Space mining startup set for launch in US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Space mining startup set for launch in US
AFP
April 21, 2012, 1:51 pm

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A startup evidently devoted to mining asteroids for metals is to make its public debut on Tuesday in the US northwest city of Seattle, seeking to redefine the term "natural resources."

X Prize founder Peter Diamandis and a former NASA astronaut are slated to unveil Planetary Resources, which boasts an impressive list of backers including Google co-founder Larry Page and famed film maker James Cameron.

"The company will overlay two critical sectors -- space exploration and natural resources -- to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP," Planetary Resources said in a brief release announcing the Tuesday press event in the Pacific Northwest city.
"This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources.'"

Read more: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/13488826/space-mining-startup-set-for-launch-in-us/

[shraby]

1. Bet the only money made will be on the stock market.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

2. And on Apr 15

when the losses are claimed on the tax forms.

Unless they can get some government grant money, then they can give themselves some bonuses.

[Nay]

4. Zackly. And not by any of us rubes, either. nt

[TheWraith]

13. Given that it's not a publicly traded company...

...and won't be for years likely even if things go well, your comment comes off as being just cynical. (Also, "cynical" is not something to take pride in.)

[xtraxritical]

59. I find your publicly traded cynical synopsis to be ironic, but not stronly so.

[harmonicon]

14. That's what I thought.

"This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources.'" *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*

[Motown_Johnny]

146. Helium 3 's potential economic value is as high as ~ $3 Billion a ton

http://www.explainingthefuture.com/helium3.html


^snip^


Helium-3 and Nuclear Fusion

To provide a little background -- and without getting deeply into the science -- all nuclear power plants use a nuclear reaction to produce heat. This is used to turn water into steam that then drives a turbine to produce electricity. Current nuclear power plants have nuclear fission reactors in which uranium nuclei are split part. This releases energy, but also radioactivity and spent nuclear fuel that is reprocessed into uranium, plutonium and radioactive waste which has to be safety stored, effectively indefinitely. An overview of this nuclear fuel cycle can be found here.

For over 40 years scientists have been working to create nuclear power from nuclear fusion rather than nuclear fission. In current nuclear fusion reactors, the hydrogen isotopes tritium and deuterium are used as the fuel, with atomic energy released when their nuclei fuse to create helium and a neutron. Nuclear fusion effectively makes use of the same energy source that fuels the Sun and other stars, and does not produce the radioactivity and nuclear waste that is the by-product of current nuclear fission power generation. However, the so-termed "fast" neutrons released by nuclear fusion reactors fuelled by tritium and deuterium lead to significant energy loss and are extremely difficult to contain. One potential solution may be to use helium-3 and deuterium as the fuels in "aneutronic" (power without neutrons) fusion reactors. The involved nuclear reaction here when helium-3 and deuterium fuse creates normal helium and a proton, which wastes less energy and is easier to contain. Nuclear fusion reactors using helium-3 could therefore provide a highly efficient form of nuclear power with virtually no waste and no radiation. A short wall chart explaining this in more detail can be found here. The aforementioned fission, fusion and aneutronic fusion nuclear reactions are also illustrated in animations in my Mining Helium-3 On the Moon video.

Mining Helium-3 on the Moon

One of many problems associated with using helium-3 to create energy via nuclear fusion is that, at least on the Earth, helium-3 is very, very rare indeed. Helium-3 is produced as a by-product of the maintenance of nuclear weapons, which could net a supply of around 15Kg a year. Helium-3 is, however, emitted by the Sun within its solar winds. Our atmosphere prevents any of this helium-3 arriving on the Earth. However, as it does not have an atmosphere, there is nothing to stop helium-3 arriving on the surface of the Moon and being absorbed by the lunar soil. As a result, it has been estimated that there are around 1,100,000 metric tonnes of helium-3 on the surface of the Moon down to a depth of a few metres. This helium-3 could potentially be extracted by heating the lunar dust to around 600 degrees C, before bringing it back to the Earth to fuel a new generation of nuclear fusion power plants.

As reported in an Artemis Project paper, about 25 tonnes of helium-3 -- or a fully-loaded Space Shuttle cargo bay's worth -- could power the United States for a year. This means that helium-3 has a potential economic value in the order of $3bn a tonne -- making it the only thing remotely economically viable to consider mining from the Moon given current and likely-near-future space travel technologies and capabilities.

[quaker bill]

3. It would seem

that a 24K gold or large flawless ruby, emerald, or diamond asteriod is needed to make a profit.

[TheWraith]

12. Not at all. That grossly underestimates the sheer amount of resources present in asteroids.

Just one near-Earth asteroid, (6178) 1986 DA, contains about $20 trillion dollars worth of iron ore, nickel, platinum, and trace amounts of gold.

[Posteritatis]

16. To say nothing of the definition of "trace" in a twenty-gigaton object. (nt)

[TheWraith]

23. Exactly. In this case, "trace" amounts of gold means ~10,000 tons.

Which would be the equivalent to about $610 billion dollars all by itself. And that's not even getting into other things like potentially iridium, rare earth elements, etcetera.

[backscatter712]

82. Indeed. IIRC, there's actually some asteroids with quite a lot of precious metals in them.

Gold, platinum, etc. Enough to make the venture worthwhile for those willing to take the risk.

[TheWraith]

98. Notes on platinum and iridium.

That asteroid I mentioned, among its other features, has about $3 trillion worth of platinum. Just landing 50 tons worth of that would be a value of $2.5 billion dollars.

Also, iridium is insanely rare here on Earth--40 times rarer than gold--but it's relatively abundant elsewhere in the solar system. Just three tons of iridium is produced per year on Earth, but there's plenty elsewhere.

[backscatter712]

131. Just looking at iridium's properties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium

It's one of the most corrosion-resistant materials known, even at ridiculously high temperatures.

We could use it in alloys to build LFTRs - Liquid Thorium Salt Reactors - alternative nuclear power!

I get flamed for advocating them, but they have the promise of being nuclear power, minus 90% of the problems with nuclear power - thorium's plentiful, the reactor's useless for building bomb material, the waste problems are orders of magnitude less than conventional reactors.

The hard part of building a LFTR is making it corrosion resistant - we're talking about building a reactor vessel and plumbing that can resist the corrosion from 600 degree molten salt - it apparently can be done, but it's not easy, and we need plumbing that lasts a long time.

Maybe if the metals we made the pipes & reactor vessels out of were alloyed with iridium, it would improve the corrosion resistance and make this problem much easier to solve.

[Katashi_itto]

5. This could be highly profitable. Energy is easy to come by in space.

Mining materials and putting them in L-5 Orbit with a solar powered smelter. Has the opportunity to create zero g alloys. In gravity, motel metals segment apart.

In zero G you can create a whole new ranges of alloys.

Not to mention the the raw materials generated are building blocks for an orbiting space colony whose main industry is building power satellites (solar powered electric generation devices) Power sats covert raw sunlight to microwave energy beaming it down to desolate places on earth that coverts it into electricity.

The Space colony could be used to build more interplanetary spacecraft. Think of a fleet of prospectors out there. Much like the gold rush of the Yukon days.

That economic impetus to make a "strike" would spread humanity through the asteroid belt.

Water is no problem, there are asteroids that are trillions of metric tons of ice.

You have no idea how important this first move is.

If we get out into the Solar System, it changes everything.

The finite resource problem we have here on earth disappears if we get into space on an industrial basis.

