And they said America was out of space. lol

Are the missions manned or robotic? Please say manned. Please.

"muh central planning, mofugga"
- butthurt statist fags

So, while the free market is off exploring space, lolstatists will probably be sitting in their mother's basements fapping to furries.

btw, what's with the nigger pic OP

Suck it commies.

>inb4 repeat of yesterdays whining

>baww i don't understand technology and believe the world is a 1900s marxist fantasy

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403555,00.asp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfadJj4d5K4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7clqqbHZI

There is going to be a MASSIVE legal battle over this.

It may hold the project up for years :/

>>2858657
Why?

>>2858675
Because this is new property territory, and people are going to be complaining the whole way. As of right now, no one owns these resources :/

The first hurdle will likely be ensuring that Planetary Resources has covered all its legal bases. While some have argued that governments need to set up specific property rights before investors will make use of space, the majority of space lawyers agree that this isn’t necessary to assure the opportunity for a return on investment, said space policy analyst Henry Hertzfeld at George Washington University in Washington D.C. Mining occurs in international seabeds — even without specific property rights — overseen by a special commission dedicated to the task, he said. A similar arrangement would likely work in space.

In terms of extraction, Planetary Resources hopes to go after the platinum-group metals — which include platinum, palladium, osmium, and iridium — highly valuable commodities used in medical devices, renewable energy products, catalytic converters, and potentially in automotive fuel cells.

Platinum alone is worth around $23,000 a pound — nearly the same as gold. Mining the top few feet of a single modestly sized, half-mile-diameter asteroid could yield around 130 tons of platinum, worth roughly $6 billion.

>mfw the free market is literally fixing it

>>2858675

Because he FEELS like there will be.

Don't think too hard about Leftist logic.

>>2858700
>the majority of space lawyers
>space lawyers

>yfw space could free humanity and make our lives totally bad ass but politics and legislation are going to make it shit for everyone

b-b-b-but it will just help the r-rich guys?

guys?

please respond

>>2858700
>implying there is law in space

As the statists like to say, "might is right".

>>2858706

Gingrich must feel vindicated. If he were still running this would be a huge boost to him.

This is the result of people who think this is interesting not a source of profit, and will stop funding this the second money is tight.

As a result, the company will realize it cannot survive off of generous billionaires forever and have to go bankrupt before anything is accomplished. All progress will be lost and the next company will have to start over from scratch.

The free market will never actually reach outer-space on it's own merits or without handouts from geeky billionaires.

>>2858756
Yeah it would. Hell he could run on the platform of wanting to compete with these guys.
It could have sparked something incredible even.

>>2858771
>what is space x
>what is virgin galactic

>>2858771
As apposed to handouts from fatcat bankers?
Does it really matter, really? Fucking com'on now.

>>2858771

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

Oh there's money.

Reminds me of a video I saw a while back. I never thought anything would come of it at the time.

>Bill Stone's outlines his plan to create a mission to mine Shackleton Crater on the South Pole of the Moon. He plans to do this to supply an orbital propellant station and change space exploration in our lifetime. He invites all of us to join in this effort and you can start by visiting LunarWire.com.

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvgphTcFg0Y&list=FL-QpBL8pWj1iObm4_Wv59Rw&index=163&f
eature=plpp_video

>>2858618
JIDF detected

>>2858748

Well aside from trickle down, they should be bringing resources that would never have gotten to the earth otherwise, thus increasing the planet's wealth overall. Furthermore, the innovations and discoveries made during this venture could e used for future projects.

If it fails then society didn't have to pay for it.


So I think it's great.

So far this will go as follows;

2 years from now
>Series of five telescopes to be launched towards the asteroid belt to begin survey.

7 years from now
>'small swarm' of similar space eyes to be sent to likely areas for more detailed mineral survey

Beyond that
>Hope to use robotic technology to mine for ore and valuable minerals

Wow, so we're basically still looking at tech development and actual mineral survey of our asteroid belt. Totally cool!

