9 ms·

How Billionaire Asteroid Miners Make Money -- Without Mining Asteroids

143 points by mirceagoia 14y ago

mirceagoia 14y ago
I am excited about this. This would be like a space Renaissance, after the '60s.
politician 14y ago
Towards the end, did he say that yes, they will be dumping minerals into the commodities markets? "It's not about scarcity, it's about access."
hristov 14y ago
I was excited to see this article, because I reacted the same way as the author to the initial press release. I was wondering how are they making money now. Especially since someone mentioned that they had 20-30 engineers and that is pretty expensive. Unfortunately the article completely failed to answer the question it posed in its own title. It listed a bunch of ways they hope to make money in the future, but did not mention how they make money now.
- mirceagoia 14y ago
  They may sell, in advance, their technology (robot satellite swarms) which can be used by other organizations for other purposes. That's a supposition though... Or maybe they have research contracts which benefits them and other clients.
- yariang 14y ago
  From the article: "We already have contracts with NASA, some private companies, and even a few private individuals."
  - borism 14y ago
    how does having contracts automatically amounts to "making money"?
aptwebapps 14y ago
That's a pretty neat article but the title undersells it. It makes it sound like it's just about finance. Robot satellite swarms, anyone?
stcredzero 14y ago
...they’re focused on low cost delivery. To get to that point, they’re bringing current approaches to building spacecraft into the 21st century by focusing on mass production Jerry Pournelle proposed this approach to cheap space access decades ago. If one used well established models for economies of scale, weekly rocket launches in a free market would cut launch costs by an order of magnitude. That's also what SpaceX is out to do as well: just take what we know how to do now, and find ways to do more of it.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  It works for satellites at least. Motorola built the Iridium satellites using mass production techniques. They were able to pump out a satellite every 4.3 days, with an end-to-end production time of only 3 weeks and a per-unit cost of only $5 million. This compares with hundreds of millions of dollars and months of production time per satellite for traditional manufacturing techniques.
- chii 14y ago
  " just take what we know how to do now, and find ways to do more of it." I m not sure if this works for space travel in its early ages - i mean, doing "more" of it (e.g., launching more satelites) doesn't mean more "value" is created , thus doesn't guarentee more profit. Which removes the incentive to launch more. The demand for space tech is still low imho, and until it grows, economies of scale won't apply. Economies of scale works for things like cars, because everybody wanted one. It will work when everybody and their dog wants to go up in space.
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    The demand for space tech is still low imho, and until it grows, economies of scale won't apply. That's exactly what Virgin Galactic and Planetary Resources are doing for suborbital vehicles and orbital launch. They're establishing businesses that increase the demand. Increased demand will mean more vehicles built, which will mean that economies of scale will start to apply.
shabble 14y ago
Part of the reason for using a swarm is rather than just one Arkyd is, counter-intuitively, the cost. “The key is redundancy and safety in numbers. We’re planning for a certain amount of failure, and it’s a lot cheaper to work for 80% reliability than it is for 99.9% reliability.” This is going to be the killer [NPI] feature of using automated rather than manned systems. Aiming for just-reliable-enough + spares, rather than Failure Is Not An Option is going to impact just about every single part of it, and reduce costs massively.
- Nogwater 14y ago
  NPI?
  - kgrin 14y ago
    No Pun Intended
    - neotek 14y ago
      I once entered 10 puns in a competition hoping one would win, but...
      - DavidSJ 14y ago
        That's much less than 80% reliability per pun.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - plantain 14y ago
    No pun intended.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- davidcuddeback 14y ago
  > This is going to be the killer [NPI] feature of using automated rather than manned systems. Using automated systems rather than manned systems is a necessary but not sufficient condition to allow for relaxed reliability requirements in spacecraft. Another necessary condition is reduced cost. It's common for a single mission to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which makes many spacecraft designers very risk-adverse. When I was in college, I worked at PolySat [1] where I wrote embedded software for CubeSat-class satellites. CubeSats are fairly revolutionary in the spacecraft business, because they can be launched for less than one million dollars (including development costs). The cost of the hardware was less than $10k for a single satellite and the launch costs are around $40k per kilogram (which is the maximum weight of a 1U CubeSat). Those costs are low enough that we built backup flight units in addition to engineering units. In one case, we were able to launch a backup flight unit of a satellite that was destroyed in a launch failure. (CP2 was on the crashed Dnepr-1 of July 2006 [2]. We relaunched the backup flight model as CP4.) That was only possible because the cost was so low. $50k to relaunch a satellite is unheard of. [1] http://polysat.calpoly.edu/ http://polysat.calpoly.edu/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr-1
