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One expert... in the field of asteroid mining, has predicted that asteroid mining could begin in 10-20 years:
"Asteroid mining on a regular basis, such as terrestrial mining takes place today, with an established industry and an ecosystem of supporting services businesses for the mining companies, could start anywhere from 20 to 50 years is my personal opinion. But any industry must start somewhere, and I think we will see the first asteroid being mined 10 to 20 years from now, at which point the surrounding ecosystem will begin to grow," [J.L.] Galache said.
However, in order to successfully start asteroid mining, a few obstacles must first be overcome. One of these is insufficient knowledge about certain types of asteroids. Although our understanding of asteroids as a whole is advanced enough, gaining a better understanding of the nature of various types of near-Earth objects could be a critical factor in terms of success. Galache underlined that mining techniques will have to be tailored to specific types of asteroids. "For example, you will not send the same equipment to mine an iron-nickel asteroid as you would a carbonaceous asteroid, and you will not send the same equipment to mine a fine regolith-covered asteroid as a rubble pile. I do believe we have figured out what all the unknowns are and it is just a matter of finding answers and solutions to those unknowns," he noted.
NASA's Psyche mission will visit 16 Psyche, the most massive metallic M-type asteroid in the asteroid belt.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:21PM (4 children)
When Elon Musk started SpaceX he was not expecting any ROI. He thought it might completely fail. I just watched a video about this, and heard it from his own mouth.
Now it is funny that SpaceX is in an enviable position. It has 16 launches (so far) [wikipedia.org] this year. Commercial launches lined up for years. Seems to be hitting its stride. Setbacks seem to be fewer and lesser. And during all that, SpaceX has also managed to make big plans for the future.
Will there be someone similar who will pioneer asteroid mining? I suspect so.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 10 2017, @01:58AM (3 children)
Why would they?
If we could technically do it today, there would still be no economic reason to do so.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday November 10 2017, @03:03PM (2 children)
I don't have numbers to back this up. But I'll suggest two economic reasons for mining asteroids.
1. Each pound of Iron, Aluminum, etc may be cheap on earth. But it suddenly becomes worth a whole lot more once boosted to orbit and beyond. As we start to construct structures in space, in orbit, or even on other planetary bodies (Mars, Moon) it may be cheaper to mine from asteroids. It may even be cheaper to land asteroid metals on a planetary body than to lift them from Earth.
2. Rare earth metals are . . . . wait for it . . . Rare! Hard to come by on Earth. It may be economically viable, at some point, to get rare earth metals from an asteroid where they may be far more plentiful. eg, vastly cheaper per pound, even landed on Earth.
It may not be economically viable today. At some point it will be.
There is oil that we are extracting today that once was considered not economically viable to drill for.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday November 10 2017, @05:22PM (1 child)
> But it suddenly becomes worth a whole lot more once boosted to orbit and beyond. As we start to construct structures in space,
> in orbit, or even on other planetary bodies (Mars, Moon) it may be cheaper to mine from asteroids.
And you're lifting up there the half-billion dollar transformation plant, which takes the 10%, 1% or even 0.01% concentrated ore, and produces element-pure ingots through complex refining processes, right?
Just because they're in space doesn't mean that the lumps of rock are pure usable elements.
Once extracted, you also need to make those elements useful, typically by mixing up alloys... Another dirty specialized resource-intensive process.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday November 10 2017, @08:25PM
I am aware of that, and have considered it. As we construct structures in space, on a big enough scale, building the infrastructure for refining mined rocks becomes just one small part of a much larger infrastructure of construction. It would inevitably become economically attractive to mine asteroids. At some point.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.