Political rule by the plutocrats, falls off with distance. The asteroid belt is around six months away.

You might even have the asteroid belt, the beltway, declare independence in a hundred years from earth's rule.

[lunatica]

22. I love that picture and agree with you about how important this first move is

I haven't felt this excited about our future since I discovered science fiction!

[Katashi_itto]

27. LaGrange point 5 Would become a jumping off point

for caravans of alcohol-fueled spacecraft, heading like the wagon trains of the old west, for the six month voyage to the asteroid belt.


L-5 fueled by the incoming raw materials from the beltway, would eventually become a Sargasso sea of space colonies. Think of Colonies that were across the political and religous spectrum.

For those that thought it was to "crowded" and wanting "elbow room" they would head for the beltway...

[BootinUp]

50. For the darker side, watch Outland

with Sean Connery. Its a movie about corporate exploitation of miners and corruption takes place on a moon of Jupiter or Saturn or some such. Circa ~1981

[TheWraith]

54. Or better yet, watch the Star Trek episode with the Horta.

It would be about as accurate, given the fact that there ARE NO MINERS in this scenario. The hard work would be done by robot probes.

[CBGLuthier]

57. High Moon

Love that movie including the fact that it is a SF remake of High Noon. When Connery threatens to kick Frances Saberhagen's "nasty ass" I lose it every time.

[Katashi_itto]

60. Outland Trailer

[calimary]

61. Agreed, and agreed, and agreed, and agreed, and ...

This is a GREAT idea. What a cool way to fire up the national imagination again. A national project, like back in the 60's when we were all on fire about going to the moon. The BIG PROJECT was exploration and scientific expansion, NOT war-making. It's still paying dividends! It would get us out of our little narrow headspace and into thinking about something MUCH bigger, and at least large segments of us banding together to work on something for America. Big Project America. Extend America Outward!!!

I love ALL these points you make, Katashi_itto.

[Katashi_itto]

62. Why thank you! :) Here is some real deep space footage too!

http://vimeo.com/40234826

[calimary]

64. Oh man - isn't that the most beautiful?!

We found this "smoke ring" nebula one night while trying some telescoping with friends. WHAT A TRIPPY THING! And it's WAAAAAAAAAAY out there looking back atcha!

Remarkable!!!

[kentauros]

108. I'm also glad this first step is being taken.

However (there's always someone to say that! ) I think some of these ideas can be done differently.

For example, instead of building the orbital power stations to fuel electric needs to people on Earth, I'd much rather see the technology of solar nanoantennae developed. Currently, the biggest problem is that these arrays produce an alternating current somewhere in the area of 30 trillion hertz! Until they manage to figure out how to step that down to direct current, it's unusable now. If they do figure out how to convert that energy, then we're looking at an efficiency that ranges from 80-92%. That's not a typo. Nor is this: it will work at night

Build the solar power stations for the rest of the space-based structures. Or, let's fully develop Polywell fusion, and forego large-scale solar arrays.

Now, there is one other big stumbling block to developing space as we'd all love to see done, and that's the level of radiation shielding needed. I don't know the specifications on this, but I am confident the technology will be developed to counter it. I would suspect nano-technology would play a big role in creating surfaces that either reflect or absorb the wavelengths, perhaps even in the manner of the nanoantenna above. Make the surface of your spacecraft or even your spacesuit absorb solar radiation and turn it into power. That might be a problem over the windows or face-plates, but I'm sure someone will think of something, and something that works.

That's all I can think of right now. I've been interested (and sometimes involved) in the speculation about this kind of thing, thanks to living in the area of the Johnson Space Center up to the mid-1990s. Space Week was a great chance to learn all about these ideas, as was knowing several of the "space artists" in the area (Pat Rawlings, Mark Bowman.) I happened to work for one of the engineering companies that researched many of these speculative ideas (and employed those two space artists) so I got to work on some of the drawings, too. Not a field I'm working in anymore, but it was fun while it lasted

[Katashi_itto]

121. Really cool ideas! I am sure either one or a hybrid of energy process will end up being a solution

I hadnt heard about the solar nanoantennae and Polywell fusion being developed, thanks looking forward to reading up on that.

30 trillion hertz one hell of a transformer would be needed right now

[kentauros]

124. Thanks for the laughs!

It was appropriate

I don't know a whole lot about electronic circuits, but I would love to see what they've developed for a "nano-rectifier". The only thing I ever thought of that could possibly step down that high of a frequency would be some variation on Tesla's magnifying transmitter.

Sometimes the Polywell fusion gets discussed in the Environment & Energy group here, and I know it's been covered on DU2. Any search on it will likely bring up those older posts.

[AtheistCrusader]

133. You can use the dust of the asteroid mass you don't mine as reaction mass as well.

Free propellant.

[Crowman1979]

6. YES!

Hopefully this will make mining on our planet obselete.

[chrisa]

19. Would be pretty cool if we found too many resources so that we wouldn't even

know what to do with them. This seems somewhat difficult, but promising.

Imagine if we found an element that we could use as fuel, and tons of it (so much that we would almost be in no danger of running out).

[Katashi_itto]

26. The fuel that is easy to come by is Alchol. It's plentiful in that situation.

A byproduct of several processes.


Remember also you have countless millions of tons of ice, with o2 locked in them too.

[TheWraith]

36. Actually, it's not really that difficult at all.

Let me put it this way: the largest metallic asteroid in our solar system's main belt is called 16 Psyche. It masses 2.19x10 to the 19th power kilograms of nickel-iron ore.

To translate that out of science-speak, it would be enough to supply current ore demand on the planet Earth for ~2 million years.

That's not even counting the trace elements like gold, platinum, iridium, rare earths, etcetera, which would likely dwarf all current mining operations on Earth with ease.

[Occulus]

109. And as you said above, here, "trace" is relative

"Traces", on this scale, are really pretty enormous amounts of material.

[Thor_MN]

7. Not to mention that there will be some place for the "I don't like Government"

types to go.

[onehandle]

8. Hopefully this is real. Industry should be moved off our planet, not to mention us as well.

We are fouling our nest.

[Robb]

9. As long as we avoid LV-426, I predict great things for this company.

[Igel]

15. And Cruithne.

Unless they're developing Sheenas.

But this isn't Malenfant we're talking about, after all.

[Katashi_itto]

30. Haha :)

[backscatter712]

112. What, are you kidding? This could be worth billions for the Bioweapons division! n/t

[bluedigger]

10. All these worlds are yours, except Europa.

Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.

[Katashi_itto]

29. :)

[sofa king]

11. I think it has a chance to turn a dime.

The perfection of ion propulsion, as evidenced by the epic and already highly successful Dawn mission, means that the major cost of the operation lies in launch to low earth orbit.

Once it's up there, it can begin to pay for itself by "prospecting," if you will, returning science data of potential value to governments and institutions while traveling between targets. Energy is effectively free, continuous, and limited only by the surface area of the collectors. The propulsion system has almost no moving parts which can fail. Refueling tanks of xenon or whatever they use can be sent out with a very high chance of successful rendezvous, since given time and reaction mass an ion-powered spacecraft can match most orbits.

Some astute government will realize that having the right suite of materials collected somewhere, like in lunar orbit or at one of the Lagrange points, and the facilities to convert those materials into needed things will make the chances of long-term space missions, manned and robotic, far more likely to be successful. If these guys are the only game in town, or have a head start, the launch costs will be quickly regained once they demonstrate success. (An even more astute government may wait for such an infrastructure to be created, then go and take it by force or artifice.)