The rest of the article is speculation about procedures, possible extraction, earth or near earth-refinement.

>>2858803
Protip if you're new. JIDF are the statists.

While it is encouraging to see more commercial companies taking an interest in space... I'll have a little more faith in "Planetary Resources" when they quit with the public relations crap and release an actual business plan. PR was founded two years ago and they've yet to come out with any actual details as to what, when, or how they're going to go about doing any of this.

The only things they've made public are their intention to launch "a series of infrared telescopes to identify resource rich asteroids", and their intention to focus on mining water first instead of minerals... both of which, in my opinion, are ridiculously stupid moves.

In the case of the former:
a) NASA already has a massive, publicly available database of something like 700,000 main belt asteroids including spectral data
b) The odds of finding any new asteroids with inferior telescopes is slim to none.
c) Producing the asteroid equivalent of a 'prospecting map' necessitates a dedicated probe mission and cannot be accomplished with a distant telescope.

In the case of the latter:
a) Mining water is pointless unless you already have an established population in space without access.
b) Mining minerals is vastly more profitable

>>2858817
mfw we're the reapers who find this technology
mfw I've never played mass effect

>>2858700
>Mining the top few feet of a single modestly sized, half-mile-diameter asteroid could yield around 130 tons of platinum, worth roughly $6 billion.
All. That. Dosch

>fund project to mine asteroids
>find platinum
>"sorry guys, you're gonna have to share. That's everyone's asteroid."

>>2858833
They're learning it themselves, like anything it needs a few beta tests to get it right. NASA didn't go from experimental rocket science to a moon landing in a weeks.

>>2858841

Not to mention the benefits if they can start providing energy production.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20080213.html

The problem with mining minerals is that they're not going to be consumed as fast back on earth, and can be recycled.

ENERGY, on the other hand.

>>2858833
Right, obviously there are utilizing the NASA findings to pin-point and enhance knowledge of suspect areas.

Hence the initial five satellite, then the 'small swarm' which will come only a few years later.

I'm more interested in their extraction r&d process. Some of the methods talked about further in the article seem pretty trumped up to me.

>>2858798
Fuck I lol'd what a great watch even though its old..

>>2858813
I know. JIDF here was pretending to be the stereotypical libertarian as portrayed by MSM.
aka Racist, stereotyping douchebags

>>2858833

For anyone who has ever doubted that this tripfag is a state-worshipping useful-idiot who can only see the world through the lense of a serf with stockholem syndrome, here is your proof. Seriously, does your work for NASA or something?

>>2858913

Does your dad*?

>>2858771

Yeah, because I'm sure those billionaires aren't thinking they could make absolute bank off of this. They're just funding it for shits and giggles.

There's massive risk involved (imagine the shitstorm if they had a malfunction on their rockets and some of their crew died stranded in space) but also the potential for massive profit. As modern demand grew, pushing the price of these metals up, eventually the potential for
Profit outweighed the risk, at least for these guys. And if they do it, and prove it can be done, it would drive the perception of risk down, and more people would get into it.

Oh but you're right, every project that required a massive initial investment by the state always remained forever after only achievable by the state

ITT: We EVE online now.

>>2858841
Except the platinum price would plummet and dollars are already worthless.

>>2858951
They'll be no crew.

Are people seriously trying to say that people can spend their own money and risk their own lives trying to advance humanity?

Hope not.

>>2858874
The entire thing is trumped up

Either you use humans to control the robot miners, in which case you have a 30 second delay. Ping is measured in milliseconds, imagine trying to mine platinum with a ping of 30,000. A bad hit and suddenly your drill is stuck, part of your arm is off, etc etc.

Or you can invent an AI to do it, now you have decided that a few astrophiles can do what an entire industry has failed at for half a century.