sage_joch 14y ago
"In addition, the telescopes are capable of being pointed at Earth for observati0n [sic], as well. All of this potential for gathering data is a potential opportunity to sell that data to universities, businesses, and government." I wonder if this is the main source of their positive cashflow.
- gonzo 14y ago
  you are not alone.
  - mirceagoia 14y ago
    Yep, that could be another source.
- davidcuddeback 14y ago
  They could also sell it by access time. For example, University X rents access to the telescope for $Y/week. I think (but could be wrong) that's how observatories and other space telescopes work (except probably government grants instead of outright purchasing the time). Is anyone familiar with how access to resources is determined in the astronomy world?
  - goodcanadian 14y ago
    Sort of . . . Telescopes are usually owned by countries, their agencies, and/or universities. When multiple agencies are involved, there is an agreement on how to split up access time, usually proportional to the level of funding provided. Each agency then allocates its share of the time to its stakeholders based on its own formulas. Time is usually awarded on a competitive basis where the best science cases win. Generally, from an individual researcher's point of view, they are not charged for the telescope time. From a larger point of view, however, it could be argued that their country (or university or whatever) "buys" a certain percentage of the time. When a new partner organization comes on board, the agreements are usually structured on an $X for Y time basis, but it will be a multi-lateral negotiation rather than simply setting a price and selling to anyone who can pay.
pax 14y ago
So, in short, How Do Billionaire Asteroid Miners Make Money, Without Mining Asteroids? I didn't get it
burke 14y ago
As an occasional EVE Online player, I keep thinking these stories are about the EVE universe. It's always a little world-inverting when I realize they're actually about real life. This whole concept of asteroid mining is incredibly awe-inspiring.
frankydp 14y ago
I assumed they were profitable because they just stuck Billions of dollars in a savings account... o and robot swarms are cool too. Orbital fuel anyone? That may be a bigger deal than the automation, in regards to launch price dropping. Just for assisted reentry allowing reusable vehicles.
sunir 14y ago
As it turns out, they don't have a real plan to mine asteroids. It is just a big hairy audacious goal. Their actionable plan is more realistic (cheap telescopy). Making a spectacular but unprovable and therefore undeniable goal is an effective way of announcing and positioning your company to the world through public relations. Nothing wrong with that. People love to dream and back the dreamers.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ktizo 14y ago
  I have read through quite a bit of their plans for mining asteroids, such as they have publicly released anyway. Are you suggesting that they are lying for short term gain? Surely that kind of approach would backfire quite badly on them as it would be fairly obvious whether they are bullshitting or not in less than three years.
  - ctdonath 14y ago
    Not lying, but perhaps accepting that it is a big hairy audacious goal with commensurate odds. There's good (maybe not great) money in proposing over-the-top megaprojects. A small office of people writing up plans, solving high-level problems, presenting proposals, issuing news releases, soliciting investment, etc. can generate a decent income. Many such project proposals are going on all the time. My favorites: the floating libertarian city/utopia Oceania, the billion-dollar indoor ski result near Atlanta GA, and the 5-mile-span bridge over the Strait Of Gibraltar - all went nowhere, but were inspiring explorations of what could be done if only for want of funding. These are not "lies", just dreams on a scale so large that just proposing them attracts nontrivial income. Kudos to those who try, knowing failure is almost assured. Science fiction has long hypothesized asteroid mining. We are now at the point where we have the engineering capacity to do it, and the economy to take advantage of and benefit from the results; the one thing missing is the moon-landing and/or interstate-highway scale effort required to make it happen. ...and once in a while, such megaprojects succeed. For those with money to spare, facilitating asteroid mining (and maybe a space elevator to help) have a chance to score incredible good for mankind. "Strange how much human progress and accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim
btilly 14y ago
This scares me. It really does. These idiots are planning to put swarms of objects in orbit, planning on a significant percentage failing? Are they actively trying to get the Kessler syndrome under way? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome if you don't know what I am talking about.) Seriously, they need to have a plan for what to do with the junk they will be creating. If they have no plan, I don't think that they should be allowed into orbit.
