they'd need nuclear power, or they'd need a solar farm of perhaps megawatts equivalent, since there's much more than just the laser itself to power...

The company has developed a 3D printer called the MicroGravity Foundry that can transform raw asteroid material into complex metal parts

No they haven't. They have an idea and a patent request. They do not have a machine that works yet, nor do they have a way to harvest nickel from an asteroid to use in this proposed machine. I looked up articles on the Microgravity Foundry. In the proposed design they need a source of molecularly pure nickel vapor. I wonder how they plan to get the nickel out of an asteroid?

They are probably on the right track with 3d printing, but they have skipped the important prerequisites; mining and processing the raw materials. That is heavy industrial work which will require extensive mechanical maintenance on the equipment. I don't see how they can do that without people, and that opens a huge can of worms for cost.

I'll be impressed if they manage to drill sample cores and return them to Earth.

because conventional tools will break down due to over heating, since you can't dissipate heat fast enough in vacuum to use conventional drills or cutting tools.

In order to produce enough power to operate a cutting laser large enough to be useful, they'd need nuclear power,

Using a laser would not eliminate the thermal problem. No matter what you do, you need to melt the asteroid material in order to process it. Doesn't matter whether you use electricity, lasers, or chemical fuel. You still have to melt significant quantities of asteroid in order to refine it. How do you melt the ore without melting your spacecraft? It's going to take a huge radiator to dissipate waste heat, and your spacecraft will need to be physically shielded from that radiator. The only way around this is to go very slowly and only deal with very small amounts of material. If you de-spin the roid then you could work in the shadow, but that's only a partial solution.

Cannibalize old satellites. Keep everything that is out in space there, it is cheaper. Every test of sample can be done 'on site'. Just like any beginning, start, learn from mistakes and keep going. But you have to start first.

Our relatively new abilities to place atoms and molecules precisely makes many old impossibilities now possible. Heat dissipation from heat sinks doubling as sterling engines AND solar panels? Just a thought, if someone does not Start and Try, then indeed, everything is an impossible dream.

Small, relatively inexpensive robots self-replicating on asteroids and our moon.. Sigh, I pray I live to see people permanently living in space. Then, we can make mistakes in space without jeopardizing our only home. Robots in space making fatal mistakes sounds even better.

We get out there and do Anything, we will learn Something worthwhile from doing something new.

Article: "We will only be visitors in space until we learn how to live off the land there," I think this is a very true statement.

Regardless of the current feasability of their endeavour, I think they are at least trying to shoot in the right direction, and in that I approve of their attempt.

Though as many commenters have commented, it would be more appropriate to start with some of the smaller problems such as zero-G mining, or refining.

Man zee harpoons!

In the proposed design they need a source of molecularly pure nickel vapor. I wonder how they plan to get the nickel out of an asteroid?

If it's science fiction you are looking for , the technique was covered quite well in "Live Free or die" . Quite simply, use a lot of huge lenses and mirrors and you can focus the energy of the Sun onto a very small area like a metallic asteroid. Spin it up a bit and given enough concentrated sunlight it will diffract itself into different layers for every metal which can then be extracted one layer at a time. Of course it sounds crazy but it's doable.

I'll be impressed if they manage to drill sample cores and return them to Earth.

While i'm doubtful if their "firefly's" will actually "take off" , the technology isn't impossible to develop if you have enough funding. And it's new frontiers like these which will be the next "big thing" and lead to real growth. The Internet and computers are now everywhere and have run their course.

For a foundry solar thermal is the way to go, and with the least amount of maintenance required. I've worked in heavy equipment maintenance for most of my life and complexity is one of the things you really want to avoid if you expect reliability. Maintenance in space is very slow and very, very costly.

It can take weeks, even months to get parts to the USA from Germany or Japan. Just imagine the lead time, and expense, from earth to space. That's a lot of down time.

Quite simply, use a lot of huge lenses and mirrors and you can focus the energy of the Sun onto a very small area like a metallic asteroid. Spin it up a bit and given enough concentrated sunlight it will diffract itself into different layers for every metal which can then be extracted one layer at a time. Of course it sounds crazy but it's doable.

I was thinking exactly this! An issue may be that the metal doesn't stick to itself nearly as well as water does, due to the lack of hydrogen bonds. If its an electrically conductive metal it may be easier to put an electric charge on it and fraction it that way, if that is an option in space. Something tells me you don't want to collect too much static electricity on a spacecraft!

Maintenance in space is very slow and very, very costly.

Maintenance in space will be done by robots and will be cheap as there is no gravity to work against.

It can take weeks, even months to get parts to the USA from Germany or Japan. Just imagine the lead time, and expense, from earth to space. That's a lot of down time.

Space machines will be designed with massive redundancy, as the article implies. Most components and assemblies will be manufactured in totally automated facilities somewhere off-planet.

Due to an abundance of free energy, and the absence of gravity, moisture, and an oxidizing atmosphere, manufacturing in space should ultimately be much easier and cheaper.

I think it would be cool to send some type of nanobots to an asteroid, have them replicate themselves exponentially using the resources on the asteroid, then "assimilate" the asteroid, turning it into spacecraft or space stations. At the end, you'd have your craft with a pile of waste material floating right next to it. Of course, way beyond our capability as of now, but I think it is the best way to make large space craft. Let little bots assemble it over 5 or 10 years.