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Commercialization

Mystery Billionaire-backed Space Company To Be Announced

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 18, 2012
Filed under

The Future of Space
“Tuesday, April 24, 2012 – 10:30am – 2:30pm: A new company will be unveiling its mission to revolutionize current space exploration activities and ultimately create a better standard of living on Earth. Don’t miss your opportunity to be among the first to find out what’s next from the world’s leading commercial space pioneers and the people who will chart the future.”
Space Exploration Company to Expand Earth’s Resource Base
“Supported by an impressive investor and advisor group, including Google’s Larry Page & Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.; film maker & explorer James Cameron; Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Microsoft’s former Chief Software Architect Charles Simonyi, Ph.D.; Founder of Sherpalo and Google Board of Directors founding member K. Ram Shriram; and Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group Ross Perot, Jr., the company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources’.”
Keith’s note: What’s really ridiculous is how these billionaires are charging attendees at their press event $25 each. You have to wonder how much they are putting into this if they charge admission to press conferences …

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

77 responses to “Mystery Billionaire-backed Space Company To Be Announced”

  1. richard schumacher says:
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    That air-launch thingy using what looks like tandem 747s?  Freedom from government-owned launch sites notwithstanding, it’s hard to guess how he closes the business case for it.

    • Anonymous says:
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      Closing the business case may be pretty easy Richard.

      Diamandis may have the wrong approach to funding his Asteroid Mining endeavour.  The easiest path may be to:   (1) send a dozen terrorists to a mineral rich asteroid (2) have them threaten the U.S. or at least say something nasty  (3) have the U.S. declare war on the threatening renegade terrorist asteroid nation (4) spend a trillion fighting the asteroid warriors and then (5) spend another trillion in nation building and revitalizing the economy of the asteroid after victory.   The mining effort could simply be part of the economic rebuilding of the asteroid.  We’ve done this as a nation for ages, just extend the war zone out to the asteroid belt.   NASA, DoD, and the commercial sectors all win and the space war will go over big in Hollywood.

      • Patrick Judd says:
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         Bitter politics waters down the point you are making.

        • Anonymous says:
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          No watering.  If man rated costs are $100K/kg and unmanned are $10K/kg.  Even if unmanned drops to $1K/kg, the business case doesn’t close.  Consider a 99% Nickel ore asteroid.  Nickel on Earth goes for about $30/kg. 15micron spherical powder purified Nickel is only in the $100’s/kg.  No insurance or risk costs included here.  If asteroid mining had a business case that closed, all the Worldwide mining majors would be pursuing it now.  They aren’t.  

          Economics are distorted by politics every second.

          • Geoffrey A. Landis says:
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            I am amazed at how people can confidently shoot down a business case without even knowing what the business is.

          • Jackalope3000 says:
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            They aren’t looking for metals to be used on Earth.  This is a long-term project.  That is the business case.

          • Anonymous says:
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            Geoffrey, Patrick.  Your objections are empty, they have no content.  Just explain the business and the business case.  I am sure everyone here will be accepting of any reasonable summary that is supported by facts and would be thrilled to see it.

          • Sam S says:
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            Those are launch costs, not recovery costs.  Given the apparent abundance of materials in the asteroid belt, it may be feasible to use robots to build return vessels from asteroidal materials.  The only question then would be how to bring it down softly, without burning up the cargo or accidentally destroying NYC.

            Of course, if your robots can build return vessels, they can probably build space stations as well.  Get a few hundred settlers to populate them, wait a thousand years, and there will be more people out there than on Earth.

          • Geoffrey A. Landis says:
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            Dick: You just wrote an analysis purporting to show that their business case doesn’t close without even knowing what their business plan is.  And you’re accusing me of having “empty objections”?  Amazing.

          • Anonymous says:
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            Geoffrey:  People can chat from here to infinity saying they have a business plan for mining asteroids.  If they do and if they want to be viewed as having any credibility, it is incumbent upon them to show it. They can paste the link right at the bottom of their post, right here on NASA Watch.  If they have a viable asteroid mining business case I will throw a celebration party for them and get investors for it ‘to boot’. 

            What you are asking for here below is the reader’s uninformed acceptance of a plan that we’ve only heard about but never seen. 

            Asking for a plan and a business-case that closes, in writing, is reasonable and necessary.
            I don’t care if it is for mining or space-based solar power or tourism or hotels on the moon, they all require substantiation unless you happen to be a lunatic trillionaire obsessed with inter-galactic adventures, in which case you need no plan or business-case at all.

            You say: “…without even knowing what the business is.”  I’ve worked the mining business for over 20 years. How about you?

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Dick,

            Whether the business case is valid or a complete flop, based on whatever details they’re considering, at this point in time I’d say that the most important factor is that people with money are actually seriously investigating this possibility.  Maybe it’s basically a tax right-off scheme.  I wouldn’t care as long as a proper investigation is done by knowledgeable people (not the investors, but those they hire).  Think of what we might learn by this (as opposed to theorizing).  I’ve long argued that we can’t simply transport Earth processes and equipment to space and expect them to work.  I recommend encouraging this.

