Catalyst Gaming
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Rhombicuboctahedron on May 08, 2012, 01:04:30 PM
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http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/asteroid-mining-company-plans-dig-off-earth-143729286.html
Yes, this is a real thing.
Every space mission has always been for the sake of exploration, and now, we're going to get some profit out of this. Planetary Resources, a name which I find ironic, has plans to create asteroid mining platforms in orbit around Earth. Apparently they're going to mine mini-moons that get caught in Earths orbit. These mini-moons have many rare ores in them, which could create a profit for them. The thing that I am skeptical about is that they're in space. They can't use conveyer belts since there is no gravity. How they manage to get the stuff back to Earth is also an issue. For now, we just have to wait.
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Holy shit.
This may make our economy the best and make more jobs,
or kill us all somehow.
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Heared about this myself. They're mainly working around gold and platinum, and replacing the gravity based components of the washplant with magnets of various strengths and pressurized water.
Very cool stuff - Considering future employment with the company.
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Considering future employment with the company.
I'd rather not die
Anyways seems interesting and if by the time I'm 40 everything turns into EvE online, I'm cool with that.
stop using the god damn - when you can use , FUCK
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magnets
how will it work
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Asteroid mining has been suggested for a long time now, interesting to see that we're taking careful steps into a new infancy of trade, grabbing resources from the outside and bringing it back (Just like the Europeans discovering the Americas harvesting resources such as hides, furs, metals, exotic animals back to the European countries to sell).
Whilst this is all great news and so on, but the problem is, is that we are harvesting more than what use we are making of it.
Best not to get your hopes up about asteroid mining "fixing" the economy. Regardless how rare the ores are, as it would be hoarded by (usually) a private company.
Even if more jobs are made. Even though you'd have atleast 10-50 astronauts being employed, most of it would be computerised and done by machines.
In order to effectively to return the ores, as they will obviously be heavy, you'd need either of the 3 things;
1) Return the ores through small containers to give a constant supply of the materials returning to Earth.
2) Landing being assisted by other air vehicles, so if the bulk of resources is returning, you'd have air vehicles to assist it to land safely.
3) Space elevators. Space elevators can be very effective both for going in and out of space, however the amount of resources needed to construct one would be enormous, and the project would take years to successfully complete it.
A way to (repeatedly) launch into space, you'd need to use maglev launching systems.
It would launch small cargo ships to return to the mining site to take the cargo load and return to earth.