And let's not forget even getting there and back. It's relatively easy to land on a planet because gravity will pull you in the right direction, you just have to direct and slow your fall. Landing on an asteroid is a million times harder, you have to match speeds and then slowly touch down, a single wrong thrust can send you smashing into the asteroid (destroying your entire project, good job) or careening too far away and having to start the entire process all over again (match speed, slowly descend).
Oh, and you're also doing this with that 30,000 ping. Good luck

Basically people are buying into the same nonsense as what caused the credit crisis. Rich economists said the boom/bust cycle was over and that housing prices wouldn't fall. Now they're believing that a few billionaires can, by the power of money, revolutionize an industry that has already had trillions invested in it, public and private money.

But of course, /pol/ laps it up

>>2858959 not caring about the robots risking their lives

>post this when it first popped up on bbc
>basically nobody replied

dammit, /pol/
;_;

Rather than having to lug all the fuel for a mission out of Earth’s deep gravity well — an expensive proposition — having a “gas station” in space could help enable missions to Mars and beyond. Such a refueling depot might allow people to permanently live and work in space, another goal of Planetary Resources.

Of course, this creates a sort of chicken-and-egg problem. Do you generate tons of resources for your nonexistent space civilization first or do you get your space civilization started and then utilize the available resources?

Wired Science’s resident space historian David S. Portree thinks asteroid mining might make more sense when we have a more established space-based habitats with a different economy and better technology.

“Right now it would be like a big oil tanker dropping anchor off the coast of medieval England,” he said. “The medieval English might identify the oil as a useful commodity, but wouldn’t be able use enough to profit the tanker crew. Heck, they wouldn’t know how to get it off the tanker, except in wooden pails and rowboats.”

>>2858974
>>2858974

>Landing on an asteroid is a million times harder, you have to match speeds and then slowly touch down, a single wrong thrust can send you smashing into the asteroid

Good thing we've already done it, eh?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7812623/First-spacecraft-to-land-on-an-asteroid-due-back-on
-Earth.html

>>2858874
That's my point though, there's no reason to launch the satellites at all

The orbital telescopes PR is planning on sending up aren't going to be capable of gleaning more detail than existing telescopes like WISE or Spitzer - better to utilize NASA's existing data and launch the probes sooner.

Model the probes off of NASA's Dawn mission - you only need optical and infrared instruments and they don't need to be nearly as cutting edge so that cuts down dramatically on the cost of the package. One probe could produce a thorough scan of the surface composition over a course of several months. Compile the data and present it to a team of geologists and planetary scientists to determine the best spots to dig.

>>2858974

Wasn't there that robot they dropped on Mars that was programmed to dig up soil samples for collection? Its a similar concept to program a mining bot, surely.

I for one approve of this capitalistic endeavor, soon we will be able to send people to Mars and discover mass-accelerator technology.

and libfags preach science and progress, but only on their own terms.

mfw free market as well. we found it...

>>2858951

For reals?

Dude, if I was a billionaire, I would build a fucking a giant skyscraper in a city for like a billion dollars, not for any economic benefit, but just so I could say "yo, that's my skyscraper."

Actually, some wealthy capitalist in South Korea is doing just that, building a huge fucking skyscraper just because. Pic related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_World_Premium_Tower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_World_Tower

Yeah, they're going to be used for hotel and residential and other shit, but the guy behind Lotte said really, he's building them because he fuckin feels like it. (source in Korean)

Also, the Burj Khalifa (current tallest tower) lost money and no fucks were given, and the next tallest tower, to be built in Saudi Arabia (1000m+ high) doesn't look like it's being built to make money, either.

So yes, while there is a *chance* of major profits involves, don't underestimate the ability of rich fucks to do shit just because they want to. Many of us love space, these guys actually have the money to do something with it

>>2859069

>he's building them because he fuckin feels like it.

BUT BUT BUT BUT HE DOESN'T REALLY NEED THAT MONEY OR THAT SKYSCRAPPER!!!!

>>2859084

Why is "conservative" chan nekkid?

>>2858974


this is why we need a moon base

>lolbertarians all those years asking "why we should colonise the moon? alium invasion?!?!? XD"

you could essentially drag/ push asteroids out of the belt and smash them into it then send out a recovery party to collect whatever minerals we need.