            Steve

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Dick,

            You suggest below that if they have a business plan let them post it on a link.  Making that suggestion clearly suggests to me that, even if you know mining, you don’t know a lot about business.  Nobody, specially a high-dollar new ventures, post their business plan on line.  It would be like faxing all of your sales orders to your competitors as soon as you get them.  Unless things have changed a lot since I was working, business plans are protected assets, not public domain literature.

            Steve

      • hikingmike says:
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         You sir win the internets for today.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        It seems to me that the business risk would be insignificant compared to the military risk.  In your step 1, you’ve already given the “enemy” the high ground and the world’s cheapest but most effective artillery — big rocks that require only minimal “launch” thrust and a little math to completely wipe out large sections of Earth and the Moon for very little cost.

        I would say that the opposite situation, the ability to respond very quickly in defense against such a set up, would be a real motivation for “developing” space in the asteroid belt and space locations with similar potential.

        There are more important considerations that making money, like not setting up the planet for wholesale slaughter.

        • Anonymous says:
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          Suggesting that an asteroid war is a good way to fund asteroid mining was only to point out how politics distorts fair and ethical money flow and use.   To read a solid business case for asteroid mining would be a godsend, but I’ve never seen anyone put pencil to paper and do it. They’ll hype it, but never put out a financial projection or 10 year proforma.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            Dick,

            I’d be very surprised if many people hadn’t sat down and tried to do a real business case for asteroid mining (and other asteroid-based activities), but I’m guessing that none of them got past the same obstacle — nowhere near enough people believe that there’s a market for the mined material.  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone argue that there’s still plenty of (whatever element/compound) right here on Earth.  I suspect that their grandchildren won’t thank them for that when silver is $1,000 per ounce and running scarce.

            Steve

          • Anonymous says:
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            Steve,

            The obstacle to doing a “case” isn’t a function of making people “believe” there is a market for the mined material.  Business cases are about facts, not convincing and arguing and hype.

            I agree with your silver-need comment given current World reserves, but would ask you to spend time reviewing data on several things:  the (element) composition of the Earth, of the SS asteroid belt, of the universe, and of given asteroids.  Then come back here and share your findings on the prevalence of silver, particularly in asteroids.  What is the likelihood of finding an asteroid that is made up primarily of silver?  High grade silver?  Even a few percent silver?   Find some and I’m sure you can have them named after you:  “The Whitfield Silver Asteroids”. 

            Some dreamers might tend to think that the gods kindly placed a swarm of giant pure silver boulders in an orbit convenient to our space based metal cherry-picking. 

            When I wish upon the stars,
            I dream of floating silver bars…

            Perhaps the heavy metal gods even prepared it in rod, wire, or ingot form and packaged it in convenient shipping containers.

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there will not be a day that space mining makes sense and passes the fiscal and economic business case tests needed to justify pursuit.  What I’m saying is the road to viable business needs to get past nonsensical fantasies and down to a real sense of what is truly possible, pragmatic, and can be done effectively.

    • richard schumacher says:
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      No, I was badly confused, thinking of Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch Systems venture.

      So what could Diamandis plan to obtain from asteroids at a profit?  Iron and nickel are still easy to get on Earth, the market for iridium is small, asteroids are unknown as a source of other precious metals, and nobody has any experience handling or processing materials on an industrial scale in weightlessness and vacuum.  Solar power satellites would seem to be more immediately feasible and useful.  None of the above will get very far without much cheaper and more reliable launchers than anything we have now.   

      • DTARS says:
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        Just think of the railroad structure we could get up there wheather or not this plan works or fails. It gets us started! How many business fail to every one that succeeds? If you don’t try you go no where. ROUND IN CIRCLES pass the pork please! congress NASA SLS Orion.

        HOPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Richard,

        asteroids are unknown as a source of other precious metals

        So far.  Spectroscopic analysis of the surfaces from far away only tells us so much.  Close up, more invasive sampling may tell a different story on many asteroids.

        nobody has any experience handling or processing materials on an industrial scale in weightlessness and vacuum.

        Perhaps that’s the reason he wants to do it.  I think the methods and skills developed would be useful down the road for many things in space besides just mining, even things like building buildings on other planetary bodies.  At some point, we will be doing more complex things than Quonset huts buried in regolith and inflatables.

        I think the hardest part of going for the asteroids might be deciding which ones to do first, since the “success or failure” of the early ones will most likely determine how quickly and how far things progress.

        Steve

      • Anonymous says:
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        Richard,  “asteroids are unknown as a source of other precious metals”  So far. Spectroscopic analysis of the surfaces from far away only tells us so much. Close up, more invasive sampling may tell a different story on many asteroids.  “nobody has any experience handling or processing materials on an industrial scale in weightlessness and vacuum.”  Perhaps that’s the reason he wants to do it. I think the methods and skills developed would be useful down the road for many things in space besides just mining, even things like building buildings on other planetary bodies. At some point, we will be doing more complex things than Quonset huts buried in regolith and inflatables.  I think the hardest part of going for the asteroids might be deciding which ones to do first, since the “success or failure” of the early ones will determine how quickly and how far things progress.  Steve

  2. DocM says:
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    VERY interesting interview with Peter Diamandis, one of the participants in this new venture: 

    http://www.youtube.com/watc

    • Laura Sherdell says:
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       Great link Doc.