The key will be fairly quickly identifying a small asteroid which is rich in highly sought-after elements--a house-sized rock rich in rare earths would be enough to wrest China's iron grip on that market, for example. Bring one of those home and suddenly you control wealth that simply cannot be equaled on Earth.

Or, it could be another scam along the lines of the Moller air car, one that makes the cover of Popular Science every year, but never actually gets off the ground.

[TheWraith]

37. I think the hardest part is going to be returning the ore to the Earth.

Currently, we've never soft-landed anything larger than ~120 tons. It might be most practical to build some kind of electromagnetic "catcher," sort of like a gauss catapult in reverse. Aerobrake the incoming loads down to a reasonable velocity, then slow them the rest of the way using a magnetic field. Or depending on how slow they could get them going with aerobraking, it might be easy just to let them hard-land. After all, it's just rocks, it's not like we have to preserve the stuff intact.

[Fumesucker]

73. Blow bubbles of the material and you don't need to soft land them..

A thin shell of metal surrounding a vacuum in the center, make the total density low enough and aerodynamic braking would be more than adequate to bring the bubbles to earth with only minor heating of the shell.

The same way a soap bubble floats on the breeze despite the fact that the material the shell is made of is considerably heavier than air.

[TheWraith]

77. Now that could be a thought.

Not to mention, that would give the advantage that you could target splashdown for the ocean, and it'll float on the surface until it's scooped up by a ship.

[Fumesucker]

80. If the shell material is strong enough and the overall density low enough it could float in air..

Like the diamond zeppelins in The Diamond Age, vacuum is even better than hydrogen as a lifting "gas".

[sofa king]

125. I'm thinking the material is more valuable up there.

Pretty much anything we want in space costs ten to a thousand times what it costs on earth because it costs so much to lift it out of the Earth's gravity well.

But if you park refined materials in, say, lunar orbit (if you ask me, it is absolutely insane to park asteroids in Earth orbit; lunar orbit would be a lot better, I think), all of a sudden the material costs of space construction drops precipitously.

But, if you were insane and parked two house-sized asteroids of roughly similar mass in LEO, I think you could de-orbit one of them with comparatively little loss by using tethers, both for orbit transfer and for electrodynamic propulsion of the "upstairs" chunk.

http://www.tethers.com/

I suppose if you had time and a lot of semi-autonomous robots, you could carve the whole rock into a lifting body and glide it to a landing in a large shallow lake. But my guess is that most of the rocks you want are not homogeneous and would be likely to break up on reentry no matter what you do.

[Fearless]

17. If they can turn a profit this will be the beginning of the Second Space Age.

Of course most of it will be done remotely no doubt.

[chrisa]

18. That's kinda like the game "Blockade Runner." lol

[lunatica]

20. I love this idea whether it works or not

Now this is what I call looking to the future! I wish them all the luck in the world.

[Posteritatis]

24. Yep. Like seeing people thinking further than the next election. (nt)

[4th law of robotics]

21. Step 1) get funding for "asteroid mining

Step 2) set up a self-sustaining environment among the asteroid belt for yourself and closest friends.

Step 3) declare yourself ruler of earth and "drop rocks"* on anyone who questions you.

Step 4) when a secret agent that everyone knows by name shows up don't treat him to a nice meal then turn your back as some highschool drop out trainee is left to execute him. Just kick him out the airlock on day one.

*idea roughly borrowed from the Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein.

[Smilo]

25. They've raped the earth enough and now it is onto the Universe.....

God help the Universe - once man gets there it is over.

[lunatica]

28. The Universe will definitely survive mankind

[Katashi_itto]

31. Distance dude, distance....unless we come up with something like warp drive...

Last edited Sat Apr 21, 2012, 06:09 PM - Edit history (1)

We are prisoners of distance..

Trapped in the solar system.

Maybe a mutli-gen ship for alpha Centari...

but unless we invent the Enterprise....

We are stuck here.

But who knows...rules are made to be broken


Maybe I am crazy, but Teabaggers and Republicans cannot crush what is mankind innate drive to explore strange new worlds...

Odds are, conservatives are not an adaptable segment of our race... If we get ourselves into space...They may go the way of the dinosaur.

[Posteritatis]

32. And misanthropy, don't forget misanthropy. (nt)

[Odin2005]

44. And here come the misanthropes.

[TheWraith]

72. If they think the universe is so much better without us...

... perhaps they should lead by example and create a suicide pact.

But oh, no, it's only all those OTHER people who we'd be better off without. It's always the other guy.

[Posteritatis]

75. Yep. (nt)

[Odin2005]

90. I wanted to post the same thing, but I was afraid it would get hidden.

[The2ndWheel]

143. And here come the name callers

[4th law of robotics]

46. There's enough planets for every human currently alive to have their own leaving trillions more

empty. I think the Universe will do ok.

[waddirum]

69. isn't that LDS religious doctrine?

nt

[Posteritatis]

74. Uh, no, it's objective fact. (nt)

[4th law of robotics]

87. I think they only get theirs when they die

whereas we can have ours right now (at least in theory, can't quite get there yet).

[Occulus]

111. Going by sheer numbers it's literally true.

There are more planets in the Universe than the sum total of every human born, past, present, and future.

[backscatter712]

86. We don't even have to leave our own solar system.

Assuming we don't invent warp drive, there's enough raw material here in our solar system, within our reach, for us to build a civilization that dwarfs what we have today. I'm with Gerard O'Neill - we should be using material liberated from asteroids, comets and moons, build great space habitats, and liberate ourselves from Planet Earth. Leave Earth itself as a biorefuge.

[backscatter712]

85. The nice thing about exploiting asteroids and such in the solar system...

is that since they're lifeless, who gets hurt? (other than us taking the risks in going up there to get them.)

There are no natives to murder and exploit, no ecosystems to trash. Just big floating rocks in airless space full of precious metals. All we have to do is figure out how to go get them.

Though my vote is that while we finance the operations by mining gold, platinum and other precious metals, we keep the iron and nickel up in space, refine it, and use it to start building in space.

The ISS is about as big as we can hope to get just from building using materials boosted from Earth's surface. If we want to go big, we need to figure out how to build using materials we get in space.

[MMJjestic]

95. Earth First!!! Asteroids Next!!!!

[Occulus]

110. Do you have any idea how huge an amount of materials we're talking about, here?

And what sort of environment these things exist in?

There is no environment to ruin in the Belt. Period. It's all dead rock floating in hard vacuum. There isn't anything we can do to it to "ruin" it. It's all as ruined as anything gets without falling into a star.

[Posteritatis]

115. It's almost like there's a word for these sorts of quantities. Astro-somethingorother. (nt)

[snooper2]

129. I know right! After those thousand or so truckloads of material are taken

it's all gone!

Also, has nobody thought of bringing back this extra material to Earth and the additional weight on the planet? This could be huge!

[solarman350]

33. Looks Like James Cameron is Actually Trying to Live the "Avatar" Movie Plot......

While life on the planet he actually lives on rushes with gusto towards extinction.

-Life imitating "art" while perishing in the process...poetic justice.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Planetary Resources, Inc. = RDA Corporation in "Avatar"


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
.
.
.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
.