>>2859016
I was going to talk about that. Do you know why the depth NASA drills is measured in inches and feet, not yards? Surely if they want an accurate measure of a planet's history they should drill deeper, right?

It's because drilling through the soft upper layer is a world away from drilling through bedrock, which is what you're going to be doing if you're asteroid mining. Ask anyone who has ever used a jackhammer, a drill needs to be steadied, it needs to be used carefully or the opposing force will harm the user (in this case damage part of your million dollar robot, which is a few light-seconds away from any service station). Now multiply that by several meters of thickness and varying levels of of thickness. Can an AI do that successfully without getting bitten in the ass by an equal and opposite reaction? Probably not. Can a human? Yes, but now you're running headlong back into the realm of 30,000 ping

Good luck with that though

>>2859084

1) Most major corporations in developed East Asia are family owned, ran either by the family or by the "monarch." See: Japanese Keiretsu (eg Mitsubishi Group), Korean chaebol (eg. Samsung Group), etc.

2) Shin Kyuk-Ho, the guy behind Lotte (a Korean chaebol) was born in fucking 1922, runs this shit, is almost dead, and has stated numerous times that he's a futurist and a skyscraper aficionado.


Yeah, there's no way he could be building these things just for fun or to see his dreams come true before he dies.

>>2858913
I'm sorry if my analysis upset you, but all I did was point out that the company is taking a long time to release a detailed business plan and that what information they have released points to some very strange and unnecessary decisions.

Informed criticism of a company does not make me a 'statist sheep' anymore than informed criticism of the government makes me an anarchist

>>2859190

Actually i'd bet they measure in meters or millimeters. The imperial system is not very scientific.

>>2859218
NASA is in the unfortunate position of doing all their designs and research in metric... then having to convert it to imperial for all the American manufacturers and shit

That's why we lost the Mars Orbiter a few years back

>Become Space Miner
>complain that workload is too complex for simple machinery
>Demand mobile suits be built to help with mining operation
>Receive Zaku
>Mine Asteroids
>Earth stops paying you for your work
>Get pissed
>Drop colony on them
>Profit

SIEG!

>>2859126
Rocks are not free citizen
>http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=19615
Yeah yeah this is about Warhammer 40k, but it does outline that sending an orbital body to smash into another orbital body is a fucking pain in the ass. First you have to get whatever is going to accelerate it (AND YOU'RE STILL WORKING WITH THAT PING) and land/attach. Then how much fuel do you need? A fuckton? More like a few fucktons, this bad boy is a few miles in diameter and almost solid rock. Now you need to point it at that tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny speck in the distance that is the earth. DO NOT AIM AT THE EARTH DIRECTLY. You are aiming at the body circling the earth, which is much smaller.

Now that you are moving your unwieldy asteroid-rocket, you STILL need enough fucktons of fuel left to make the hundred or so minute corrections that, remember NASA has to make every single time they send a rover to mars, and use those corrections to
1 NOT hit the earth.
2 hit the moon
3 hit the right part of the moon (somewhere near your moonbase)
4 not go careening out into the vastness of space. It is slightly easier to land on the moon than an asteroid because it does have appreciable gravity, but it's still harder than landing on Mars or Earth because the distance at which gravity will start pulling you in is a lot smaller

>>2859218
Fuck me, I meant millimeters

Although knowing America, we might still be using feet for all I know

>>2859306
As a rule - in the US researchers use metric, engineers use 'English'.

This of course causes no end of confusion that could be avoided if Americans would grow up, get with the program, and convert to metric.

>>2859339
I blame Obama

/sci/ already discussed this. this is a stupid idea.

>spend $1 trillion to get maybe $1 billion in metal in return

>>2859370

Why would they spend a trillion?

Why would the returns only be a billion?

This has all kinds of implications beyond just cheaper precious metals. The technology that could end up being developed as a result of this venture might potentially be used to divert comets or asteroids that have the potential to hit Earth. If this takes off it's going to advance humanity and technology significantly. Just really cool shit.