- chc 14y ago
  Would you consider yourself an expert in this area? Because you can bet some of the people working for them are, so I would feel a bit presumptuous saying something like that. It could be a legitimate concern, but it could just as well be the outer space equivalent of the antivax movement.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - im3w1l 14y ago
    They could you know, know about it, and not care. I believe the people behind this are better than that, but it still bears thinking about.
- JumpCrisscross 14y ago
  Speaking as an aerospace engineer, this is the equivalent of the people a century ago concerned with the Hoover Dam throwing off the Earth's gravity. The Kessler problem is something to think about, but understand that there is a lot of space out there. It is okay to waste a little in the beginning while we get from 80 to 99. Asking for 99 from the start is akin to saying we won't let a car on the road until 60mpg.
NDizzle 14y ago
How billionaries make money: by being billionaires.
raldi 14y ago
They say that the only people who got rich off the California gold rush were the ones selling shovels and pickaxes. It sounds like Planetary Resources wants to position itself to be the "asteroid mining rush" equivalent.
brianl 14y ago
I can't really see a business case where these guys would make a profit before their billionaire club gets bored. I don't think images from hundreds of little cameras are going to be equal the image from the Hubble or its replacement, the Webb. I hope these guys won't be another Iridium. Maybe the military is funding them: http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Space_Enabled_Effects_for_Military_Engagements_(SeeMe).aspx http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Space_Enabled_Eff...
- maaku 14y ago
  They're already profitable.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  > I don't think images from hundreds of little cameras are going to be equal the image from the Hubble or its replacement, the Webb. My expertise in this field extends to reading several Wikipedia pages and sci-fi novels, but: 1. Wouldn't that depend on what they're trying to look at? Can the Hubble even focus on anything closer than Jupiter? 2. Wouldn't they be able to use interferometry to effectively surpass any single-lens telescope?
donnawarellp 14y ago
It reminds me of that movie "Brewsters Millions". In the movie Richard Pryor plays a character that will inherit $300M from his excentric uncle but to do so he must first prove himself by spending $30M in 30days and have nothing to show for it in the end. It was a hillarious movie, but in one part of it he decides to invest in something crazy so he buys a company that wants to capture icebergs from the artic and use tug boat to tow them to the arabian deserts an Africa and other water starved places. Upon hearing that a multi-millionaire is investing in the company, figuring he must know what he is doing, a bunch of other people run out and start bidding up the stock price.
SudarshanP 14y ago
I have no idea why the guys at Planetary Resources do not redirect curious people to the KISS studies they talk about in their press conference. http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120307_IEEE_Presentation.pdf http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120307_IEEE_Pre... http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_re... http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120314_ESA_ESTEC.pdf http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120314_ESA_ESTE... I had to dig around for sometime and I thought these papers must be behind some pay-wall. I was surprised to find them on the KISS website. It is not that they are clueless about how to bring back an asteroid and extract resources from it. They just want their MVP to the be the act of prospecting itself. Also I was really surprised to learn that Ion Engines have been routinely used before for asteroid missions like Dawn(http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp). The scaling they need to achieve for these missions is much smaller than the average non space geek would expect. Does anyone here know if the scalability requirements of solar ion propulsion systems they need for the mission of tugging an asteroid into lunar orbit is realistically achievable by 2020?
ja27 14y ago
<i>“It’s like computers,” he continued. “They used to be in clean rooms and handled by guys in isolation suits. Now they’re in your pocket and it’s no big deal if you drop it.</i> What computers have ever required clean rooms and isolation suits? Maybe chip fabrication, but not assembled computers.
padobson 14y ago
"That’s because by being able to put a high supply of precious metals on the market, they might very well depress prices significantly, which would harm their investment return." They should consult with the diamond industry on how to keep prices high for a non-scarce commodity. As for the commoditizing the equipment for space travel, you have to be excited about the possibilities. Hobbyist space travel can't be more than 100 years away if you can buy and launch an Arkyd for $5mm today. In the shorter term, you could do space exploration ventures for the capital equivalent of what it cost Columbus or Magellan to make expeditions to the West. It's very exciting. I'm quite pleased work like this is being done.

