News Is James Cameron launching an asteroid mining company? (Planetary Resources thread)

[FADEC]

Okay, seriously, what do you think their business idea is?

Mining the Moon, mining asteroids, using solar energy and vacuum in open space for making HiFi alloys, what?

If they all are business people, they should think about reaching a sort of break-even and investment returns.

In my opinion those mining ideas will remain nothing more than science fiction for more than 100 years for now. It's been more than 50 years of space flight, and more than 70 years of rocketry. And they now think about to raise engine technologies which was used for the moon shots 4 decades ago. Amongst other things, that pretty clearly shows where we are: still at the beginning of space flight.

Building companies to offer space transportation is an easy game in comparison to mining heavenly bodies. It would be way too expensive. At least for purposes on Earth. You don't drive cheap trucks in space. The Apollo program cost more than 150 billion USD (in today dollars). All it returned was less than 400 Kg of useless matter from the surface of the moon.

Commercial mining in space won't happen in our lifetime, and certainly still not in the lifetime of our children.

 

[Urwumpe]

The Apollo program cost more than 150 billion USD (in today dollars). All it returned was less than 400 Kg of useless matter from the surface of the moon.

The Apollo program would of course have looked significant different, if it would have been just about gathering tons of rocks and return them to Earth.

I agree, the current costs of raw materials and the correct spaceflight logistics don't make asteroid mining profitable. But both are variables that could change, especially the latter would not take 100 years to change. It just requires a change in thinking, not a change in technology.

 

[boogabooga]

Someday, after we strip mine just about every inch of the earth's surface, the cost of iron and nickel will be so high that lunar mining (why go all the way to an asteroid with the moon right here) might make sense. I'm glad that's a loooong way into the future.

The one exception of course is if you "mine" He-3 for a hypothetical fusion reactor that doesn't exist, and may not even be possible.

Or this whole thing could just gorilla advertising for James Camron's next movie, or something like that. In which case, I feel like a complete moron for posting this here, thus doing his evil bidding. :blush:

 

[T.Neo]

Obviously no business is going to blurt out their business plan to the whole world, but with stuff like this it really recollects the saying 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. Adding trillions of dollars to the global GDP and "merging space exploration and natural resources" are pretty extraordinary claims.

If 'Planetary Resources' is indeed about utilising extraterrestrial resources, and those involved are serious about it, it must surely have some spectacular tricks up its sleeves to overcome the challenges of such a plan. I think it'll be very interesting to see what is discussed at their company launch event.

(why go all the way to an asteroid with the moon right here)

Because the Moon, like Earth, is situated in a gravity well (albeit a weaker one). It takes a considerable Delta V to land on and launch from the Moon, and the dV to rendezvous with or return from certain near Earth asteroids is lower than that.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

Makes me wonder how he's planing to get it off the surface... It's not like he can just crunch out a few LVs on Mars.

Just fly to the target with fuel tanks only big enough for landing or liftoff, but not both, then refill the tanks on the surface.

 

[jedidia]

That gets you back to orbit, but not necessarily back to earth... Depends on how long a trip you are willing to take, of course. Carying the additional DV for a Hohman would indeed not be too difficult, depending on the time window, and assuming that only the lander has to get back home.

 

[Grover]

i accidentally misread the title and thought it was talking about DAVID cameron... that would be very interesting indeed

 

[Hielor]

What if they're not planning on bringing the resources all the way back to Earth, but instead planning on just using them in orbit for whatever reason (production of exclusively exoatmospheric craft, perhaps)?

How does that change the "value" equation? Sure, the value of these materials on Earth is sufficiently low that no asteroid mining venture could ever hope to turn a profit, but launching stuff into orbit is expensive, on the order of $5000-10000/pound. Given the costs of some of these raw materials at under $1 per pound, getting them into orbit increases their cost by several orders of magnitude.

Realistically speaking, what cost per pound could you bring back stuff if you're just coming back to Earth orbit rather than all the way to the surface?

How does that compare to the cost of launching those same materials?

 

[T.Neo]

Just fly to the target with fuel tanks only big enough for landing or liftoff, but not both, then refill the tanks on the surface.

'refill the tanks on the surface' being easier said than done. Of course, the launcher tankage and engines and avionics, not to mention the in-situ refuelling plant, the mining equipment/refinery/etc are all going to cost a fair amount of money, as is their delivery to the site. If this cost outweighs what you can make by selling the materials you return to Earth, then the effort is futile... extraterrestrial resource utilisation is economically very difficult to achieve successfully.