      So the idea seems to be – don’t go out to where the asteroids are, wait for useful ones to pass by.  Cool.

  3. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    At least the price for tickets is so low it’ll keep the riffraff from attending ;).

    tinker

    • DTARS says:
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      Deleted by auther. Failed bitterish test

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Tinker,

      $25 a head to get through the door.  I guess that explains how these guys became billionaires.

      Steve

      • Russel aka 'Rusty' Shackleford says:
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        I think I ready somewhere the $25 was a donation to the museum.

        • fencible says:
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          Correct, the ticket fee is for the host, the Museum of Flight, a non profit, since it is providing this as public event with food. 

          • kcowing says:
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            What if you don’t want to eat?  You’d think that these rich guys would simply pick up the tab. Kinda cheap if you ask me.

          • npng says:
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            Keith,

            How do you think ‘these rich guys’ become rich?  They didn’t print their billions, they got it from other people.   I’m surprised they didn’t charge $100 for lunch.

      • DTARS says:
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        Volume baby volume lololool

        CLEM!!! Raid the pickel jar and get Keith those hundred quarters!!!!

    • DTARS says:
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      Clem and I are headed to the Goodwell to look good for the conference 🙂

  4. chriswilson68 says:
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    They’re dropping the names of more people with very deep pockets than I can remember ever hearing for a new space venture.  So they’ve got more of my interest than most new company announcements.

    But the real question is how much money these people with the deep pockets have actually committed to providing.  A few million from each won’t get this company very far.  They’ll need billions.

    I’d be very interested to hear three numbers: (1) how much capital has been firmly committed to them; (2) how much capital do they project will be required for their first mission that returns resources to Earth; and (3) how much capital do they project will be needed before they break even.

    It’s a red flag that they claim they will “add trillions of dollars to the global GDP”.  Such numbers usually come from not taking into account diminishing returns.  For example, in the 1800s when pure aluminum was extremely rare, the price was very high.  If you had projected the benefit to the Earth’s economy of the large amounts of aluminum we now produce using a fixed price at that time, you’d get a number many times the entire planet’s current GDP.  All the aluminum still has lots of benefits, it’s just not the amounts naive projections would predict; when the quantities go up, the price goes down because of diminishing returns for larger quantities.

    For asteroid mining to be economically viable with near-term technology, you’d need to get a very high price for a very large amount of material.  I’m skeptical the prices would stay high enough if you brought back enough of it to pay the very high costs of the venture.  I hope they can change my mind.

    • John Gardi says:
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      Chris:

      Yeah, there era some heavy hitters in this venture. Not just that but these are heavy hitters that care about the planet and our future as a species. This seems more like an act of frustration on their part, filling the gaping hole that exists in space initiative. They have clear examples before them of innovation in space technology, Spacex, Sierra Nevada, Bigelow, so they know what can be done in the right peoples hands.

      Note to NASA:

      You have become redundant. The Shuttle was retired to save money that could be used to ‘move forward’. It hasn’t happened and now there are a bunch of rich folks who are gonna grab that ball and run with it.

      tinker:

      BTW: Unless this is an extension of existing proposals, my ferrets can’t find a thing about what they have in mind here. Anybody?

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Chris,

      I think your aluminum analogy is valid in essence, but in assessing a situation like this you also have to take social, environmental and possible scientific changes into account.  For example, only fairly recently has aluminum been recycled on a large scale instead of just being scrapped after use.  If you combine the large-scale recycling with the realization that, for very many purposes, aluminum can be recycling endlessly, you get a major reduction in the demand and therefore the price of mined aluminum.  This doesn’t apply to other elements of course, at least so far, but I think it illustrates that straight-forward projections based on extrapolation are often invalid in the face of new knowledge, so, in my opinion, projections should always pessimistic in order to better reflect the future reality.

      Steve

    • Scott Shjefte says:
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       It is not just one resource we are talking about but the large number of resources including: metals, energy (space based solar power), high ground materials (potential energy of stuff in orbit compared to in Earth orbit), low cost real estate (no one else there yet), three dimensional use of real estate (no gravity to limit you) this provides possibility of much more effect use of physical dimensions in production and storage (let your mind free to visualize the use of three instead of two dimensions).  Purity of a space vacuum, no contamination, no rusting, no degradation with time, special processes such a vacuum welding,  Consider no friction from air so moving takes almost no energy unless you want to go real fast.  And if you do want to go real fast no air friction to slow you.  Also line of sight can be infinite withing the solar system.    Rocket fuel from Moon,  Water from Moon, etc…. I can go on and on about how the economics can be more than just a slight short term market advantage because of rarity.  It is not diminishing returns but in fact exponential returns as the markets reinforce each other in complexity and capability.

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Scott,

        I think you’re on the right track here, and it answers Chris’ point about diminishing returns. In any business, you know that any product and market have a limited life, so in order to stay in business you have to figure “what next?” well before you actually need it. Diversifying into other markets is a basic survival strategy, such that the new “product” and its plan and strategy are sitting in the chute ready to pick up and start earning revenues as the old product’s sales are fading.

