Planetary Resources, Inc.

Wow, I didnt know we were even close to this being technologically/finacially feasible.

I hope they are successful.  i do think a private company and not the government should be conducting (funding) this kind of specuilative project.  However I think launches and space travel needs to regulated, otherwise someones going to build a death star

x2. Innovation and individuals willing and able to take calculated risks is what made this country successful. Plus it's way cool.

They are...PR is going to be using SpaceX's launch vehicle and they have a good relationship with the government.

It's not like NASA can get them up there...

There's an alterior motive whether it be PR or a personal issue about re-energizing the space program.  As a feasible business venture, it would have to be a bust for right now.  Just look at some of the challenges involved...

1. The only extraterrestial natural body we have put people on is the moon.
2. It takes a BIG rocket to escape Earth's gravity.  That's a lot of fuel, a lot of water and a lot of WEIGHT.
3. You would first have to identify an asteroid that is within range, big enough to land on and one stable enough to land on.  One that's spinning too much in which you can't land on...
4. You then have to send some sort of probe to the asteroid to see if there's any minerals worth mining.  It would be a very expensive trip to get up there and find only worthless rock and iron.
5. The Space Shuttle had big boosters to get it up into orbit with a big satellite payload.  Then it has enough fuel for some orbital maneuvering, docking with the space station and then enough to maneuver for re-entry.  The Apollo missions had a HUGE Saturn V rocket to get it up and out of orbit, fuel to push it to the moon and orbit, then relaunch back to Earth and seperate for re-entry...  But this would mean lifting mining equipment and manpower up.  Probably multiple rockets lifting off and meeting in orbit.  Then fuel to fly to an asteroid and maneuver to land on it.  Then fuel to lift off with multiple times MORE mass (all the mined ore), maneuver back to Earth, and then re-entry with all that heavy mass!
   
   Let's  look at Space Shuttle weights.  Empty, it's just over 2,000 tons (4 million pounds).  It's payload capacity to lower Earth orbit is about 27 tons, about half that for higher orbits and geosynchronous orbits.  Upon landing it can handle 16 tons.  Those are the heaviest weights we've ever dealt with.  A standard dump truck hauls about up to 35 tons.  So if the Space Shuttle can land with half a dumptruck's worth and let's say they build a rocket that can handle twice that capacity...  They would go through all that to get to an asteroid to mine just a single dumptruck worth of minerals?!  Those minerals better be Platinum, Gold, Silver or something else equally as valuable!
6. How long are you going to be up there mining to obtain enough ore to make it economically feasible?  1 month?  2 months?  6 months?  And how many miners and pilots?  6?  12?  More?  That's a lot of food and water to haul out there as well.

I could go on for hours on this.  Seriously - Newt Gingrich's idea of a moon colony and maybe mining there from a permanent base sounds more reasonable.

There's got be some other alterior motive behind this.

From what I've read, I do think they are motivated mostly by money. For example, there is an asteroid out there called "Amun 3554." Amun 3554 is estimated to contain $8 trillion of both platinum and nickel, and $6 trillion of cobalt. That's $20 trillion. They manage to land on and mine one, just one, of these M-class (metal-rich) asteroids, and they're the world's richest company.

Also, I think the mining missions, if they ever happened, would be purely robotic.

At any rate, no matter what one thinks the feasibility is of it, it's interesting.

http://mashable.com/2012/04/26/planetary-resources-asteroid-mining-trillions/

As Tealeaf pointed out... it's $.  $20 trillion worth.  One one rock alone.

It's not as crazy as it might sound.  Bold.  Sure.  Prone to failure?  Yep.  Gonna happen in less than 10 years?  Probably not.  Possible?  Absolutely.

Interesting article.  I still would highly doubt that the technology exists to do it even with unlimited funding.  But let's say that they can make it there...  AND Amun 3554 is loaded with profitable Platinum...  AND they can get it back:  The current market value of Platinum is about $1,575 per oz.  A Space Shuttle's landing capacity worth (16 tons) would be worth $806.4 Billion dollars.  Their ship could probably handle about a fourth of that (it has much farther to go).  Say $200 Billion gross profit (given that the sudden glut of the metal on the market doesn't tank the market price upon return).  Would it be worth it?

Maybe.  The Space Shuttle (complex and too expensive) cost about $43 Billion to build and about $500 Million per mission to fly.  At say $20 Billion to build (I'm sure they could build it for MUCH less than the government) and $1 Billion per mision to fly (it's a much more complex and bolder/longer flight)...  Yeah.  If they could pull it off and the prize is actually out there, you would be looking at maybe $100 Billion profit per trip.

But I still don't think it's ever getting off the ground. 

This stuff FASCINATES me!  I would love to learn more about it.  One question I have is the actual orbit of this asteroid.  While it may be $20 trillion worth, how many times is the rock going to be within range of reaching and mining.  You wouldn't be able to grab it all in one shot.  I wonder how big it is?  If not too big, it would be interesting to see if someone is thinking of capturing it, tethering it, towing it and say crashing it into the moon.  Then all you would have to do is make easier, shorter, 240,000 miles trips to mine from your pile of rubble.

Oddly enough their website it down right now but they had lots of good info on what asteroids the were looking at.

I'm inspired by the fact that they see there is a basically unlimited amount of $ to be made.. they just need to figure out how to do it.

This could be a good doomsday movie plot. They smash the asteroid into the moon and that causes some sort of catastrophic event on the moon itself which affects the Earth's tides, causing tsunamis and all sorts of nasty things. I don't know much about any science behind my plot, but hey! it's the movies!

There's a good book which talks about these sorts of possibilities; not planets made of diamonds, but getting up to such a speed that we could visit it. The book is called Physics of the Impossible and examines things which are considered impossible in the context of the laws of physics, and shows that most of them are in fact not "impossible" per se.

I highly recommend the book if you're interested in these sorts of things. I did poorly in Physics in high school and found this book pretty accessible; more readable than even A Brief History of Time by Hawking.

LOVE the reference!!!

I think it will cost significantly less than this.  Compare thsi with the project that won the ansari X prize, that supposedly had $25 million funding and they made a MANNED space craft capable of doing two trips within 2 weeks.  This project almost certainly wouldnt be manned however does need to go much further than current commercial projects have gone.  I wouldnt be surprised if the project came in at under a $billion.

My biggest question would be how they are getting the mined materials back.  Making a vehicle that could decelerate materials back down to earth would be increasingly costly the more material you need to bring back right?  Shooting it back at the earth? (death star)

Also would the mined materials market crash?  Speculators would certainly drive it lower.  How much is the price of these materials determined by actual demand for production vs speculation, financial/foreign exchange hedging?

If they were successful I think you'd end up with a "company state" like in Aliens or other sci-fic movies where there is one mega-corp that is essentially the government.