--Set this thing up as a non-profit, and I'll embrace it. Otherwise, I've seen that movie already...change the channel or shut the damn thing off!

[Katashi_itto]

34. Getting some of humanity off planet, is a good survival tactic.

[Odin2005]

47. Mining Asteroids like like exploiting an earth-like planet???

[solarman350]

117. cameron wants to get into the off-world mining bizness

for profit. That's the commonality with "Avatar." His money and that of his rich friends would be better spent buying up the Amazon Rainforest ("The Lungs of the Earth&quot before it's all destroyed. Like I implied in my initial post, this is for for-profit plan as it stands. Why bring more crap back to your house if its already full of crap? Do you get it yet or will we just argue back and forth until I tell you what I really think?

[Katashi_itto]

122. Or he acknowledges the fact that greed is what gets people to go to new places.

[solarman350]

118. cameron et al want to get into a for-profit off-world mining bizness

That's the commonality with his movie, "Avatar." It is unavoidable not to make that comparison here. Cameron's money and that of his rich friends would be better spent buying up the Amazon Rainforest ("The Lungs of the Earth&quot before it's all destroyed. Like I implied in my initial post, this is a for-profit plan as it stands. The Earth is already on life support. Why not develop and perfect commercial thermonuclear fusion reactor technology with the money that cameron and his group want to spend on asteroid mining? That might just save us from ourselves. cameron et al can say anything they want about raising the GDP. That means nothing to people living along the Earth's Equator. They're already suffering from the effects of human-exacerbated Global Warming. Just remember...what goes around eventually comes around.

There’s a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing and both hands free
No one’s paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget’s just stretched so thin
And now there’s more coming back from the Mideast war
We can’t make it here anymore


That big ol’ building was the textile mill that fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can’t make it here anymore


See those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They’re just gonna sit there ‘til they rot
‘Cause there’s nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There’s a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don’t come down here unless you’re looking to score
We can’t make it here anymore

The bar’s still open but man it’s slow
The tip jar’s light and the register’s low
The bartender don’t have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won’t pay for a roof, won’t pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one your stores
Bet you can’t make it here anymore

There’s a high school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromatA woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what’ll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? Live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it’s way too late to just say no
You can’t make it here anymore

Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
‘ Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can’t make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ‘em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need
Their shit don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in their damn little war
And we can’t make it here anymore

Will work for food will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
So let ‘em eat jellybeans let ‘em eat cake
Let ‘em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore

So that’s how it is, that’s what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you’re listening at all
Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone tell us all why

In Dayton Ohio or Portland Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That’s done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There’s rats in the alley and trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can’t make it here anymore

-- James McMurtry, "We Can't Make It Here"

[krispos42]

35. Move the entire asteroid into earth orbit

This would be an excellent use of our excess nuclear bombs.

Repeatedly detonate nuclear bombs in a crater on the asteroid to create thrust. The crater acts as a parabolic reflector for the expelled mass and energy.

Nudge that thing into orbit, and we get a second moon and a huge supply of minerals that can be mined and purified in space, and the waste products simply released into the vacuum of space, to be carried away by the solar wind.

[Katashi_itto]

38. Thats a viable way to bring asteroids closer.

It might see use by govts. But then you would have to overcome the various treaties that prevent nukes in space.
The main drive will likely be asteroid mining operations.

[TheWraith]

39. I'm sure you know this, but for the rest of the class, NASA explored this idea before...

Project Orion was the idea of being able to build, basically, a nuclear rocket, fueled by the force of fission explosions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

It turned out to be impractical for actual spacecraft propulsion, but moving something very large like a 20 gigaton rock... well, that it could do.

[Katashi_itto]

40. Yep, your absolutely right :) Theorectically its the faster ship we can build.

With or current level of tech.

Prime targets for interstellar travel

There are 59 known stellar systems within 20 light years from the Sun, containing 81 visible stars. The following could be considered prime targets for interstellar missions:[5]
Stellar system Distance (ly) Remarks
Alpha Centauri 4.3 Closest system. Three stars (G2, K1, M5). Component A similar to our sun (a G2 star).
Barnard's Star 6.0 Small, low luminosity M5 red dwarf. Next closest to Solar System.
Sirius 8.7 Large, very bright A1 star with a white dwarf companion.
Epsilon Eridani 10.8 Single K2 star slightly smaller and colder than the Sun. Has an asteroid belt, might have a giant and one much smaller planet,[6] and may possess a solar system type planetary system.
Tau Ceti 11.8 Single G8 star similar to the Sun. High probability of possessing a solar system type planetary system.
Gliese 581 20.3 Multiple planet system. The unconfirmed exoplanet Gliese 581 g and the confirmed exoplanet Gliese 581 d are in the star's habitable zone.


You have

Orion Drive
Light Sail (Beamed propulsion)
Interstellar ramjets
and one other( I cant remember what it was)
as the choices for interstellar spacecraft

Methods for slow manned missions

Slow interstellar travel designs such as Project Longshot generally use near-future propulsion technologies. As a result, voyages are extremely long and risky, starting from about one hundred years and reaching to thousands of years. Crewed voyages (speculative) might be one-way trips to set up colonies.

Nevertheless, serious if preliminary discussions are taking root for the ~100 year time scale, with trials of the MMSEV/Nautilus-X[23][24] concept preliminary to asteroid exploration in preparation.[25][26]

The duration of a slow interstellar journey presents a major obstacle. The following are some proposed solutions:
[edit] Enzmann starship
Main article: Enzmann starship

The Enzmann starship, as detailed by G. Harry Stine in the October 1973 issue of Analog, was a design for a future starship, based on the ideas of Dr. Robert Duncan-Enzmann.[27] The spacecraft itself as proposed used a 12,000,000 ton ball of frozen deuterium to power 12–24 thermonuclear pulse propulsion units.[27] Twice as long as the Empire State Building and assembled in-orbit, the spacecraft was part of a larger project preceded by interstellar probes and telescopic observation of target star systems.[27][28]
[edit] Generation ships
Main article: Generation ship

A generation ship is a type of interstellar ark in which the crew which arrives at the destination is descended from those who started the journey. Generation ships are not currently feasible, because of the difficulty of constructing a ship of the enormous required scale, and the great biological and sociological problems that life aboard such a ship raises.
[edit] Suspended animation

Scientists and writers have postulated various techniques for suspended animation. These include human hibernation and cryonic preservation. While neither is currently practical, they offer the possibility of sleeper ships in which the passengers lie inert for the long years of the voyage.
[edit] Extended human lifespan

A variant on this possibility is based on the development of substantial human life extension, such as the "Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence" proposed by Dr. Aubrey de Grey. If a ship crew had lifespans of some thousands of years, or had artificial bodies, they could traverse interstellar distances without the need to replace the crew in generations. The psychological effects of such an extended period of travel would potentially still pose a problem.
[edit] Frozen embryos
Main article: Embryo space colonization

A robotic space mission carrying some number of frozen early stage human embryos is another theoretical possibility. This method of space colonization requires, among other things, the development of a method to replicate conditions in a uterus, the prior detection of a habitable terrestrial planet, and advances in the field of fully autonomous mobile robots and educational robots which would replace human parents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel

[krispos42]

53. No, I didn't know that

But I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night....



No, actually, it's been in a couple of Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle books... "Footfall", "The Mote in God's Eye", and a short story that takes place in the Empire of Man universe.