        If this “billionaire-backed space company” takes off, they’ll be the first (and maybe only) outfit to have people on the scene, with facilities to work from already in existence, and in a position to have people working on answering “what next?” out there.

        Steve

        • DTARS says:
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          They will own the high ground, the railroad, the future markets. Lolol they can control the world!!! Ha ha ha!!!

          Sorry to sound like Joe middle class scared of being ripped off by THEM.

          Shame congress and NASA can’t do their job!

      • chriswilson68 says:
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        You mention a lot of things other than asteroid mining that might conceivably be advantages to doing things in space other than on Earth.  None of these affect whether asteroid mining itself can ever make a profit.

        If some company comes up with a plan for manufacturing in space that makes it cheaper than manufacturing on Earth, I’ll be thrilled.  So far, I have yet to hear a plan where the advantages of manufacturing in space are enough to be worth the huge costs.  How many companies are clamoring to use the ISS to develop industrial processes in microgravity and/or vacuum?  How many commercial customers has Bigelow signed up?  Zero and zero.

        Space-based solar power for use on Earth is crazy with near-term technology.  It’s a solution that comes from asking the question “Assuming we want to find some use for space, how can we use it?”, not from asking the more rational question “If we want to use solar power, what’s the most cost-effective place to put our solar panels?”

        Someday, we’ll have a viable space economy that includes mining resources and doing manufacturing in space.  Nothing I’ve heard is good evidence that day is in the near future.  Pretending it is will just lead us to disappointment.

        In my opinion, rather than focusing on unrealistic near-term goals, we should be working on continuing to lower launch costs and increasing our familiarity with having people living and working in space, recognizing that there won’t be a net profit out of it for decades.

    • damallette says:
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      “asteroid mining”?  We have an ENORMOUS “asteriod” right handy called ‘the moon.”  Rotten with water and containing boat loads of stuff we can use.  We have known how to get there for half a century.  In modern dollars, the whole Apollo project was only 150 billion or so starting from scratch.  We’ve learned since then.  Commercial folks are going to make it look easy, and getting back is free with a linear motor on the lunar surface.

      I’m sure the wiser ones here will shoot holes in the above.  Feel free, there are plenty more ways to do this with existing technology.  I watched the first trip.  They made it look easy even back then.  “I was strolling on the moon one day, in the merry, merry, month of…December!” 

      I think we’ve greatly built up a “fear of flying” since then and once somebody just DOES IT we’ll be wondering what took so long.  As with others here, I wish “we the people” could participate as well, but at least somebody is doing something.

  5. NX_0 says:
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    Tom Jones is the new Buzz Aldrin…

  6. tutiger87 says:
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    The beginnings of a Weyland-Yutani?

    • Russel aka 'Rusty' Shackleford says:
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      I made the note yesterday tha tit was ironic that James Cameron was basically founding Weyland-Yutani.

  7. DTARS says:
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     Clem!! Look at this.
    “the company will overlay two critical sectors – space exploration and natural resources – to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP. This innovative start-up will create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources'”

    Someone is trying to Explore space for a reason (resources) other than pork! What a novel idea!

    Looks like we finally have someone that may want us to build that Inner Solar System Railroad.

    Steve Print out that those global Railroad plans now!

    Somebody wants to TRY space in a Smart way.

    Never know till you TRYYYYYYY!!!!!

    HUMMM define RESOURCES Mr. C??

    Does it mean anything service or mineral that helps to benifit all the souls here on good old mother earth?

    Inner Solar System Railroad INC.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      DTARS Buddy,  Did I ever mention that in the real world I’m actually allergic to pork? It makes me quite ill. I should have realized years ago that I’d have the same reaction to political pork as well. Guess I’m just slow to connect the dots.  Steve

  8. Anonymous says:
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    The $25 fee is terrible PR. Bad judgment.

  9. fly_boy says:
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    Vision for Space Exploration: “… implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond; extend human presence across the solar system, starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020, in preparation for human exploration of Mars and other destinations; develop the innovative technologies, knowledge, and infrastructures both to explore and to support decisions about the destinations for human exploration; and to promote international and commercial participation in exploration to further U.S. scientific, security, and economic interests.”

    I’m glad to see these guys reviving VSE. I’d still like to see the Moon in there as a proving ground for new exploration technologies, and of course it’s got plenty of resources as well. Perhaps they’ll get there eventually.

  10. JJ says:
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    The last thing we need is another press conference or press release on a “new company”, what we need is more action.  In fact, I’ll be more happy if this was about commitments to buy seats or launch payloads on commercial launches.

  11. Anonymous says:
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    I am cautiously optimistic about this venture.  One thing that I do know, since I know some of the players is that this is NOT a new (in the sense of just started) venture.  Chris Lewicki was the lead guy on the console when Spirit landed on Mars and is a very good egg in this arena.  I have known him as far back as when he did a ground station for SEDSAT 1 in the 90’s when he was a student at the University of Arizona.  This has been worked on for a while and I would not be surprised if what they come out with next week is considerably more than just a few graphs, pretty pictures, and video.