>>2859288

i'm thinking more along this only reversed.

http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/2262/laser-guided-asteroids

of course it depends entirely on what type of lasers they're looking to use (will it need to be resupplied or can we rely on it being solar powered etc.) that way we bypass all they fiddly bits and essentially just have to guide it into the moon.

>>2859370
>/sci/ already discussed this. this is a stupid idea.

Dripping sarcasm: Well, if nobodies on the internet said it, then it must be true.

>>2859370

How did /sci/ come to the conclusion that it would cost trillions? Studies suggest that the cost of wrangling an asteroid would be closer to a few billion dollars by 2025.

>He declined to estimate when Planetary Resources would begin extracting metals or water from space rocks, saying there are too many variables to lay out a firm timeline. But a recent study sponsored by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies estimated that a 500-ton near-Earth asteroid could be snagged and dragged to the moon's orbit by 2025, at a cost of about $2.6 billion.

http://news.yahoo.com/asteroid-mining-venture-backed-google-execs-james-cameron-011205183.html

>>2859370

Also, see >>2858797

There's likely way more than a billion dollars worth of metals on a resource rich asteroid.

>>2859069

That graph doesn't have the Sears (Willis) tower of Chicago.

typical northeast bias.

>>2858797
Of course there's money. There's trillions to be made in finding a cure for AIDS (not something that slows or stops its progress, but actually removes the viral DNA from your cells). So why hasn't anyone just gone and done it? The reason is that you need more than just money. You need it to be possible with our current technology for one, and you need to find a way to do it for two.

It isn't as simply as "go to space, find asteroid, tow it back to earth" anymore than curing AIDS is just "send something into the body that cuts out Viral DNA from your cells." To say this is simply to ignore all of the variables and problems associated with it

>>2859011
I don't know much about space science, but wouldn't NASA's telescopes be looking for stuff they haven't found instead of looking for asteroids to mine here in our own solar system?

>>2859190
Is it possible to get an asteroid to orbit Earth?

>>2859544

>But a recent study sponsored by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies estimated that a 500-ton near-Earth asteroid could be snagged and dragged to the moon's orbit by 2025, at a cost of about $2.6 billion.

Sounds like we already have the technology. It's just a matter of finding some near Earth objects, figuring out which ones are the most promising candidates (closest and has the most resources to exploit), and then someone actually taking the risk and putting the money up to make it happen.

>>2859470
Is this saying that it would cost a billion dollars to
1 Send a probe
2 tug an asteroid
In essence, is it leaving R&D out of its estimate? How is it counting fuel prices? How is it counting creation costs for whatever little doohickey we're sending up? How is it counting manpower costs of employing not only your R&D scientists to make the plans, but engineers to perfect them, chinamen to make the craft, and an entire mission control room to make sure it does what it's supposed to (including training and doing test runs as necessary, in the same way Apollo needed Gemini)

>>2859549

>Is it possible to get an asteroid to orbit Earth?

The moon does.

>>2859113

oh you don't know about Emi?

dohoho, boy are you in for a shocker

>>2859580
Meteorites don't. And we didn't put the moon up there.

>>2859624

Not the point. its possible.

these asteroids belong to all of us. these billionaires have no right to mine them for free.

>the majority of space lawyers
>space lawyers

>>2859624

give it time, we're gods now.

>>2859572
Posters in this thread have already outlines all the hurdles we still need to overcome in bringing it all together. Landing and attaching to an asteroid without crashing the ship, doing a million minor corrections, etc. Saying "we have the tech" simply means that if a step-by-step plan was given to us by aliens, we have all the materials and technological know-how to build whatever they told us to build. But actually drawing up the rocket that will go to the asteroid, whatever you will use to attach/move the asteroid (tractor beams or a tow-line if you really want to) and whatever you will use to pin-point navigate that asteroid to its final destination, that all still needs to be researched and build.

