Days the Universe Changed.

[Moonliner]

October 4th, 1957
Sputnik 1 the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit was launched

September 12th, 1962.
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

April 24th 2012
We begin the long term commercialization of space.

Originally Posted by BA

Planetary Resources, Inc. is not your average startup: its mission is to investigate and eventually mine asteroids in space!

Watch the announcement live at 1:30pm PDT

[CoasterMatt]

They're 23 days late...

[Alex]

I wish them well.

I doubt they'll succeed but I'm glad for people to be trying.

I'd be curios to see the math on harvesting volatiles since it will be necessary to harvest them at a much greater volume than is expended in getting to them, getting them out of the rock, and then getting them to where you want them.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'd be curios to see the math on harvesting volatiles since it will be necessary to harvest them at a much greater volume than is expended in getting to them, getting them out of the rock, and then getting them to where you want them.

This is why step one is launching their own space telescopes. They are going for the low hanging fruit. The near earth asteroids, many of which can be reached with a lower energy curve than getting to the moon.

The telescopes will help them map out the locations and compositions of the near earths, the vast majority of which are still undiscovered.

One interesting point, when asked if the data they collect on these asteroids will be shared openly with researchers they ducked the question.

[Kevy Baby]

Couldn't they just put a tractor beam on one of them and tow it back to Earth to harvest the valuable resources out of it?

[RStar]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Couldn't they just put a tractor beam on one of them and tow it back to Earth to harvest the valuable resources out of it?

Sure, if they want to do it the slow way. Using the transporter is the best way to go.

"Beam the rock down, Scotty!"

[Capt Jack]

one of the methods I envison for this is moon crashing. set the asteroid to collide with the moon initially. recover and harvest it there for the volitiles in the meantime. develop the tech for extraction there and store the extracted materials as an initial startup base. as the tech becomes more viable, use that as a launch point for exploration and in place mining, staging of returning materials etc.

wont be in my lifetime, but I do like the overall idea.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Capt Jack

one of the methods I envison for this is moon crashing. set the asteroid to collide with the moon initially. recover and harvest it there for the volitiles in the meantime. develop the tech for extraction there and store the extracted materials as an initial startup base. as the tech becomes more viable, use that as a launch point for exploration and in place mining, staging of returning materials etc.

wont be in my lifetime, but I do like the overall idea.

I was considering the same idea using the Sahara or New Jersey.

[BarTopDancer]

If they just admitted the Stargate program was real we could openly mine other planets for Naquada and wouldn't need to mine asteroids.

Will Bruce Willis be leading this expedition?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Mining in space still sounds crazy to me from an economic standpoint, but I guess they have to start sometime.