    Just saying……

    My biggest concern is that this team gets a bunch of billionaires spun up on an idea and then it craters like Blastoff did because they lose focus on the prize and put the sizzle ahead of the steak. If that happens, it is bad for space, and bad for us all who are working to do these kinds of things.

  12. dogstar29 says:
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    it seems unlikely they have a plan that hasn’t already been discussed, so it’s difficult to see the need for a flashy press conference. Unless … their plan is really to make a movie about a plan to recover an asteroid.

    Regarding asteroid recovery, we at least have considerable clues about asteroid composition, and although they certainly contain marketable materials, they would not be economically recoverable unless the cost of doing so can be substantially reduced. Recovering small asteroids by ground impact could (in my view) be done safely but nations concerned about being hit by accident may raise serious objections. I doubt an unmanned asteroid recovery mission could be mounted with current technology in less than twenty years (to first ground impact, even assuming an existing NEO is chosen) or for less than $5 billion. The time to achieve any ROI is substantially longer than most US investors would accept. OTOH with a flashy enough presentation there are people who might be convinced.

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      I agree, throwing raw asteroid material at specific parts of the Earth and then scraping them up seems the most plausible near-term asteroid mining strategy.  Maybe pick a sizable asteroid, attach an engine, and move it into Earth orbit over a number of years.  Then, once it’s in orbit, send some machinery up to it that will break chunks off and throw them at the Earth’s surface — maybe the Sahara desert or an antarctic ice sheet, where they’re easy to find and won’t destroy anything we care about too much.

      Still, most of what you get back is likely to be iron and nickel, which are not very rare on Earth.  The Earth’s already been hit by lots and lots of asteroids for 3.8 billion years, so things that are really rare on Earth are also going to be relatively rare in asteroids.

      It’s hard to see how the investors are ever going to make enough money to cover the costs.  Maybe they’ll have an answer for that on Tuesday.  I hope so.

      Or, maybe it’s a James Bond villain style plot.  The mining is a cover to build a super weapon that can throw large chunks of rock at any point on the planet’s surface.  The first thing they do is take out all the major space launch pads in the world.  The asteroid is in a high orbit, so nothing can reach it after all the major pads have been taken out.  Now that would actually be worth the billions it would cost.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      DS3,

      I’m going to think a little more optimistically on this one, since these guys (I’m assuming) have more of a stable position to start from than most ventures, and so they can defer a ROI for a longer period than others.

      If I was serious about doing this, and had the resources that they’re alluding to, I’d think a little more ambitiously, and a little more long-term and incremental. Instead of bringing raw asteroid material to Earth’s surface, by whatever means, for processing, I’d first try processing the raw material into ore(s) off Earth. The exact location is one I haven’t answered to my own satisfaction, by I’m leaning towards L4 or L5 — we have a gravity “well” to help decelerate and capture a NEO with (relatively) minimal thrust; we eliminate the risk of crash damage to Earth; we have maximum solar energy/heating for processing; asteroids can be sampled before deciding to process the wrong ones; etc. It also creates facilities for other follow-on ventures. The extracted and packaged ores would then be much less mass to land on Earth’s surface; a much safer and presumably cheaper task. Plus, if can extract and refine ores in space, then presumably there shouldn’t be that much more involved in creating alloys in large quantities as well. Looking down the road, processing in space also gives you the option of sending your output directly to other off-Earth destinations for use, instead of down the well and back up again.

      For those of us who are not either part of the venture or customers, what we can gain that’s of (I think) the most importance is the knowledge (and presumably patents) and processes that it generates and proves out. This just might, with a little time, be the venture that changes a lot of minds about what’s within our grasp and what isn’t, or at least gives them reason to think about it a little differently. It will also, hopefully, gives us a much better ability to estimate costs for similar future space programs.

      All of the news can’t be negative; “success” in “developing” space has got to start somewhere; so far, this seems like the most encouraging proposition I’ve heard. If it sounds overly ambitious, remember all of the talk about inspiring and excitement. NASA’s half-measures aren’t doing it. To regain some of the excitement of space programs from past decades, more ambitious undertakings are what we need to be doing. How many people would remember their names if Neil and Buzz had only gone half way to the Moon?

      Steve

  13. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    Take a clue from Paul Allen and Burt Rutans StratoLaunch. Spacex hasn’t even mentioned that they are part of that project. They don’t have to and won’t either. “We’re just subcontractors, no comment!” Must be refreshing for them, eh?

    The point is that another few contracts like StratoLaunch would make a good business case for mass producing Falcon stages and Dragon capsule as well as any other integrated payloads they need. Economies of scale not seen ever in space hardware manufacturing. Follow-on reusable stages will make for a sustainable presence in space about the time we’d need such.

    So… Whaddya want to bet Spacex will be a partner in this new venture too?

    BTW: A number of science fiction novels come to mind involving the capturing Near Earth Asteroids. The plots usually weren’t pretty. To become a space faring civilization will require the wielding of awesome powers; fusion drives, kinetic forces behind the rocks (or your own ship) that you could throw around, nuclear mines…

    We’ll just have to learn to be nice to each other. The alternatives are to dreadful to imagine because the means for creating serious mass destruction will be the very tools and resources we’ll need to survive.