Put it this way, we had the technological know-how to cultivate penicillin for medical use in the 19th century, but we still needed to discover penicillin in order to do so

>>2859576

It includes all the costs. But note that's only the cost to capture and tow the asteroid to lunar orbit. That would only be step one. They'd also have to develop the robotic mining equipment and whatever else they need to send that equipment to the moon, actually mine the asteroid, and then bring those resources back to Earth.

>>2859633
It's also possible that the asteroid could, instead of settling into an orbit around the Earth, crash into it and really mess up someone's day.

Or do you know if and exactly how it's possible?

>>2859644

Send your own spacecraft to it first then

>>2859671

crash it into the moon or, even better, mars

The price of rocket launches will keep going down.

The population of humans will keep going up, raising demand for everything. Therefore prices of precious metals will go up. The supply of precious metals will keep going down which means that prices will skyrocket.

I think that mining asteroids will be very profitable decades in the future.

>>2859549
NASA surveys have identified and cataloged most of the large (larger than a few hundred meters) and using spectral analysis we can get a very broad idea of an asteroids physical characteristics - including whether it is more carbonaceous, silicaceous, or metallic.

Building a detailed map of the surface composition, however, cannot be done with an Earth-based or even Earth-orbit-based telescope.


The point I'm making is - there's no point in PR building and launching its own IR telescopes... there not going to be useful for learning anything that we haven't already learned or could learn using existing telescopes and they're extremely unlikely to find anything new.

A better approach would be selecting asteroids already known to be highly metallic and sending dedicated probes to candidates to analyze the surface composition in detail.

>>2859701

Which is why being the first to do it could be more beneficial than it appears.

Even if you just send out some probes to find the most feasible/profitable rocks, that head start could be a decisive advantage later on.

>mfw the free market fixed it

>>2859652

>But a recent study sponsored by Caltech's Keck Institute for Space Studies estimated that a 500-ton near-Earth asteroid could be snagged and dragged to the moon's orbit by 2025, at a cost of about $2.6 billion.

You seem to love to ignoring this study saying it can be done by 2025 for $2.6 billion. Obviously the engineering hurdles are not insurmountable, it would take time and planning but seemingly could be done within a reasonable time frame and at a reasonable cost.

first asteroids, then the world!

>>2859716
Oh, I see.

Man, it makes me a little sad to see everybody saying "the free market fixed it" and forgetting about the glorious space race which got this all started in the first place. I'm not at all saying the government is more efficient, but I still think we ought to remember who took the first leap.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the free market is doing it better, either.

>>2859716

I thought NASA's goal was to categorize most of the NEOs larger than 1km, mainly because of their potential to cause extinction events should they ever collide with Earth. Of course they've also found smaller NEOs as well, but that was never their goal, whereas the surveying Planetary Resources plans to do is more focused on smaller, harder to find NEOs.

Seems like their first goal is to reduce the cost of orbital telescopes, making it so there can be more out there looking for NEOs and hopefully leading to more discoveries of smaller NEOs.

>Although the long-term goal of the company is to mine asteroids, its initial plans call for developing a market for small (30–50 kg) cost-reduced space telescopes for both Earth observation and astronomy. These spacecraft would employ a laser-optical system for ground communications, reducing payload bulk and mass compared to conventional RF antennae. The deployment of such orbital telescopes is envisioned as the first step forward in the company's asteroid mining ambitions. The same telescope satellite capabilities that Planetary Resources hopes to sell to customers can be used to survey and intensively examine near-earth asteroids. Though some sources in the company say Arkyd Astronautics is the same company under a new name, Eric Anderson (formerly of Space Adventures), a co-founder, has also said that Arkyd has become a wholly-owned subsidiary.[4]

>>2859847
Its not that the free market did it better. Its just that the free market has put forward a clear reason for space exploration. Now that there is an established purpose, money can be targeted much more effectively.

everyone thinking rare metal prices would plummet due to supply increase have no idea how the diamond market works

>>2859941
Well said. The State did the heavy lifting, research, the foundation. And now the tech sector will take it from here. We are essentially looking at internet technology 1985.