What if they're not planning on bringing the resources all the way back to Earth, but instead planning on just using them in orbit for whatever reason (production of exclusively exoatmospheric craft, perhaps)?

Would work if there was a large, suitable in-situ infrastructure, but no such infrastructure currently exists. It would be quite difficult to manufacture simple agricultural equipment in orbit, the high-tech, highly demanding realm of spacecraft construction is far more challenging.

The launch costs for something like a GEO comsat are often considerably lower than the satellite cost itself (something like $200 million for the launcher, $400 for the satellite). Considering that the infrastructure on Earth used in aerospace applications has its overheads amortised over various different users working in various related industries and is highly developed, it is likely that the cost of building a satellite in space would be extremely high and not economically practical.

 

[TaylorR137]

There are a lot of really interesting questions in this thread on technical and economic feasibility. This is exactly why I've been learning orbiter over the last few weeks; to use it as a tool for evaluating mission profiles for a student project I'm working on. May I suggest we post links to relevant add-ons and tutorials here, and later the mission profiles / results?

OHM MPC Database Asteroid Viewer and Exporter:
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5518#post63372

What would it take to make asteroids movable in orbiter? Would it be possible to attach electric thrusters? Any thoughts?

As for fuel depots, I've seen ad-ons replicating Zubrin's Mars Direct and it's variants, but I'm interested in hearing recommendations from those more experienced with orbiter and realistic scenarios.

 

[T.Neo]

What would it take to make asteroids movable in orbiter? Would it be possible to attach electric thrusters? Any thoughts?

If an asteroid is defined as a planet, it is set in its orbital parameters and cannot be moved. To move it, it would have to be defined as a vessel in Orbiter. Electric thrusters, represented by another vessel, can then be docked to the asteroid and be used to move it.

In reality asteroid-tugging would be quite expensive as it would require large amounts of hardware and energy. Of course, in Orbiter we're free of such constraints.

 

[Hielor]

Dammit, I just had a lot written, then got excited, hit the wrong button, and deleted it all. Here we go again.

What would it take to make asteroids movable in orbiter? Would it be possible to attach electric thrusters? Any thoughts?

I don't think moving the entire asteroid would be practical/useful, depending on the composition. More likely it would be better to mine what you need in place, and then ship that back.

Realistically speaking, what kind of delta-V requirements are we talking to get to/from resource-exploitable asteroids?

----------
HOWEVER, I had a Thought in the shower (where all such deep Thoughts occur), based on the following facts:

• Asteroid mining wouldn't be profitable for several decades at least, if it ever would be (and exoterrestrial planetary mining even less so, which makes the "Planetary Resources" name kind of an odd choice
• James Cameron is in the business of making movies, and making money from movies
• Avatar came out about two and a half years ago, and made enough money that James Cameron could probably just use the dollar bills to make a rope with which to retrieve asteroids...so not making a sequel to capitalize on that would be foolish
• Sequels tend to come out between 3-6 years apart. Figure toward the higher end of that for production of one of Cameron's big-budget films, and we're currently at the point that announcing a sequel-in-development would make sense.
• Avatar didn't really leave a lot of room for a direct sequel. The blue monkeys kicked the bad humans off the planet, end of story. Any direct sequel would either be a very different kind of movie (Alien vs. Predator vs. Na'vi, anyone?) or just feel like a rehash of the same thing. Thus, a prequel (perhaps set during the early days of space exploration/resource exploitation?) could make sense.
• According to the official guide to Avatar, the RDA Corporation (the "bad humans" from the first movie) started around this time period:

  The entity that would become RDA was little more than a Silicon Valley garage startup in the early 21st century, when its two founders borrowed money from family members to begin the company.

• It's not unheard of for movie announcements to take the form of fake company announcements--pretty sure "I Robot" did this
• The Planetary Resources logo bears enough of a resemblence to the RDA Corporation logo that the one could morph into the other over 150 years without too much trouble.

As a result, I've come to the conclusion that this is a stunt to announce the Avatar sequel.

As a result, I'm regretting my decision to quit my job and join up with them... :lol:

 

[FADEC]

Dammit, I just had a lot written, then got excited, hit the wrong button, and deleted it all. Here we go again.