143 points by mirceagoia 14y ago

I am excited about this. This would be like a space Renaissance, after the '60s.

Towards the end, did he say that yes, they will be dumping minerals into the commodities markets? "It's not about scarcity, it's about access."

hristov 14y ago

I was excited to see this article, because I reacted the same way as the author to the initial press release. I was wondering how are they making money now. Especially since someone mentioned that they had 20-30 engineers and that is pretty expensive. Unfortunately the article completely failed to answer the question it posed in its own title. It listed a bunch of ways they hope to make money in the future, but did not mention how they make money now.

mirceagoia 14y ago
They may sell, in advance, their technology (robot satellite swarms) which can be used by other organizations for other purposes. That's a supposition though... Or maybe they have research contracts which benefits them and other clients.
yariang 14y ago
From the article: "We already have contracts with NASA, some private companies, and even a few private individuals."
- borism 14y ago
  how does having contracts automatically amounts to "making money"?

aptwebapps 14y ago

That's a pretty neat article but the title undersells it. It makes it sound like it's just about finance. Robot satellite swarms, anyone?

stcredzero 14y ago

...they’re focused on low cost delivery. To get to that point, they’re bringing current approaches to building spacecraft into the 21st century by focusing on mass production Jerry Pournelle proposed this approach to cheap space access decades ago. If one used well established models for economies of scale, weekly rocket launches in a free market would cut launch costs by an order of magnitude. That's also what SpaceX is out to do as well: just take what we know how to do now, and find ways to do more of it.

InclinedPlane 14y ago
It works for satellites at least. Motorola built the Iridium satellites using mass production techniques. They were able to pump out a satellite every 4.3 days, with an end-to-end production time of only 3 weeks and a per-unit cost of only $5 million. This compares with hundreds of millions of dollars and months of production time per satellite for traditional manufacturing techniques.
chii 14y ago
" just take what we know how to do now, and find ways to do more of it." I m not sure if this works for space travel in its early ages - i mean, doing "more" of it (e.g., launching more satelites) doesn't mean more "value" is created , thus doesn't guarentee more profit. Which removes the incentive to launch more. The demand for space tech is still low imho, and until it grows, economies of scale won't apply. Economies of scale works for things like cars, because everybody wanted one. It will work when everybody and their dog wants to go up in space.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  The demand for space tech is still low imho, and until it grows, economies of scale won't apply. That's exactly what Virgin Galactic and Planetary Resources are doing for suborbital vehicles and orbital launch. They're establishing businesses that increase the demand. Increased demand will mean more vehicles built, which will mean that economies of scale will start to apply.

shabble 14y ago

Part of the reason for using a swarm is rather than just one Arkyd is, counter-intuitively, the cost. “The key is redundancy and safety in numbers. We’re planning for a certain amount of failure, and it’s a lot cheaper to work for 80% reliability than it is for 99.9% reliability.” This is going to be the killer [NPI] feature of using automated rather than manned systems. Aiming for just-reliable-enough + spares, rather than Failure Is Not An Option is going to impact just about every single part of it, and reduce costs massively.

Nogwater 14y ago
NPI?
- kgrin 14y ago
  No Pun Intended
  - neotek 14y ago
    I once entered 10 puns in a competition hoping one would win, but...
    - DavidSJ 14y ago
      That's much less than 80% reliability per pun.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- plantain 14y ago
  No pun intended.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
davidcuddeback 14y ago
> This is going to be the killer [NPI] feature of using automated rather than manned systems. Using automated systems rather than manned systems is a necessary but not sufficient condition to allow for relaxed reliability requirements in spacecraft. Another necessary condition is reduced cost. It's common for a single mission to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which makes many spacecraft designers very risk-adverse. When I was in college, I worked at PolySat [1] where I wrote embedded software for CubeSat-class satellites. CubeSats are fairly revolutionary in the spacecraft business, because they can be launched for less than one million dollars (including development costs). The cost of the hardware was less than $10k for a single satellite and the launch costs are around $40k per kilogram (which is the maximum weight of a 1U CubeSat). Those costs are low enough that we built backup flight units in addition to engineering units. In one case, we were able to launch a backup flight unit of a satellite that was destroyed in a launch failure. (CP2 was on the crashed Dnepr-1 of July 2006 [2]. We relaunched the backup flight model as CP4.) That was only possible because the cost was so low. $50k to relaunch a satellite is unheard of. [1] http://polysat.calpoly.edu/ http://polysat.calpoly.edu/ [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr-1

sage_joch 14y ago

"In addition, the telescopes are capable of being pointed at Earth for observati0n [sic], as well. All of this potential for gathering data is a potential opportunity to sell that data to universities, businesses, and government." I wonder if this is the main source of their positive cashflow.