Soon the space sector will explode.

>>2859959

Basically this. The internet was nothing more than a neat (but relatively useless) research and educational network before regulations forbidding its commercial use were lifted. But once companies were allowed to monetize it, the internet quickly took off and has completely revolutionized society over the last couple decades. It will be a similar story with space, technology is finally getting to the point where the private sector can monetize it. Once thing happens, things will explode. Technology to go into space will get cheaper and cheaper and all kinds of other industries (space colonization, tourism, etc.) will take off.

>>2859959

... hopefully we'll live to see it happen.

>>2860021
Our kids will colonize space :)

Feels really good, man. We just have to ensure the nation-states maintain a settled stand-off and that the west doesn't go belly up in the coming financial shift.

>>2860041

We've gotten smarter about it. I think humanity will be just fine.

>>2860056
We must stop the old factions, the old power elites from dragging us into further wars.

>>2860083

Isn't constant conflict good for corporate interests though?

How will we reconcile peace with fiery competition for resources and invention?

>>2859938

If the goal of the telescopes is purely focused on identifying uncatalogued NEOs than I can maybe see the justification for launching a dedicated telescope.

Whether or not its actually effective though will depend a lot on its specifications.

The biggest hurdle for identifying a lot of NEOs, even with NASA telescopes, is that most are too small, too faint, or too cold to spot until they get close.


Don't get me wrong about this whole thing - I think it's great that more companies are starting to look at opportunities in space... I'm just trying to understand their plan here.

>>2858575
>mfw when this is bullshit and these "billionaires" will go nowhere without billions of dollars from the government

>>2860103

this
>>2858812

>>2859941
>>2859959
>>2860021

You're surely not implying that the government could do what PR plans to do better, are you guys?

>>2860083
>>2860100
1. Old factions and old power elites do not entirely control today, nor will they control tomorrow
2. Constant conflict is not good for corporate interests. War disrupts markets and trade routes, destroys infrastructure, and drives investors away. It's good for corporations who benefit from governments buying arms or materials to build vehicles, but modern governments buy shitloads of arms and build shitloads of vehicles in case of war anyway, so it's not like they're hurting because of peace.
3. There won't be another war between nuclear powers for the same reason that the Cold War didn't end the world.

Hooray for space.

>>2860123
This is what I'm talking about. There's so much confusion over what they're actually doing, even within this one thread.

Are they focusing on the MAB or on NEOs? Water or minerals? Are they putting these supposed telescopes in orbit or sending them further out?

Nobody seems to know for sure because all anyone has to base it on are disjointed interviews and news stories, each of which it seems paints a slightly different picture of what's actually going on.

>>2860187
Also, understand we are not the casual population. We tend to be much more in depth with analysis, so while this current information may not tide our information starved boards over long, it's plenty for the average earthling.

>Google and the Avatar guy are going into space? I want to go to!

And that's John and Jane Public in Anytown, USA.

>>2859950

This.

Jewelry diamonds have no use outside of looking pretty. At all. (They could be used them in place of industrial diamonds, but then their price would fall to industrial diamond prices.) There exists no real shortage of diamonds, especially ugly diamonds, because carbon is a pretty fucking common element. They are used in no commercial applications, the entire market is just companies hoarding (and in some cases suspected of destroying) diamonds to keep the price low. A lot of money is even made simply from buying back "old" diamonds at prices under market value.

Precious metals on the other hand, while hoarded by some people, are inherently valuable. Their chemical properties, electricity conduction and nobility make them very useful. The only reason they aren't used in even more applications than they are now is because they're so goddamn scarce. Titanium, for instance, is stronger than all but a select few high-carbon steels and has a strengh-to-weight ratio similar to Aluminum. It is also, like most non-ferrous metals, doesn't have issues with corrosion. (It still corrodes--it's not noble like Gold--but the TL;Dr is that it will never have more than surface rust unlike iron/steel which will rust right into dust)

(continued)

>>2860294

The price of these metals will fall, of course, but it will be more like what happened to the aluminum market after we figured out how to extract it properly than what would happen to the diamond market if people stopped being idiots. As the price falls, it gets used in more and more industrial applications so the demand increases and brings the price back up. (Really that would happen more chaotically and quicker than I stated but you get the idea.)