Use ctrl + c occasionally and paste the text into windows notepad, or something like that. That's what I do when I write long posts. It already prevented some disasters this way :lol:

 

[T.Neo]

It's not unheard of for movie announcements to take the form of fake company announcements--pretty sure "I Robot" did this

I don't think so- the company in the film is called 'US Robotics', and there's a real-life computer modem manufacturer called [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Robotics"]USRobotics[/ame] (that has, despite the name, never made robots). The movie, having been adapted into an adaption of Asimov's work, takes the name of the robot company from his book series- U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men. It seems highly unlikely that USRobotics was created as viral marketing for I, Robot, since it was founded in 1976.

The Planetary Resources logo bears enough of a resemblence to the RDA Corporation logo that the one could morph into the other over 150 years without too much trouble.

I don't know;

The font is different, the little picture thingy on the side is different... the most similar thing about the two I can see is that they're both a modern-ish style of logo design, and thus look 'fancy'.

Avatar didn't really leave a lot of room for a direct sequel. The blue monkeys kicked the bad humans off the planet, end of story. Any direct sequel would either be a very different kind of movie (Alien vs. Predator vs. Na'vi, anyone?) or just feel like a rehash of the same thing. Thus, a prequel (perhaps set during the early days of space exploration/resource exploitation?) could make sense.

Well, the popular fan opinion of a sequel is that the humans would come back and continue to cause trouble. From an official side, it seems like there's a definite inclination for a sequel, since the current character models are usable and the characters are known to audiences. Besides that, there have been stories of the sequel's potential subject, from other moons in the same system, to exploration of the Pandora moon's oceans, to focusing on a 'master navigator' culture similar to that of the Polynesian people. But perhaps this is just deliberate flip-flopping to distract from the true nature of the future film(s).

But future Avatar films seem to pretty much be a given, I don't think they've officially started making them yet, but the release date for the sequel is somewhere in the 3-6 year range.

According to the official guide to Avatar, the RDA Corporation (the "bad humans" from the first movie) started around this time period:

To be fair though, Planetary Resources is hardly "started in a garage with money from family members". But then again for Cameron to form a start up company it'd obviously be different from group of silicon valley geeks-without-a-cause joining up in a garage.

I don't think everything this guy does revolves around his films. Like with his recent deep sea dives, he's said that he makes films to make money to dive, rather than dive to promote the films. Obviously if something like diving to the bottom of the Mariana trench or starting an asteroid mining company brings him publicity, then it would bring his films more publicity, but perhaps it is just an unintended side-effect.

But for Cameron to form a sort of Ur-RDA would be kinda weird as an advertising campaign, because in the film they're total villains. It'd be something like George Lucas starting a Galactic Empire.

And then of course there are all the other people involved, like Simonyi, who are the kind of people who would put large sums of money into a space-related startup. Are they just there to promote Avatar?

 

[FADEC]

The Apollo program would of course have looked significant different, if it would have been just about gathering tons of rocks and return them to Earth.

Certainly. But I think the costs, back then, would be still high.

In my opinion NASA has to be reformed anyway.

I agree, the current costs of raw materials and the correct spaceflight logistics don't make asteroid mining profitable. But both are variables that could change, especially the latter would not take 100 years to change. It just requires a change in thinking, not a change in technology.

Or a change of availability of resources.

Either way the future becomes as interesting as almost never before. And I expect to still be around in 60 years from now. I'm curious how the world is going to look like...

 

[TaylorR137]

Whether or not Planetary Resources (PR) is a farce, it would still be interesting to use Orbiter as a tool for studying feasibility of proposed missions. I'm of the opinion that in-situ resource utilization is key for a manned Mars exploration program. Coding up the necessary ad-ons might be something I tackle this summer, so of course I'd like to hear about whats already out there.

We'll find out about PR on Tuesday. James Cameron is only one of several investors, and the and there are some serious space folks associated with the project. For example former NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki is PR's chief engineer, and former Astronaut Tom Jones is an advisor.

Both Lewicki and Jones are listed as co authors on this Keck Institute report "Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study" which was only just published earlier this month:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2012/04...ble-with-existing-and-near-term-technologies/

Of course, even if asteroid retrieval is their long term goal, there is a huge opportunity in fuel supply that could turn profitable in less than a decade. Take a look at Bill Stone's plan, for instance.

http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space.html


Edit: I just found this Forbes interview with Diamandis on Asteroid Mining:

 

[T.Neo]

Take a look at Bill Stone's plan, for instance.

You've got to admire Bill Stone's dedication, but whether there's a viable market for extraterrestrial propellant depends on various factors. The actual cost of mining and refining propellant from the Moon is a total unknown, and how competitive it is with Earth-launched propellant depends on how mature launch technology is (to open up potential for space utilisation you need to reduce launch costs by some degree anyway). I suppose it also depends on the location of your market...