gonzo 14y ago
you are not alone.
- mirceagoia 14y ago
  Yep, that could be another source.
davidcuddeback 14y ago
They could also sell it by access time. For example, University X rents access to the telescope for $Y/week. I think (but could be wrong) that's how observatories and other space telescopes work (except probably government grants instead of outright purchasing the time). Is anyone familiar with how access to resources is determined in the astronomy world?
- goodcanadian 14y ago
  Sort of . . . Telescopes are usually owned by countries, their agencies, and/or universities. When multiple agencies are involved, there is an agreement on how to split up access time, usually proportional to the level of funding provided. Each agency then allocates its share of the time to its stakeholders based on its own formulas. Time is usually awarded on a competitive basis where the best science cases win. Generally, from an individual researcher's point of view, they are not charged for the telescope time. From a larger point of view, however, it could be argued that their country (or university or whatever) "buys" a certain percentage of the time. When a new partner organization comes on board, the agreements are usually structured on an $X for Y time basis, but it will be a multi-lateral negotiation rather than simply setting a price and selling to anyone who can pay.

pax 14y ago

So, in short, How Do Billionaire Asteroid Miners Make Money, Without Mining Asteroids? I didn't get it

burke 14y ago

As an occasional EVE Online player, I keep thinking these stories are about the EVE universe. It's always a little world-inverting when I realize they're actually about real life. This whole concept of asteroid mining is incredibly awe-inspiring.

frankydp 14y ago

I assumed they were profitable because they just stuck Billions of dollars in a savings account... o and robot swarms are cool too. Orbital fuel anyone? That may be a bigger deal than the automation, in regards to launch price dropping. Just for assisted reentry allowing reusable vehicles.

sunir 14y ago

As it turns out, they don't have a real plan to mine asteroids. It is just a big hairy audacious goal. Their actionable plan is more realistic (cheap telescopy). Making a spectacular but unprovable and therefore undeniable goal is an effective way of announcing and positioning your company to the world through public relations. Nothing wrong with that. People love to dream and back the dreamers.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ktizo 14y ago
I have read through quite a bit of their plans for mining asteroids, such as they have publicly released anyway. Are you suggesting that they are lying for short term gain? Surely that kind of approach would backfire quite badly on them as it would be fairly obvious whether they are bullshitting or not in less than three years.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  Not lying, but perhaps accepting that it is a big hairy audacious goal with commensurate odds. There's good (maybe not great) money in proposing over-the-top megaprojects. A small office of people writing up plans, solving high-level problems, presenting proposals, issuing news releases, soliciting investment, etc. can generate a decent income. Many such project proposals are going on all the time. My favorites: the floating libertarian city/utopia Oceania, the billion-dollar indoor ski result near Atlanta GA, and the 5-mile-span bridge over the Strait Of Gibraltar - all went nowhere, but were inspiring explorations of what could be done if only for want of funding. These are not "lies", just dreams on a scale so large that just proposing them attracts nontrivial income. Kudos to those who try, knowing failure is almost assured. Science fiction has long hypothesized asteroid mining. We are now at the point where we have the engineering capacity to do it, and the economy to take advantage of and benefit from the results; the one thing missing is the moon-landing and/or interstate-highway scale effort required to make it happen. ...and once in a while, such megaprojects succeed. For those with money to spare, facilitating asteroid mining (and maybe a space elevator to help) have a chance to score incredible good for mankind. "Strange how much human progress and accomplishment comes from contemplation of the irrelevant." - Scott Kim

btilly 14y ago

This scares me. It really does. These idiots are planning to put swarms of objects in orbit, planning on a significant percentage failing? Are they actively trying to get the Kessler syndrome under way? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome if you don't know what I am talking about.) Seriously, they need to have a plan for what to do with the junk they will be creating. If they have no plan, I don't think that they should be allowed into orbit.