    Well?

    tinker

  14. Anonymous says:
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    Steve,

    Estimating your age, I’d say I had taken IP Protection 404 before you were born. Come on. We both know you can put out an Exec Summ that presents the case while protecting the content detail.  It’s done every day.

    Obviously you’re busy defending Geoffrey here. 
    Let me make it easy for you…   

    Geoffrey:  I haven’t seen your business plan or business case, but that’s no problem.  I’m sure it’s a great plan and is without a doubt a great investment.  Plan sight unseen, I think the Federal Gov’t and private sector should seed fund your space mining plan with at least $10B dollars and guarantee 2nd and 3rd rounds for at least the same amounts to ensure your business visions succeed.

    Are we happy now?

    • Paul451 says:
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      Weird, with nothing more to go on but the press release, and Diamandis’ prior interest in asteroid mining, you feel safe in assuming the venture exists for the sole purpose of getting billions of dollars in government funding? To the point of criticising Steve for merely being hopeful about it.

      And as for Geoffrey, his entire contribution to this topic was: “I am amazed at how people can confidently shoot down a business case without even knowing what the business is.” and “Dick: You just wrote an analysis purporting to show that their business case doesn’t close without even knowing what their business plan is. And you’re accusing me of having “empty objections”? Amazing.”

      Note that he hasn’t even defended the plan! He merely pointed out that your attack is based on something you pulled out of your ass.

      So now you make up a quote from him to pretend he was mindlessly supporting something, merely because he criticised you for mindlessly attacking it.

      Do you see how stupid you look? How delusional?

      • Steve Whitfield says:
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        Thank you Paul.

        The great thing about this press release, to me, is that, combined with the credibility of the big names mentioned, it seems to have almost immediately generated some hope in the minds of space advocates (at least those of us who don’t find fault in everything and everybody), and these days hope is a very precious commodity. Even if this comes to nothing, for a short while I will have felt like things were looking up.

        Steve

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Dick,

      I neither know nor care what you “estimate” about my age.  I’ve been around more decades than you seem to think.  If you meant Executive Summary you should have said it; you didn’t; you said business plan.  One is only a small portion of the other, not the same by any stretch of the imagination.   You changed your words in your reply and gave me a smug response; and not the first one in this exchange either.  So, I have no interest in taking this dialogue any further.

      Steve

  15. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303513404577356190967904210.html

    The story’s broke and leaking. The cat’s out of the bag. The horse is… heck, you know what I mean ;). This plan was in plain site. No wonder I couldn’t figure it out at first.

    So, Planetary Resources Inc, eh? Hmm… not very exciting. Just doesn’t stir the imagination for such a grandiose campaign.

    How about we here at NASA Watch do these fine folks a free favor and pick them a stirring company name commiserate to the task.

    This is my suggestion:

    The Little Prince Mining Company. (Just think of the marketing opportunities…)

    Go!

    tinker

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Tinker,

      Don’t feel bad. It seems like most of us missed it.

      What about the horse? Something to do with a barn?

      I wonder if the name they chose was a deliberate attempt to avoid notice, or at least stay low key. If they could stay under the radar as much as possible until it was show time, they could avoid all of the speculation, media requests, and other time stealers until they were further along. It make the press release a little baffling, but if I could understand how rich people think, maybe I could have been one.

      Myself, I would be inclined to stick with a conservative, respectable-sounding company name. Being a progressive space venture, they’re likely to face a lot of irrelevant bad jokes from the know-nots as it is. I would go with the word Resource instead of Mining. It’s sort of like making your mission statement more encompassing so as not to limit your business opportunities and your employee’s thinking. I’d also go with a term like Importing, giving the impression that there’s nothing out of this world about it; NEOs are already in our neighborhood; no magic involved.

      Steve

  16. DTARS says:
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    I wrote this to paul back in Feb. I think.

    I’ll just pretend this was all our idea Paul lol.

    Paul,
     
    Your idea of an x prize to put astronauts on the moon in 2019 is great.

    But consider this

    What if the people of NASA watch wrote a lunar xprize to have a large rover on the moon on that date at one of the Apollo sites

    Or better still start a lunar ice finding mission.

    Don’t many of you know the google guys or others in business that we could present a lunar xprize plan too. 

    Don’t many of you know how to write it?

    You want to get the public interested and kick NASA and congress in the backside. 

    Wellllll

    Why not!!!!

    What’s the worst case 

    We make the news trying to present it.

    Best case we send a robot mission to the moon long before NASA  ever will, get the publics attention embarress the current missions to no where, congress and NASA and get a voice.

    Why not!!!!!

    Spacex will have all we need at a cheap price any way so why not get them a mission and some money.

    Elon did this showing THEM 

    Why can’t we?

    NEWS FLASH 

    NASA WATCH bloggers get fed up with do nothing SPACE program and write an xprize to send a large rover to the moon for the the fiftieth  birthday of first apollo moon landing. Their plan is designed to lay the ground work to start to create the robotic ability to harvest water/ fuel.  Etc etc. 

    Whatever, you guys know what to write not me.

    Anyway 

    Why nottttt????????

    Well Clem, Maybe we got their attention! Lolol

    It doesn’t take a rocket scientistt just a few people that care lol

    Out!!!!

