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> Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. Lookup the British

by ajju 12y ago

> Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. Lookup the British East India company

msabalau 12y ago
Trade isn't identical to exploration. And the grant of a monopoly is a form of governmental support.
smacktoward 12y ago
The key difference, of course, being that there are no tea or indigo or opium to be gathered on Mars. The East India Company went exploring because there was money to be made in the places they explored. Those places were full of marketable commodities, many of which were extremely rare in the West and thus could fetch extraordinarily high prices. If the Moon or Mars were covered in some easily gathered resource that people back on Earth would happily pay top dollar for, private industry would have gone there decades ago. But there's nothing there that's worth the money it would cost to bring it back.
- briandear 12y ago
  We don't know it's not. The early trading explorers were doing it for potential, however unknown profit.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  True. But we DO know the asteroids are valuable. The recent comet rendezvous was invaluable information for future mining missions.
  - PeterisP 12y ago
    Umm, nope, there's absolutely nothing on asteroids that's valuable enough to justify mining them in near future. Even being made of solid platinum or diamonds wouldn't make it profitable. Everything that can be gathered from asteroids can be mined from, for example, the Antarctic or the floor of the ocean which are both simpler and cheaper to reach.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Sure, but it never happens unless you do these early experiments to find out how e.g. to dock with a comet/asteroid, to attach, what energy budget you expect to need once you're there and so on.
    - tjmc 12y ago
      You don't think a large supply of water, hydrogen and oxygen would be valuable in LEO?
      - PeterisP 12y ago
        If your goal is to do X in space, then mining asteroids might be a valid means to help you do X, but not an end goal by itself. Most missions don't need a large supply of water, hydrogen and oxygen located in a random orbit around the sun. If you need them at Mars or Moon, then likely it's easier to find the supplies there instead of spending a large supply of fuel in order to move a large supply of stuff to that orbit. If we'd need stuff at LEO, it might be that flying to an asteroid (generally far, far away from LEO) and then pushing it to LEO is more efficient than pushing it up from Earth, but it's not so clear. In any case, this scenario of mining asteroids is very different, I somehow think that the grandparent poster meant mining stuff for us back at Earth.
        JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Even so, the cost of lifting is unrelated to the cost of landing material. Conflating prices.
    - daemin 12y ago
      Asteroids and comets will be valuable in so far as they contain plentiful minerals that are already in space. If people want to build bigger things in space then having available materials already in space to build them with would be valuable, and it would (probably/eventually) be cheaper than flying them up. Not to mention more environmentally friendly as mineral processing is a pollution intensive industry.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > True. But we DO know the asteroids are valuable. The only value of asteroid mining in the forseeable future is to support other off-planet operations, since the only time that getting anything from asteroids will be better than getting it from Earth is if you plan to use it outside of Earth's gravity well.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Parachute it. Drop it like a rock into a lake. Shape it and glide it in. That technology is in its infancy, and will end up unrelated to the cost of lifting delta-V. Its wrong to conflate the two.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Look at the delta-v required to reach various asteroids. The near-Earth ones are lower than most. Look at the cost of delta-v per kg of material. If your target were Mars, and Mars were paved with gold, then gold at $1,800/troyoz is only worth $57,870/kg, meaning that if Mars were paved with gold, it would cost you $942,128 per kg after selling the gold to bring it to Earth. Then factor everything else into your equations. You'll need drilling and prospecting equipment, you'll have exploratory trips, if you plan on sending up humans you'll need life-support systems and their added mass. Quite simply, there's nothing material in space that's going to be less-expensively procured for Earth on Earth. Communications, surveillance, exploration, and research would be the exceptions.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      Cost per delta-v is dropping, hopefully by an lot if/when we get reusable rockets. Given that near earth asteroids require dramatically less delta-v than Mars (because no gravity well) and some are high in platinum, iridium and other expensive things it sounds like mining asteroids could be cost effective soon. I'm not arguing with your numbers, but could you spell out your calculations a bit more? How are you calculating the cost of delta-v per kg?
      - PeterisP 12y ago
        Cost is dropping, but even if/when we reduce the costs by 10-20 times (as expected by the rocket reusability plans) then it's still unprofitable. Even if Santa gave us a free colony of Mars and the rocket costs dropped as much as we hope and Mars was covered with bricks of platinum and iridium - even then it would be economical to simply leave it alone.
        dredmorbius 12y ago
        As I asked the other reply: do you have any substantiation of this? I do tend to agree with your conclusions. Just looking for solid sources / methods.
      - dredmorbius 12y ago
moioci 12y ago
and the Hudson's Bay Company and the Roanoke Colony as well.
soperj 12y ago
And find that they traded mostly with India after 1600?