And another thing to consider: Look at the surge in industry and technological innovation that easy access to Bronze, then Iron, Steel, and Aluminum brought. Could you imagine what will happen when asteroid mining brings us easy access to new ones? You could have powergrids running on gold cables, titanium used regularly in construction of vehicles and building (things that are now ferroconcrete would have lifespans measured not in decades--or 1-2 centuries like ferroconcrete structures made with SS rebar--but thousands of years)

>>2860303

great so we'll rape the earth more than an fill it with pollution from our increased industry

fucking brilliant

>>2860202
arrogant neckbeard detected

>>2860187
Seems like we'll just have to wait until PR puts out some detailed, official shit.

>>2860294
>diamonds have no use

That's not what Neal Stephenson taught me.

>>2860341
gingrich supporter detected

>>2860341

Do mother earth a favor and kill yourself.

>>2860351
>Jewelry diamonds have no use
>Jewelry diamonds

There are plenty of ugly diamonds if you want to use them for cutting that you can get for cheap.

If you want clear diamonds there's no reason to mine them out of Africa because you can just make them now, and the human made ones have less flaws than the mined ones.

It's funny because for the longest time the diamond industry worshipped the "flawless" diamonds as the best and most desirable, but now that we can make flawless diamonds they've backpedalled and started on "well, you don't want many flaws but you don't want NO flaws at all because it's the flaws that give the diamond character DOHOHOHO."

>>2860423
Oh, I forgot that first word. I was just joking, anyway.

>>2860438

I thought you might have been but I didn't know who Neal Stephensen was.

>>2860351
>>2860411

If you idiots were alive 50 years ago you would have been saying to anyone who would listen:

>Sure nuclear powerplants are safe, what could possibly go wrong.

The sad thing is, people would have listened to you. Thankfully now more and more people are waking up to your bullshit. Pic related, the future that you asshats would bring upon us.

>>2860530
In all fairness, nuclear power is quite safe.

>nuclear power is quite safe.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/24-3

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

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

A well maintained, up to code, periodically updated nuclear plant IS safe. Letting it rot and become obsolete and not fixing it, at all, till 30 years after its warranty expires, building it on an earthquake fault, or having drunk ass morons run it, not safe.

>>2860471
amazing cyberpunk writer

>>2860530
Again, I was joking. I had hoped you would have picked up on my reference to moon manufacturing.

And most nuclear power plants are safe, and the design only becomes safer as time passes. It's human error that gets you.

Chernobyl got fucked because of people, and Fukushima or however you spell it got fucked more because of its shitty design than anything else. There are schematics which eliminate the problem that happened there by accounting for what happened with the earthquake.

And two near-catastrophic-accidents and one almost-near-catastrophic-accident out of a shitload of plants is a pretty good track record.
Shit happens, and it doesn't seem like the radiation is affecting large populations on a mass scale.

>>2860652
I second this.

>>2860626
>Three Mile Island
Even your own link says the only evidence of any deaths at all resulting from TMI is all purely anecdotal (as much as it tries to spin it).

>Chernobyl
The result of the shoddiest of shoddy Soviet engineering.

>Fukushima
Survived one of the largest earthquakes in Japan's history (and about ten times more powerful than what it was originally designed to survive) one of the worst tsunamis in the country's history, and would have survived the resulting prefecture-wide power failure if it weren't for both disasters culminating in the destruction of the plant's backup generators.

>Muh nuclear powah

Shut the fuck up, not one plant on the planet can operate more then a day without being heavily subsidized

>>2860699
We're just talking about safety, though.