[Johnny Rico]

70. I *love* Footfall. Niven & Pournell's best collaboration.

[Katashi_itto]

79. I love Niven's "Know Space" series

I even have several autographed copies My pride and joy

[TheWraith]

71. I've meant to read Footfall, never got around to it.

The only Niven I've read besides short stories is Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers, enjoying the former more than the latter.

[krispos42]

88. "The Mote in God's Eye" is very good n/t

[OnlinePoker]

41. You wouldn't need bombs or ion drives

I think it was the L5 Society in the 70s that proposed using mass driver pushers to send asteroids into earth orbit for mining to create colonies in space. The material jettisoned out the back to provide the push would come from tailings produced by the miners processing rock as the ship made its way from the asteroid belt to earth. Recently, the proposals have been for space elevators which would need large asteroids as a counterweight for the elevator. Once the elevator is in place, mined material could be shuttled to earth without having to worry about re-entry. At the same time, large solar arrays could be constructed in space from the mined material and the electricity could pass down the cables of the elevator, negating the necessity of beaming microwaves into the atmosphere. I would love to see it in my lifetime (My grandfather was at the driving of the last spike of the CPR in 1885 and died in 1969 a day before man landed on the moon, so it could happen).

[Posteritatis]

42. Space being what it is, pretty "small" nudges and a few years' patience works, too.

Any movement doesn't have to be big and dramatic; actually, if you're moving multikiloton things around it's probably a lot safer to be subtle about it, since you get more fine control out of things.

[Katashi_itto]

43. Thats right ! I'd totally forgotten about the mass driver concept. Very elegant.

The Hundred-Year Starship study

The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) is the name of the overall effort that will, over the next century, work toward achieving interstellar travel. The effort will also go by the moniker 100YSS. The 100 Year Starship study is the name of a one year project to assess the attributes of and lay the groundwork for an organization that can carry forward the 100 Year Starship vision. NASA's and DARPA's

[mojowork_n]

135. Seriously?

Isn't that what contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs? A big rock falling
from space? The planet's gravity field doesn't seem like a very safe playground
for those kinds of games.

Just a thought...

[kentauros]

136. You need to read up on Langrangian Points:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

That's what "L5" in the "L5 Society" means

[mojowork_n]

140. I'm not convinced. Sorry.

I'm not disputing that planets in orbit are "falling" all the time, or that
it's not possible to steer an asteroid into a more accessible orbit.

What concerns me is what happens after the pool cue strikes the "ball."

What if the asteroid breaks up as a result of the push, and several of
the new, smaller, asteroid-lets -- in turn -- smash into each other. Might
not one -- or more -- of the still-sizable chunks of rock end up with no
better place to go, than in our direction?

That's only one assumption going wrong.

...How many others is it possible to imagine?

"Oh, no!" the startled crew of the earth ship screamed in unison. An
unusually immense solar flare at exactly the wrong instant had temporarily
shut down their computer network, just as they were moving in to
position....

...the critical count was interrupted when unlucky Larry, the second-in-
command (the curly-haired and most "normal-looking" of the three
astronauts) suffered a stroke...

...Or who could have predicted that some of the accountant's cost-
cutting -- that also helped five congressman retire -- might have led
to chemical deterioration, that made it possible for the spark to ignite....

[kentauros]

145. So, in other words,

you live in fear. You're not satisfied that we can figure things out and prevent all of your disasterbation fears.

By the way, the asteroid belt isn't a ring of stable orbits. All those rocks bump into each other over time. That's why the bigger ones are pitted. And, when they bump into each other, orbits and trajectories are modified, not to mention those that could "break up" have done so by now. Also, the larger ones have their own gravity field, messing with the orbits and trajectories of the rest further still.

Now then, for all of your "Murphy's Law" disaster scenarios:

1. The trajectory of any asteroid is going to be determined early in the movement of it. Everything else from then on are simply "nudges" to adjust the capture in our gravity well. We've been doing this for decades with much tinier objects called "spacecraft".

2. You're leaving out part of point #1 that I didn't mention: these are massive objects. Anything "going wrong" at the last minute is going to have an insignificant effect on the final orbit. It also negates decades of redundancy engineering and expertise developed over the course of all of humanity's space programs.

3. You should write pulp science fiction. Oh, you'll need a time machine first. The Golden Age of science fiction ended decades ago The "fuel" of a mass-driver would be unaffected by any "spark". Same goes for an ion-drive, since it is a "spark" by it's very nature of operation. Ever heard of the fourth state of matter (plasma)?

It's a good thing you weren't running things when our ancestors were first coming down out of the trees. We never would have developed civilization at all. Too much chance for disaster!!!1!

[mojowork_n]

148. Don't make this personal, OK?

It's not so much fear as it is cost-benefit conjecture, and a jaded
appreciation for what can go wrong with the best-laid engineering
plans.

But to your points:

1.) You're still making the assumption that a 'push' is going to result
in a neat, clean, billiard-ball-precise, "thwack" and provide
anticipated results. What if the "massive object" in space isn't
as stable as it looks, and it breaks up? That's not "Murphy's
Law" it's a reflection of our lack of familiarity -- and first-hand
exploration -- of smaller neighbors in the solar system.

2.) OK, it's a "massive object." More parts to break up and
proceed in different (unanticipated) directions.

3.) NO, I'll leave writing the science fiction to you. What does plasma
have to do with anything? The article referenced mining water on
asteroids, for oxygen and fuel. Nothing to do with the pusher-
drive, or malfunctions there.

I'm not trying to be a Cassandra -- and I actually think the whole
concept is pretty cool -- but someone does need to consider the
possible worst outcomes, because they could involve the
end of all life as we know it.

...In ANY cost-benefit projection I can think of, that's one outcome I
want to evaluate carefully, before moving on.

[kentauros]

150. I can't help but call it fear when you pose all these fear-based suppositions.

So, state what you mean in the beginning, and people won't make assumptions you don't like!

1, And you're making a big assumption here that people don't know math! Or planetary geology. Or even just plain old geology for that matter. Before any object gets moved, they'll drill it to discover whether it's what they want, what it's make-up consists of, and in turn, if it's stable for a move. That's pretty easy to determine. And, if for some reason, they fuck that up monstrously, then its instability will show itself early on. You do understand that any move like this will take years and years, right? That's plenty of time to "fix" things, such as purposely breaking it up further into manageable pieces. Or worse, losing it, so to speak, and putting it on a trajectory that sends it into Sol, or into another orbit around Sol. Humans never could have gone to the Moon (and back) without trajectory math. And I don't even understand such complex mathematics. However, I do trust that people know what they're doing. If they didn't, satellites wouldn't remain in any kind of orbit, including geostationary.

2. Sea above.

3. Perhaps, again, you need to be specific in your statements. I had nothing to go on, so I also assumed you meant the initial fuels, or the later proposed ideas for moving these objects. Now, I'm also going to assume that you've read the whole thread (or why did pick my post to needle?) and that once on any asteroid, one of the most efficient means of moving it is a mass-driver. Fuel can certainly be made from any water found, but once a propulsion system is in place, they won't be changing it out for the fuel based one, if they aren't using it. Better to spend the years while it's being moved to process that fuel. And any cataclysmic accident as you assume might happen would be minimized by one very important fact: they are in a vacuum. Gases dissipate fast. And if you use the Apollo 13 accident as an example, you're again assuming quite a lot.

