NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos
- Thread starter bd popeye
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The company - Astroforge - is yet another asteroid mining startup in the US. They follow two others with folks I actually knew, Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries. I am very dubious about asteroid mining startups. The costs and unknowns are beyond anything we've done as a species yet: this is really a science project rather than a tech startup.
It is entirely possible to build a company to do so; however, the chances of successfully pulling it off are very narrow, at least until the first one gets through the door. The issue being it's so much cheaper to mine things on earth. Multiple orders of magnitude cheaper! However, if a nation or company were looking to mine for use in space that would be a different story. The cost of delta v from the earth surface is quite high and the payload sizes relatively small, even when we are looking at 300 ton deliveries within my life time. Therefore, if you can skip the cost of earth's gravity, you're in a good position for manufacturing and construction in space. However, you need an actual market. That could either be governments - US, China, Europe, etc. - or you could feed into the Muskie, Bezosian and other billionaire space program "markets." If and when.
Astroforge is making some waves though. Not for some it has actually done yet, but for what it has planned. Astroforge is planning to not disclose where their mining locale will be. In fact, they do not want to disclose their mission almost whatsoever. This has erked scientists to no end. It also has a lot of questions about its legality at all: in the US, claims must be disclosed, verified and go through quite a process even on Earth. Space mining is a whole lot different. In addition, while the US and others allow space mining, the regulatory frameworks are not fleshed out at all. It's almost assuredly going to require public disclosures though.
Fraud is a real potential issue even in the most established of industries: looking at you guys, Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. The 'trust me, this came from an asteroid. It's awesome! It'll make us rich! No, I won't tell you which one' gives me massive scammer vibes, so much so "nigerian princes" in Louisiana are going to be jealous.
Of course, the Outer Space Treaty states the signatories must make sure their citizens are compliant. Somewhat hard to do in this case. This is also a nontrivial potential headache.
Now, why do this bright folks want to not disclose their mining location? Why keep their whole mission a secret? They are afraid of claim jumpers: someone else coming in and taking their proven claim. The implied concern is nation states won't enforce or can't enforce the 'law' on the belt (beltalouda! *$@# the Innahs!). Quite possible, that.
This is almost assuredly getting ahead of themselves and creating problems they really don't need, IMO. They have a looong ways to go before they have a launched mission to the Belt, nevermind a proven claim, and by stating secrecy plans now, they may not even get a launch license.
Even so, the NY Times comes out and says Astroforge's secret mission won't be the last secret mission.
Take a look for yourself:
As for Astroforge:
It is entirely possible to build a company to do so; however, the chances of successfully pulling it off are very narrow, at least until the first one gets through the door. The issue being it's so much cheaper to mine things on earth. Multiple orders of magnitude cheaper! However, if a nation or company were looking to mine for use in space that would be a different story. The cost of delta v from the earth surface is quite high and the payload sizes relatively small, even when we are looking at 300 ton deliveries within my life time. Therefore, if you can skip the cost of earth's gravity, you're in a good position for manufacturing and construction in space. However, you need an actual market. That could either be governments - US, China, Europe, etc. - or you could feed into the Muskie, Bezosian and other billionaire space program "markets." If and when.
Astroforge is making some waves though. Not for some it has actually done yet, but for what it has planned. Astroforge is planning to not disclose where their mining locale will be. In fact, they do not want to disclose their mission almost whatsoever. This has erked scientists to no end. It also has a lot of questions about its legality at all: in the US, claims must be disclosed, verified and go through quite a process even on Earth. Space mining is a whole lot different. In addition, while the US and others allow space mining, the regulatory frameworks are not fleshed out at all. It's almost assuredly going to require public disclosures though.
Fraud is a real potential issue even in the most established of industries: looking at you guys, Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. The 'trust me, this came from an asteroid. It's awesome! It'll make us rich! No, I won't tell you which one' gives me massive scammer vibes, so much so "nigerian princes" in Louisiana are going to be jealous.
Of course, the Outer Space Treaty states the signatories must make sure their citizens are compliant. Somewhat hard to do in this case. This is also a nontrivial potential headache.
Now, why do this bright folks want to not disclose their mining location? Why keep their whole mission a secret? They are afraid of claim jumpers: someone else coming in and taking their proven claim. The implied concern is nation states won't enforce or can't enforce the 'law' on the belt (beltalouda! *$@# the Innahs!). Quite possible, that.
This is almost assuredly getting ahead of themselves and creating problems they really don't need, IMO. They have a looong ways to go before they have a launched mission to the Belt, nevermind a proven claim, and by stating secrecy plans now, they may not even get a launch license.
Even so, the NY Times comes out and says Astroforge's secret mission won't be the last secret mission.
Take a look for yourself:
As for Astroforge:
This video is several days old now, but I didn't see it posted. NASA testing a 3D printed rotating detonation rocket engine. According to the YouTube description, the rocket produces 5,800 lbs of thrust and burned for 251 seconds.