chc 14y ago
Would you consider yourself an expert in this area? Because you can bet some of the people working for them are, so I would feel a bit presumptuous saying something like that. It could be a legitimate concern, but it could just as well be the outer space equivalent of the antivax movement.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- im3w1l 14y ago
  They could you know, know about it, and not care. I believe the people behind this are better than that, but it still bears thinking about.
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
Speaking as an aerospace engineer, this is the equivalent of the people a century ago concerned with the Hoover Dam throwing off the Earth's gravity. The Kessler problem is something to think about, but understand that there is a lot of space out there. It is okay to waste a little in the beginning while we get from 80 to 99. Asking for 99 from the start is akin to saying we won't let a car on the road until 60mpg.

NDizzle 14y ago

How billionaries make money: by being billionaires.

raldi 14y ago

They say that the only people who got rich off the California gold rush were the ones selling shovels and pickaxes. It sounds like Planetary Resources wants to position itself to be the "asteroid mining rush" equivalent.

brianl 14y ago

I can't really see a business case where these guys would make a profit before their billionaire club gets bored. I don't think images from hundreds of little cameras are going to be equal the image from the Hubble or its replacement, the Webb. I hope these guys won't be another Iridium. Maybe the military is funding them: http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Space_Enabled_Effects_for_Military_Engagements_(SeeMe).aspx http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Space_Enabled_Eff...

maaku 14y ago
They're already profitable.
pavel_lishin 14y ago
> I don't think images from hundreds of little cameras are going to be equal the image from the Hubble or its replacement, the Webb. My expertise in this field extends to reading several Wikipedia pages and sci-fi novels, but: 1. Wouldn't that depend on what they're trying to look at? Can the Hubble even focus on anything closer than Jupiter? 2. Wouldn't they be able to use interferometry to effectively surpass any single-lens telescope?

donnawarellp 14y ago

It reminds me of that movie "Brewsters Millions". In the movie Richard Pryor plays a character that will inherit $300M from his excentric uncle but to do so he must first prove himself by spending $30M in 30days and have nothing to show for it in the end. It was a hillarious movie, but in one part of it he decides to invest in something crazy so he buys a company that wants to capture icebergs from the artic and use tug boat to tow them to the arabian deserts an Africa and other water starved places. Upon hearing that a multi-millionaire is investing in the company, figuring he must know what he is doing, a bunch of other people run out and start bidding up the stock price.

SudarshanP 14y ago

I have no idea why the guys at Planetary Resources do not redirect curious people to the KISS studies they talk about in their press conference. http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120307_IEEE_Presentation.pdf http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120307_IEEE_Pre... http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_re... http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120314_ESA_ESTEC.pdf http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120314_ESA_ESTE... I had to dig around for sometime and I thought these papers must be behind some pay-wall. I was surprised to find them on the KISS website. It is not that they are clueless about how to bring back an asteroid and extract resources from it. They just want their MVP to the be the act of prospecting itself. Also I was really surprised to learn that Ion Engines have been routinely used before for asteroid missions like Dawn(http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp). The scaling they need to achieve for these missions is much smaller than the average non space geek would expect. Does anyone here know if the scalability requirements of solar ion propulsion systems they need for the mission of tugging an asteroid into lunar orbit is realistically achievable by 2020?

ja27 14y ago

<i>“It’s like computers,” he continued. “They used to be in clean rooms and handled by guys in isolation suits. Now they’re in your pocket and it’s no big deal if you drop it.</i> What computers have ever required clean rooms and isolation suits? Maybe chip fabrication, but not assembled computers.

padobson 14y ago

"That’s because by being able to put a high supply of precious metals on the market, they might very well depress prices significantly, which would harm their investment return." They should consult with the diamond industry on how to keep prices high for a non-scarce commodity. As for the commoditizing the equipment for space travel, you have to be excited about the possibilities. Hobbyist space travel can't be more than 100 years away if you can buy and launch an Arkyd for $5mm today. In the shorter term, you could do space exploration ventures for the capital equivalent of what it cost Columbus or Magellan to make expeditions to the West. It's very exciting. I'm quite pleased work like this is being done.