You are also assuming that no one else has assumed the worst outcomes, because you are coming across loud and clear as what you say you do not want to be perceived as. Try a different tactic next time and people won't see you as ill-informed.

[Humanist_Activist]

151. Oddly enough, even the worse case scenario would be correctable...

In the scenarios you thought, the worst case would be mission control(or whatever you call those on the ground) would recall the astronauts(or remotely shut down the what ever machinery is out there). They would redo their calculations, then when the next launch window opens they would send up more equipment to correct the orbit of the asteroid in question.

The scale of these things means that any risk to Earth is minimal, even in the worst scenario, a disaster would be at a minimum a year or so, to several years or even decades away. These objects are massive, in order to significantly alter their orbits would take a lot of small events, not one single one, and as a result of this, the predictability of orbital mechanics, and the fact that they have to travel so far to even be under the influence of Earth's gravitational well, much less hit its surface.

To give an example, let's take an object in the asteroid belt, if we are going to go for broke, might as well start with the expensive real estate. If you want it to be more accessible to Earth, you would have to move it close. First we need to attach several thrusters to it, most would be to change and control its rotational characteristics(not orbital), to keep it on an even keel, so to speak. Next, a few thrusters dedicated to changing its orbital characteristics, the lion share of this energy would have to be dedicated to retro thrust, thrust directed in the same direction it is traveling in orbit, to slow it down, and drop it to a lower orbit.

Such a thruster would have to burn for months at a time, then stop, and thrust again, to both round its orbit to prevent it from being too elliptical, and to continue to drop its orbit. It will take years for it to even get close to Earth, and we may park it in an orbit that is still a safe distance away, at one of the Langrange points, most likely. The point is this, even if a catastrophic failure occurred, we would have more than enough time to correct it and prepare for it if necessary. Indeed, the worst possible scenario here isn't hitting Earth, but actually preventing it from being easily accessible from Earth.

[Humanist_Activist]

137. The Earth isn't a vacuum cleaner, we have an object a quarter the size of Earth that "falls"...

towards it constantly, its just that its angular velocity in relation to Earth is fast enough for it to avoid and then swing around the planet every 28 days or so in a relatively constant orbit(one that is moving away from Earth because its sapping Earth's rotational energy).

[mojowork_n]

141. See reply #140. n/t

[Posteritatis]

139. Yeeeeeah, gravity doesn't work that way. (nt)

[mojowork_n]

142. See reply #140. n/t

[Posteritatis]

147. Put away the 1940s SF and pick up a physics or astronomy textbook

You're just embarrassing yourself.

[mojowork_n]

149. OK, elaborate.

Go ahead, please explain to me why an asteroid
breaking up into several constituent parts is
counter to the laws of physics, or astronomy?

The force required to 'push' couldn't possibly
cause that.....

....because?

[Humanist_Activist]

152. Because we aren't talking about a sudden thrust, but rather a slow acceleration...

You are thinking of a big ass rocket, what we are talking about are small thrusters that have a thrust output that equals the force of your finger pressing on your keyboard as you type. What makes them able to move asteroids isn't the raw power in a short amount of time, but small power over large amounts of times. Nudging the asteroid, not shoving it.

[mojowork_n]

154. That's like the dude from Syracuse

who could move any heavenly body, if given a
place to stand, a long enough stick, and enough
finger-tip pressure.

But no matter how long the stick, or how small
the power required at any one point, aren’t you
playing the same game here? I mean substituting
“small force over a long period of time” for “small
force applied from the end of a long enough lever?”

No matter how long or short the lever is, or how
patient one is in waiting for the effects of small
‘nudges’ to make a perceptible difference, isn’t
the actual force required the same? (And isn't
that a substantial amount? Substantial enough
to have an adverse effect on a geologically unstable
chunk of space debris?)

[Humanist_Activist]

156. To put it simply, its not the fall that kills you, its the stop at the end...

or, to reverse it, no matter your velocity, its a ratio between the acceleration and time it took to reach that velocity that matters. A human body, to give an example, is much more delicate than an asteroid, yet we can safely accelerate it from apparent rest on Earth to a speed several times faster than a speeding bullet on the way to the Moon. We've done it, several times. Those same forces have the same affect on asteroids as they do on people. Yet, if you were to fire a human body out of a cannon at those same speeds, but at a much higher acceleration, I believe the term liquefaction comes to mind.

The idea is not to shock the asteroid into breaking apart, and frankly most of them aren't geologically unstable, that would imply some type of geologic activity, which they do not have, they are inert pieces of rock, some are literally loose gravel piles of smaller bits of rock that are barely held together by gravity, those we wouldn't even be able to land on to do much work, much less move them, at least not without modifying their properties.

In addition, we already have the tools to figure out the properties of any asteroid we can examine, including density, material its made out of, fracture lines, etc. We actually have figured out the properties of many of these bodies already.

[mojowork_n]

157. Good reply.

'Barely held together by gravity' is what I was thinking of. How many
sedimentary, or metamorphic rock layers could one expect to see, on
an asteroid?

Also the final, crushing irony if -- however remote the possibility --
the same thing that croaked all the big lizards also croaked us.
And if (big "if&quot we turned out to be the ones bringing it on ourselves.

[Humanist_Activist]

158. Most asteroids aren't layered at all...

again that would imply major geologic activity, and they generally are more uniform than that, internally. These are objects that formed before the planets, the planets have metamorphic and sedimentary rocks because of their size, ability to retain heat and the strength of gravity that was able to separate out elements in the rock.

Earth has a mostly Iron-Nickle-Uranium core for a reason, those are heavy elements, indeed, and heavy elements sink to the center. Asteroids were never massive enough to go through this, the layering never took place, outside of the regolith on the surface, and solid material underneath, there would be no further layering, it would be more random than that.

[Odin2005]

45. YAY! This is what progress looks like!

[Katashi_itto]

48. Ted Talk: more interesting stuff :)

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

[Blue_Tires]

49. If they find a marker, for fuck's sake LEAVE IT ALONE

[malthaussen]

51. This has always been a good idea

But getting there is half the fun. In fact, getting there is 99.99% of the fun... once the initial mission snags an appropriate rock and starts mining, the project starts to turn a profit... but the startup costs are hellish.

-- Mal

[Uncle Joe]

52. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[caseymoz]

55. K&R, but I'm skeptical. Best of luck to them.

The energy required to launch missions and then land those resources safely on earth is . . . astronomical. Not to mention protracted time in space is fatal to human beings. For the latter, maybe they have robotics in mind.

It's still a lot of energy, which is going to mean iron ore will go for more than gold. Then again, as we use up our resources, we might get to the point on earth where that will be the case anyway.

I believe once the resource-deprived, vacuum-packed, radioactive wasteland of space looks good compared to living on our planet, then space will be practical for gathering resources, and probably not even then.

But, let them try. I hope they prove me wrong.

[Katashi_itto]

56. Start up costs are great. But once you claw your way out of

the 200 mile deep gravity well that is the surface of the earth. Costs slope off, drastically. The operation becomes self sustaining.

[caseymoz]

63. The costs of landing are just as great or more.

Decelerating that ore into the gravity well so you don't wipe out a state or two is going to be just as expensive. More, because you have to bring the vehicle that you sent up there back with it.

Don't underestimate this. The technical problems here are as probably as daunting as fusion energy, or more so.

[Katashi_itto]

66. Actually no, you dont bring the original vehicle back. because

that vehicle would be six months away. Getting back to down earth is actually the easy part.