I think that if ventures for space exploration or utilisation were an organism, they would be heavily r-selected. There are so many ventures started by people, companies, new vehicles, etc. They range from the outrageous, to the mundane, to the spectacular, but so few actually ever get anywhere. Some die out when their funding dries up, some projects are cancelled, some fall victim to technical problems, etc. There are so many bold claims and fancy statements and cool ideas, but actions speak louder than words. Even those companies that are relatively successful have this problem.

 

[Hielor]

I don't think so- the company in the film is called 'US Robotics', and there's a real-life computer modem manufacturer called USRobotics (that has, despite the name, never made robots). The movie, having been adapted into an adaption of Asimov's work, takes the name of the robot company from his book series- U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men. It seems highly unlikely that USRobotics was created as viral marketing for I, Robot, since it was founded in 1976.

Not the real US Robotics company, obviously. Stop being dense.

This is what I'm thinking of:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo39-e8bhag"]i-Robot Teaser - YouTube[/ame]

That's the first teaser trailer that was released for I, Robot. Notice something missing? There is absolutely no mention that it's about a movie, and the website (which no longer exists) was the same:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040607195821/http://www.irobotnow.com/index.php
(unfortunately you can't seem to get past the intro, but IIRC the whole site was like that)

I don't know;

The font is different, the little picture thingy on the side is different... the most similar thing about the two I can see is that they're both a modern-ish style of logo design, and thus look 'fancy'.

It's in the circles, not the text.

Well, the popular fan opinion of a sequel is that the humans would come back and continue to cause trouble. From an official side, it seems like there's a definite inclination for a sequel, since the current character models are usable and the characters are known to audiences. Besides that, there have been stories of the sequel's potential subject, from other moons in the same system, to exploration of the Pandora moon's oceans, to focusing on a 'master navigator' culture similar to that of the Polynesian people. But perhaps this is just deliberate flip-flopping to distract from the true nature of the future film(s).

But future Avatar films seem to pretty much be a given, I don't think they've officially started making them yet, but the release date for the sequel is somewhere in the 3-6 year range.

None of which rules out the possibility of this being related to the movie in some way.

I don't think everything this guy does revolves around his films. Like with his recent deep sea dives, he's said that he makes films to make money to dive, rather than dive to promote the films. Obviously if something like diving to the bottom of the Mariana trench or starting an asteroid mining company brings him publicity, then it would bring his films more publicity, but perhaps it is just an unintended side-effect.

But for Cameron to form a sort of Ur-RDA would be kinda weird as an advertising campaign, because in the film they're total villains. It'd be something like George Lucas starting a Galactic Empire.

And then of course there are all the other people involved, like Simonyi, who are the kind of people who would put large sums of money into a space-related startup. Are they just there to promote Avatar?

Hey, it's just a possibility--and if you think about how much money there is to be lost in asteroid mining, it's a very realistic one.

 

[T.Neo]

Not the real US Robotics company, obviously. Stop being dense.

Sorry. The connection is notable and I assumed that was what you were talking about.

Creating an actual company, and claiming that you're creating an actual company, and seemingly being totally serious about it, is a lot different to creating an 'un-universe' advert or website as part of a viral marketing campaign. Perhaps it's just the same thing taken up several levels though...

It's in the circles, not the text.

I don't know, maybe. I don't really see it.

None of which rules out the possibility of this being related to the movie in some way.

That's true; I was just explaining the reasons to believe that a prequel, rather than a sequel film, is doubtful.

Hey, it's just a possibility--and if you think about how much money there is to be lost in asteroid mining, it's a very realistic one.

I agree.

 

[Sky Captain]

If they locate a convenient asteorid rich in platinum group metals then it may return some profit. For example rhodium costs ~80 000 $/kg, platinum ~50 000 $/kg, gold ~40 000 $/kg. Bring back few dozen tons and you could earn several billion. Big question is would it be enough to pay for the mining operation and how much metals could be added to market without crashing it.
Maybe use leftover less valuable metals like iron and aluminium to construct a solar power sattelites (at least the low tech parts and bring only expensive high end components from Earth)
Suppose they could construct 1 GW solar power sattelite and sell the power for 0,1 $/kwh, that would earn ~800 million $ per year.
Maybe also provide refueling an repair services to companies owning comercial sattelites to extend their lifetime.