  17. DTARS says:
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    Steve
     Mr. C once said that all planet mission design starts with a lander. He also said that we need to Build spaceships.
     Those are two Different kind of vehicles! We at Inner Solar System Railroad Inc. Understand that! This is not the movies Mr. Solo lol. Anyway when helping us design our inner solar system railroad that share as many systems as possible. Please keep that in mind lol.

    Paul

    Falcon 9 recoverable  gets only 40 percent of falcon 9 to space.

    Texas coast is flat as your hat.

    After messing with Stratolaunch Elon may want a falcon 9 to have wings and landing gear and jets.

    What if he used an old fashion electric train to get a winged falcon 9 air born at about the speed of sound.  

    A rolling launch pad.

    Lionel rocket car style lol.

    Long track gentle raise in track. Launch on incline.

    Booster flies back under jet control.

    What commercial space port wouldn’t have a rail launcher lol.

    Rail launcher definition 
    Anything that helps throw something into space or allows it to get off the runway/track with enough fuel to help it get cheaply into space.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      all planet mission design starts with a lander

      DTARS,

      I heartily agree with Mr. C’s statement, except I would have said “design should start”.  All too often this basic bit of wisdom is ignored.  I don’t want to give examples (like say, Constellation or SLS), but here are plenty of bad examples of starting in the middle.

      It is a basic tenet of design engineering, in almost any field, that you start with your output requirements and work backwards to your initial input requirements.  So, you design your final output stage of any device or system first, which then tells you your requirements for the second last stage, which you design next, which then tells you your requirements for the third last stage, which you design next, … until you’ve designed the first stage of the device or system.  So in a space transportation system, you start with your requirements for landing at your final destination, then design the lander, and work your way backwards to the initial launch vehicle, each stage designed provides the detailed requirements for the one that precedes (drives) it.  In reality, since large systems are design by multiple groups, you get a lot of reiteration in the design and test process, but the basic logic is start with your lander requirements and work your way back to your Earth LV requirements.  Anything different makes ten times as much work (at least) and requires more testing, and leads straight to cost and schedule overruns.

      Rest assured that our design people are well-schooled in this concept, and it is reinforced by the fact that successful completion of the Design Reviews which are prerequisite to the progress payments in our contract with you require proof of compliance as part of the design documentation package. We also employ an internal policy that awards non-compliant designers with a non-negotiable place on our next scheduled unmanned flight to Pluto.

      This system design process also dictates that the acceleration and deceleration thruster systems and their control systems can only be reviewed late in the program, despite an interest in reviewing them early on, since completion of the rest of the train system design is required in order to design these systems.

      As discussed previously, launching of the individual “train cars” from our construction facility on Earth’s surface to the train assembly point in LEO is the subject of a separate contract, which may or may not be with our company, as you will decide at a later date. Reiterating, once the cars are all delivered to the orbital assembly point our people will perform initial train assembly and testing as the completin of this contract.

      If you require any further clarification or assurances, please do not hesitate to contact me.

      Steve

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      “What if he used an old fashion electric train to get a winged falcon 9 air born at about the speed of sound.”

      I want to know where you grew up if old fashioned electric trains travel at mach 1 there.

      Even the fastest maglev trains don’t go anywhere close to the speed of sound.  The Navy has an experimental rail gun that uses electromagnetic forces to throw a projectile faster than that, but there’s a big difference between throwing such a projectile and throwing a fully-fueled Falcon 9.  It’s nowhere close to even remotely feasible to throw a fully-fueled Falcon 9 at Mach 1 using a rail gun.

      Wings at jet engines in a launch vehicle always sound great when you consider only their advantages and not their disadvantages.  The problem is that they only help you in the thick lower atmosphere at low super-sonic speeds at best.  Most of the hard work is getting up past mach 20 outside the atmosphere.  To use wings or an air-breathing engine to get any significant portion of the delta-v you need for orbit you need to use them to go through the lower atmosphere at high mach numbers.  And there you’re talking scramjet technology, which may be practical someday, but which is very, very hard and needs a lot more work to be a realistic option.  It’s not at all just adding wings and jet engines.

  18. DTARS says:
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    Isn’t the business model here to get us to start Now to get resources for building stuff in space. Not to bring metals back to earth.

    What do earthlings need from space as soon as possible?

    Clean cheap power!

    How we going to get it?

    Help Elon get us off this rock so we can do the things that Denise and tinker talk about.

    What if you lived on a planet with a deep gravity well and you. And a population about to reach that resource limit and the fools in charge were wasting money on some old bull$&@/ rocket.

    If you were rich wouldn’t you want to start a business that could help us get up there to start using allll the resources available to our reach!!!

    As Denise said we wasted 40 years already and the fools want to waste the next 40.

    Two global business models

    1 what we are doing now sls Orion wasting ISS 

    Or

    2 what ever they propose.

    Not to be a doom and gloomer but our populations doubles in another 25 years and the earth is heating.

    We need help from a space enconmy soon !!!!!!!

    The next 100 years will get really s@&$Ty if we don’t get our act together Now!!!!!!!!

    We need to open the worlds eyes!!!!!!

    I bet theses guys seeit!!!!!!