by ajju 12y ago

> Going back as far as the colonization of the New World, high risk and expensive exploration has traditionally been funded by governments. Lookup the British East India company

msabalau 12y ago

Trade isn't identical to exploration. And the grant of a monopoly is a form of governmental support.

smacktoward 12y ago

The key difference, of course, being that there are no tea or indigo or opium to be gathered on Mars. The East India Company went exploring because there was money to be made in the places they explored. Those places were full of marketable commodities, many of which were extremely rare in the West and thus could fetch extraordinarily high prices. If the Moon or Mars were covered in some easily gathered resource that people back on Earth would happily pay top dollar for, private industry would have gone there decades ago. But there's nothing there that's worth the money it would cost to bring it back.

briandear 12y ago
We don't know it's not. The early trading explorers were doing it for potential, however unknown profit.
JoeAltmaier 12y ago
True. But we DO know the asteroids are valuable. The recent comet rendezvous was invaluable information for future mining missions.
- PeterisP 12y ago
  Umm, nope, there's absolutely nothing on asteroids that's valuable enough to justify mining them in near future. Even being made of solid platinum or diamonds wouldn't make it profitable. Everything that can be gathered from asteroids can be mined from, for example, the Antarctic or the floor of the ocean which are both simpler and cheaper to reach.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Sure, but it never happens unless you do these early experiments to find out how e.g. to dock with a comet/asteroid, to attach, what energy budget you expect to need once you're there and so on.
  - tjmc 12y ago
    You don't think a large supply of water, hydrogen and oxygen would be valuable in LEO?
    - PeterisP 12y ago
      If your goal is to do X in space, then mining asteroids might be a valid means to help you do X, but not an end goal by itself. Most missions don't need a large supply of water, hydrogen and oxygen located in a random orbit around the sun. If you need them at Mars or Moon, then likely it's easier to find the supplies there instead of spending a large supply of fuel in order to move a large supply of stuff to that orbit. If we'd need stuff at LEO, it might be that flying to an asteroid (generally far, far away from LEO) and then pushing it to LEO is more efficient than pushing it up from Earth, but it's not so clear. In any case, this scenario of mining asteroids is very different, I somehow think that the grandparent poster meant mining stuff for us back at Earth.
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Even so, the cost of lifting is unrelated to the cost of landing material. Conflating prices.
  - daemin 12y ago
    Asteroids and comets will be valuable in so far as they contain plentiful minerals that are already in space. If people want to build bigger things in space then having available materials already in space to build them with would be valuable, and it would (probably/eventually) be cheaper than flying them up. Not to mention more environmentally friendly as mineral processing is a pollution intensive industry.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > True. But we DO know the asteroids are valuable. The only value of asteroid mining in the forseeable future is to support other off-planet operations, since the only time that getting anything from asteroids will be better than getting it from Earth is if you plan to use it outside of Earth's gravity well.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Parachute it. Drop it like a rock into a lake. Shape it and glide it in. That technology is in its infancy, and will end up unrelated to the cost of lifting delta-V. Its wrong to conflate the two.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Look at the delta-v required to reach various asteroids. The near-Earth ones are lower than most. Look at the cost of delta-v per kg of material. If your target were Mars, and Mars were paved with gold, then gold at $1,800/troyoz is only worth $57,870/kg, meaning that if Mars were paved with gold, it would cost you $942,128 per kg after selling the gold to bring it to Earth. Then factor everything else into your equations. You'll need drilling and prospecting equipment, you'll have exploratory trips, if you plan on sending up humans you'll need life-support systems and their added mass. Quite simply, there's nothing material in space that's going to be less-expensively procured for Earth on Earth. Communications, surveillance, exploration, and research would be the exceptions.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    Cost per delta-v is dropping, hopefully by an lot if/when we get reusable rockets. Given that near earth asteroids require dramatically less delta-v than Mars (because no gravity well) and some are high in platinum, iridium and other expensive things it sounds like mining asteroids could be cost effective soon. I'm not arguing with your numbers, but could you spell out your calculations a bit more? How are you calculating the cost of delta-v per kg?
    - PeterisP 12y ago
      Cost is dropping, but even if/when we reduce the costs by 10-20 times (as expected by the rocket reusability plans) then it's still unprofitable. Even if Santa gave us a free colony of Mars and the rocket costs dropped as much as we hope and Mars was covered with bricks of platinum and iridium - even then it would be economical to simply leave it alone.
      - dredmorbius 12y ago
        As I asked the other reply: do you have any substantiation of this? I do tend to agree with your conclusions. Just looking for solid sources / methods.
    - dredmorbius 12y ago

moioci 12y ago

and the Hudson's Bay Company and the Roanoke Colony as well.

soperj 12y ago

And find that they traded mostly with India after 1600?