There a number of cost effective ways it could be done.

[caseymoz]

107. Well, you either guide it to earth with some vehicle

I could think it's possible when I see the actual numbers. And I have to remember that those are estimates. In real life, Murphy always stalks us.

[Posteritatis]

58. I'd assume the extraction would be mostly or entirely automated, yeah

And of course once some basic infrastructure exists up there they're set; it's gonna be a lot cheaper to bring resources back down, and you can keep doing that for quite awhile with one small asteroid.

[caseymoz]

65. In energy it's not going to be cheap coming down.

You have to decelerate or accelerate to match earth's velocity, get into a controlled orbit and then guide the fall. It's not going to going to be cheap.

And robot and ships sound like a lot of material resources to put into it that at first, before we get resources back out of it. We have to extract those from the earth and say bye to them if this doesn't work.

It's a myth that space is rich with resources. People who say so just don't imagine the distance between the resources and what has to be done to reach them. If you consider that, space is far more lacking in resources than the earth. For example, 95 percent of the earth's land is within drillable distance of water. (A fact that helps dousers.) If you get out just the distance of the moon, you're a long way away from anything like that, and I mean its unimaginable to our minds. Nothing on earth prepares us for that scale. So, of course, we think there's resources all over.

But the best minds in the world are on it. Unfortunately, that means if they fail, we then know with great certainty that we're fucked.

[Katashi_itto]

67. You need to look at more than just one small segment of the problem.

Before you call it a wash.

There are two options for processing an asteroid:

bring back raw asteroidal material, or

process it on-site to bring back only processed materials, and produce fuel propellant for the return trip.

It appears most likely we will choose option 2 because the equipment required to process asteroidal material is simple. The question is: How much we will process the material? Do we want to return only metal granules and ices? At what purity?

The next few sections cover only processing of asteroidal material. Transport of the asteroidal materials was covered in the web section on transportation, but it's notable that fuel propellants would be one product of asteroidal materials. If chemical rocketry is chosen then hydrogen and oxygen will likely be produced from water when needed. Likewise for alternative propulsion methods, e.g., instead of using chemical rocketry, use steam rockets which consume only water without any further processing.

The environment for mining and processing

One should fully understand the environment in which we are working.

An asteroid the size of a domed football stadium filled with ore (roughly equivalent to 100 meters wide, tall and long), contains 2,000,000 tons of material. (In comparison, the space shuttle has maximum capacity of less than 30 tons.)

The surface gravity of this 100 meter asteroid would be practically zero -- less than one ten-thousandth that of the Moon. The excape velocity would be around 0.3 kilometers per hour (0.2 miles per hour), or 0.1 meter per second. Drop an object at arm's length and it would take 5 minutes to fall to the ground.

If you have an asteroid double the size and hence seven times the mass, the gravity only doubles at its surface (since the surface is further from the center of mass).

This means that you don't launch and land on an asteroid the same way you do on the Moon, and you use propellant differently. Landing and relaunching using just a locking spring is not a bad idea, for example.

http://www.permanent.com/a-mining.htm

[caseymoz]

106. I'm not calling it a wash.

I'm just saying I'll believe it when I see it. Physically, we're far less ready for space than that lungfish who invented "the walk" 300 million years ago. If we're able to do it, the implications will be more significant by a few orders of magnitude.

We have to try. Survival depends on it. And if entails people being optimistic, then by all means, call me a fool.

[awoke_in_2003]

68. Come on, come on, come on...

let's go space truckin- okay, this will be the earworm of the day:

[Vehl]

76. No wonder Google is researching Space Elevators in its Secret Google X labs

When the news broke about Google's secret X labs, the information leaked out mentioned that it was working on self driving cars, augmented reality, Robots and Space Elevators.

The Self Driving car has been under public testing for a couple of years now, the Google Glass project(Augmented reality) was released to the public last month, and now we hear of this new Startup by Google excecs and James Cameron on mining asteroids.

What better way to cheaply and efficiently transport materiel and people from and to space than Space Elevators?
While this tech might not be available anytime soon, Kudos to Google for actually spending money on long-term projects, unlike other companies which are all about short term profits.

Google’s Lab of Wildest Dreams

It’s a place where your refrigerator could be connected to the Internet, so it could order groceries when they ran low. Your dinner plate could post to a social network what you’re eating. Your robot could go to the office while you stay home in your pajamas. And you could, perhaps, take an elevator to outer space.

These are just a few of the dreams being chased at Google X, the clandestine lab where Google is tackling a list of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas. In interviews, a dozen people discussed the list; some work at the lab or elsewhere at Google, and some have been briefed on the project. But none would speak for attribution because Google is so secretive about the effort that many employees do not even know the lab exists.
..
..
At most Silicon Valley companies, innovation means developing online apps or ads, but Google sees itself as different. Even as Google has grown into a major corporation and tech start-ups are biting at its heels, the lab reflects its ambition to be a place where ground-breaking research and development are happening, in the tradition of Xerox PARC, which developed the modern personal computer in the 1970s.
..
..
For example, space elevators, a longtime fantasy of Google’s founders and other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, could collect information or haul things into space. (In theory, they involve rocketless space travel along a cable anchored to Earth.)

more here
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/technology/at-google-x-a-top-secret-lab-dreaming-up-the-future.html?_r=2

Google X Labs: First Project Glass, next space elevators?

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, the future is being imagined

From driverless cars to augmented-reality glasses, Google X Labs is tackling tough technology problems and getting them into the popular imagination.

What's Google X? Most of what we know about Google X Labs comes from a New York Times article last fall which said engineers are working on a driverless car and other robotics projects, the "Web of things," and even a space elevator.

The secret lab, where Google co-founded Sergey Brin is said to be deeply involved, is meant to tackle difficult technical problems and develop products that one day could bring Google new sources of revenue.

Just last week, Google released a video of its driverless car taking a legally blind man to the shopping center, a poignant example of how that technology could improve his life.

more here
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57409402-76/google-x-labs-first-project-glass-next-space-elevators/

I'm pretty sure that we are onto something here...Asteroid Mining + Space Elevators....there is no way these two things are not connected/independent projects.!

[Katashi_itto]

78. Nice! I wonder if they will figure out a way to overcome weak force

or maybe go around it somehow...

[Vehl]

83. Dont know, But wiki has some interesting info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

There seem to be multiple solutions put forth by people, I dont know which one Google is researching.

[IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]



^^ from wiki

[Posteritatis]

84. Google being Google, I'd assume they're researching all of them. (nt)

[Katashi_itto]

101. very cool, thanks for posting that!

[MindMover]

81. THC content must be really high for those investors.....

what a pile of space mumbo jumbo......see http://www.democraticunderground.com/101625400

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6691194047/][img][/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6691194047/]10112262-new-detergent-stinks1[/url]

[Fumesucker]

89. Yep, and the common people in 1491 knew the Earth was flat and Columbus would sail off the edge..

Educated people in the time of Columbus knew the Earth was round, Columbus happened to have an incorrect figure for the diameter and thought China much closer than it really was, the correct figure had been known since Eratosthenes calculated it in about 240 BC.

Hell, even educated people in 1902 thought heavier than air flight was impossible.

[MindMover]

93. There is air which has density and mass and then there is space......

which seems to be what is lacking in this discussion......

Bruce, where are you...?

Please tell these fine people how difficult it is to land on a rock in space and then start drilling on it.....even though you were in a hollywood studio.....