    Sorry for typos no time

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      DTARS,

      By Denise I’m assuming you meant Dennis (Wingo).  I’ve met the man and he’s definitely not a woman.  Just a note for future posts.

      Steve

  19. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    Some more thoughts now that we know where this adventure is going. I’ve read somewhere that one of their plans is to capture an asteroid and put it in orbit around the Moon. Ain’t gonna happen! I, for one, don’t like the idea of having a potential ‘planet killer’ parked so close. It’s not so much that it would be a lot of kinetic energy (possibly equivalent to many nuclear weapons) in ‘private hands’ as much as the fact that lunar orbits just aren’t that stable.

    An asteroid in lunar orbit is not ‘walk away safe’. That’s an engineering term referring to what happens to a system when all human intervention is removed. A recent example of a system that isn’t ‘walk away safe’ failing was the nuclear reactor meltdowns in Fukushima, Japan. Since the on-site workers were virtually helpless to intervene in the first days of the disaster we can see what happens to a nuclear reactor when human control is lost. Just think, if those folks hadn’t done everything they could do, things would have been much worse. Nuclear reactors are not ‘walk away safe’, neither are asteroids in lunar orbit. Without intervention, the orbit would eventually become unstable and someone could get hurt, maybe lots of someones.

    I don’t want to stomp on the parade here without suggesting a solution and raising the bar some as well.

    I suggest that the Sun/Earth L2 point about a million miles Marswards would be a good place to park asteroids. Far enough away to feel safe and close enough to get to in a short period of time. Less delta-v to park an asteroid as well as parking it in a ‘walk away safe’ place. It raises the bar by giving us a deep space destination further then the Moon but closer then Mars. It’s a distinct step forward that we could sink our teeth into. If they get lucky and harpoon an asteroid with volatiles, it could become our gas station to the planets.

    tinker

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Tinker,

      I’m very much with you on this one. I’ve been leaning towards Earth-Moon L4/L5 (as I’ve posted elsewhere) because 1) if it deviates unpowered from its starting point for any reason, it’ll drift right back to a stable orbit at that same L point; 2) it would be at safe distance but not too far away to be practical; 3) if the neighborhood were abandoned, it very likely wouldn’t be permanently; and 4) for off-Earth usage of their output, within cis-lunar space, L4 and L5 are both sort of half way to any other point in cis-lunar space, and conveniently “on the way” to destinations outside of cis-lunar space.

      In time, I think L4 and L5 are very likely going to be “outposts” from which things will grow, so it would be very handy to have resource production happening there in the early days.

      Steve

      • John Gardi says:
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         Steve:

        Maybe Earth/Moon L4/5 would be a good enough place for ships and stations, it’s not a good place to park a rock. We can design ships and stations to break up in the atmosphere if they ever did fall back to Earth. An asteroid of any size is too chancy to risk.

        tinker

        • Steve Whitfield says:
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          Tinker,

          I picked L4 and L5 precisely because they won’t let anything fall from them back to Earth. Unlike L1, L2 and L3 (which are gravitational top of the hill situations), L4 and L5 are gravity wells which give us station-keeping for free, no human intervention required. Asteroids, spaceships, or anything else, once put there, will stay there if left to themselves. The gravity wells at L4 and L5 are not actually “points” as they’re often depicted, but each is actually a relatively small, near-elliptical orbit around the imagined “point.” Anything that’s in one of these orbits will, left to itself, will stay in that orbit unless an impact or other thrust source imparts a delta-V in excess of the significant escape velocity of the L point. Leaving it to “drift free,” the object will never leave that orbit, let alone fall to Earth. If you completely abandoned an asteroid at L4 or L5 then came back after 1,000 years, it would still be in that same L point orbit, unless it had broken up for any reason, in which case of the debris from the asteroid will be orbiting the L point.

          I would find it very hard to give up the safety and reliability of this free station-keeping. My only real concern is that, over time, a lot of the volume around these two points is going to be inhabited, for exactly this reason, plus the fact that they are each equidistant from the Earth and the Moon, in other words, prime real estate.

          Steve

  20. DTARS says:
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    Tinker today it hit home to me just how important trying to settle space or become a multi planet species is to us humans. And how important it is for us to act now!!!!!!

  21. damallette says:
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    Finally, an answer to the question I hear most when I bemoan our abandonment of space “If there are all these resouces lying aroung out there, why are the rich investing?”

    If they’d let me purchase a thousand dollars worth of stock in this venture right now I’d be all over it…

  22. CadetOne says:
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    Wall Street Journal has posted an article on it. Basically have governments pay to move an asteroid into Lunar orbit, then have private companies bid to mine it.

    I have lots of reservations about this, but it might provide an organizing principal for NASA’s activities. Right now NASA has no vision with the possible exception of a flag and footprints stunt. This could be billed as a pathfinder mission for the commercial exploitation of space. Ultimately space exploration needs to be self-funding, and this could be a first step in that direction.

    http://online.wsj.com/artic

    • Paul451 says:
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      “Basically have governments pay to move an asteroid into Lunar orbit, then have private companies bid to mine it.”

      That sounds like WSJ. Privatise the profits, socialise the cost.