[Fumesucker]

94. Already been done..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover

[MindMover]

96. That is a big rock and I own it......

[Fumesucker]

97. I really really like your avatar... it's.. it's.. hypn..oo..tt..

[MindMover]

99. Ok, keep looking at the center of my avatar and repeat after me.....

we do not need to drill any more holes in this earth or any other for that matter.....

we have plenty of resources......right here....right now.....

feel the wind and the sun and the water....

[Fumesucker]

100. My father was born in 1903, the year man achieved flight, he lived to see this picture..

Not too shabby for one human lifetime.

[MindMover]

102. What a wonderful picture of our beautiful spaceship.....thanks

[Odin2005]

91. And in 1880 most people thought airplanes were a pipe dream.

[Posteritatis]

92. In my tragically-underfunded high school in the late 90s...

... the astronomy section of the library consisted entirely of books that predated the Apollo program, and way too many of them predated spaceflight altogether.

The really forward-looking ones from about the time of Sputnik's launch all said that a lunar landing is the sort of preposterously advanced undertaking that probably wouldn't be pulled off until sometime in the 2100s.

[Katashi_itto]

103. Just a gentle thought, a number of studies have put NASA RoI at 7:1 or higher.

NASA is connected with the development or improvement of of: Velcro, Microchips, Nylon, Kevlar...Light-emitting diodes (LEDs),Infrared ear thermometers,Ventricular assist device,Artificial limbs,Enriched baby food,Solar energy(The advanced technology behind these solar devices—which provide up to 50% more power than conventional solar cells—originated with the efforts of a NASA-sponsored 28-member coalition forming the Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) Alliance.)
Remotely controlled ovens
Powdered lubricants
Improved mine safety
Food safety

Barcodes (NASA developed a special type of barcode, but this should not be mistaken for the original one.)
Cordless power tools (The first cordless power tool was unveiled by Black & Decker in 1961. It was used by NASA and a number of spinoff products came out of that.)
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) (NASA has, however, contributed to its advances over the years. MRI is best known as a device for body scanning.)
Quartz clocks (The quartz clock dates back to 1927. However in the late 1960s, NASA partnered with a company to make a quartz clock that was on the market for a few years.)
Smoke detectors (NASA’s connection to the modern smoke detector is that it made one with adjustable sensitivity as part of the Skylab project.)
Tang juice powder (Tang was developed by General Foods in 1957, and it has been for sale since 1959. It was used in the first orbit missions, which gave awareness to it.)
Teflon (Invented for DuPont in 1938 and used on frying pans from the 1950s.[30] It has been applied by NASA to heat shields, space suits, and cargo hold liners.)
Velcro (A Swiss invention from the 1940s. Velcro was used during the Apollo missions to anchor equipment for astronauts’ convenience in zero gravity situations.)


So you might consider smoking the THC with the rest of us. Because exploration leads to new devices, new processes etc...

[MindMover]

104. I love NASA and especially its capabilities......

and we have plenty of room to explore, innovate and utilize these amazing qualities without traveling to another planet.....

Look, James Cameron just did it.....

[Occulus]

113. Thankfully, this will happen in spite of people such as yourself.

"and we have plenty of room to explore, innovate and utilize these amazing qualities without traveling to another planet"

Untrue.

Humanity's destiny is among the stars. Be it via generational ships, cryogenic colony vessels, or some yet-to-be-devloped FTL craft, mankind will- not might, not possibly-may, but will- travel to and live on other planets not in this solar system.

There is nothing you or any other Earth-Firster can do to stop it.

[MindMover]

114. WOW, we went from mining rocks on other planets to space travel....

which by the way we have already been there and done that......

Anyhoo, I am not now nor ever saying that we should not explore other planets with whatever means we can accomplish it with.....

and I am all for populating and exploiting other planets for the benefit of this the most greedy, avaricious and destructive population in human history....

[Katashi_itto]

120. Ummm,, sorry to burst your bubble..but we have always been greedy, avaricious and destructive...

Name a period in time, where we werent. The point is to take advantage of that greed as a draw, and get us out into the solar system.

Hopefully with access to unlimited energy and unlimited resources we can stop killing each other over finite energy and finite resources.

(Course I am sure will find another reason. War is Mankind's #1 sport. 5000 years of recorded history, there is only a total of 50 years peace in it.)

However, I am all for you and yours staying planetside.

[PavePusher]

160. Yeah, you're right....

We never should have left that cozy valley in Africa.....

[Phoonzang]

105. It's sad that NASA is being overtaken by private enterprise when it comes to progress in space

But...if that's what it takes, so be it.

[NickB79]

116. Given that we still haven't resolved how to safely send men to Mars

What with the effects of prolonged zero gravity, radiation, and isolation, how do they expect to mine the asteroid belt which is further from us than Mars?

Unless this is to be all unmanned probes, it will be decades before we see anything come of this.

[Posteritatis]

119. The idea's to bring small asteroids to near-Earth space. (nt)

[Katashi_itto]

123. All those elements have been given decades of consideration

by NASA, there are a number of solutions to each.

[backscatter712]

130. Not all of the asteroids are out between Mars and Jupiter.

There's actually a decent number of Near Earth Objects - asteroids and comets that are pretty close to Earth, astronomically speaking, which means the fuel and time costs for going and getting them is pretty small.

[Humanist_Activist]

138. Did you forget about NEOs, Near Earth Objects, and Earth Crossing Objects...

Time a launch appropriately, and the energy expenditure shouldn't be greater than sending spacecraft to the Moon, and may be considerably less if the orbital mechanics can be worked out.

[DaveJ]

126. A "heavy captured asteroid" is one of the space elevator counterweight ideas

According to Wikipedia anyway. Sounds dangerous. What if it falls?

Maybe they plan on just to let the precious asteroid fall to the ground in controlled manner anyway, would be much easier I'd think.

[Katashi_itto]

127. Well everything falls in space one way or another, (With a Monty Python Explanation!)

Everything is falling towards something, it's just not always apparent. Gravity affects everything. Thats why the Milky way is shaped the way it is...



That's what orbits are. It's a continual falling towards earth that...well, that keeps missing earth

This song explains everything

[Fumesucker]

128. What if the Moon falls?

It's much larger than the asteroid that is proposed for space elevator counterweight, if the Moon falls it would be beyond catastrophic..

[Gore1FL]

134. Technically speaking the moon is in a constant state of falling.

That is how it maintains orbit.

[backscatter712]

132. In the case of the asteroid as a space elevator counterweight...

If the elevator breaks, the asteroid would simply be flung out into space.

[Humanist_Activist]

153. In that case, the counterweight is going faster around Earth than Earth's escape velocity...

Think of a rock on a string, what happens when you spin it around really fast and let go? It flies away from your hand, in the case of a serious failure of a space elevator, the same thing would happen to the counter weight. It would never be in a proper orbit anyways, the elevator itself would hold it near Earth. Even if the string were cut at the counterweight, it would still fly away, its velocity would be many times greater than Earth's escape velocity. It would fly away into a far solar orbit.

[Baclava]

144. Deep Space 9 - - - Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

Rule #1. Once you have their money, you never give it back

[pfitz59]

155. About frigging time!

Mankind has got to get off earth!

[MatthewStLouis]

159. Someone please give Newt a shovel and pick ax!

All kidding aside, it is awesome that people are actually talking about going into space again.