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Luxembourg expands its space resources vision
Étienne Schneider, deputy prime minister of Luxembourg, frequently tells the story of how he got interested in building a space resources industry in the country. His efforts to diversify the country's economy several years ago led to a meeting with Pete Worden, at the time the director of NASA's Ames Research Center and a proponent of many far-reaching space concepts. During an Oct. 22 panel discussion at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Washington, he recalled Worden advocating for commercial space: "Why shouldn't you go for space mining activities?"
"When he explained all this to me, I thought two things," Schneider said. "First of all, what did the guy smoke before coming into the office? And second, how do I get him out of here?"
He eventually bought into Worden's vision, starting a space resources initiative that attracted companies to the country while enacting a space resources law like that in the United States. By the beginning of 2019, though, it looked like it might all be a bad trip. The two major startups in that industry, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, had been acquired by other companies with no interest in space resources. Worse, the Planetary Resources deal wiped out an investment of 12 million euros Luxembourg made in the startup.
Schneider is undaunted by those setbacks as he continues work to make Luxembourg a hotbed of entrepreneurial space, a scope that has expanded beyond, but has not abandoned, space resources. During the IAC, the country's year-old space agency signed an agreement with NASA to explore potential cooperation, building on an agreement Luxembourg signed with the U.S. Commerce Department in May. Just before the conference, Luxembourg announced it would partner with the European Space Agency on a space resources center in the country.
The article includes an interview with Schneider.
Previously: Luxembourg Announces Investment in Asteroid Mining
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 09 2019, @04:48AM (4 children)
Starship could return up to 50 tons for as low as $2 million ($40,000 per ton). That doesn't count prospecting, mining, and other costs, just moving loads from low-Earth orbit to the surface.
Even if you assume a return cost of $1 million per ton, gold is around $47 million per ton. Mix gold, platinum, or other valuable minerals with some cheap iron, and it still might be worth it.
Don't get me wrong, this is an unproven industry using a planned rocket, but the economics of returning material to Earth can make sense. Iron, water, and other cheaper stuff will be used in space instead of being brought to Earth.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday December 09 2019, @05:25AM (3 children)
Ah, the absolutely easiest problem is sorted then. I was afraid of it. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:11AM (2 children)
Iron is only about USD90 per ton.
Gold is about 60 million per ton but how much would it cost to extract gold from an asteroid and then transfer that all the way to Earth orbit (and then a Starship takes it down from there)?
Wiki says:
So you'd have to go through about 20 small asteroids to get 1 ton of gold.
It might make sense if other customers are paying to send other stuff up via Starship and then the Starship brings asteroid gold down, and the space colonies are taking the iron for materials and sending some of the gold etc to Earth (assuming they don't need that much gold).
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday December 09 2019, @08:28AM
Iron is the most common metal in asteroids. What asteroid mining station will lack: air, food, possibly water and energy (in the asteroid belt, the solar energy is too weak for the amount needed by mining operation itself).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday December 09 2019, @05:10PM
Why would you assume we'd start mining with space debris? 10m isn't just small, it's *tiny* - there's hundreds of thousands of asteroids that are a small fraction of a mile across, tens of thousands that are a significant fraction of a mile across. thousands over 1 mile across, 100s that are over ten miles across, and several dozen that are a few hundred miles across.
I suspect 16 Psyche, the largest M-type asteroid, will be a very early target as prospectors stake their claim on 1% of the entire mass of the asteroid belt in one place: 225km across. 2.4x10^19kg, 90% metal, for perhaps 1.6*10^12 metric tons of rare metals (about 8,500x the most optimistic estimates for the total amount of gold that has been mined on Earth). Plus it has 1.5% Earth surface gravity, which isn't enough to be much of an impediment, but really helps keep things from drifting away - with an escape velocity of 650kph launching is easy, but only on purpose.
It remains to be seen how concentrated the rare metals are - if they're in concentrated deposits it could be very cost effective to dig them out. Even if they're diffused throughout the other metals isn't necessarily all that difficult - all you need is a big parabolic mylar umbrella and you can melt the metals right off the surface for processing. Control the heating carefully enough and you can even melt individual metals out of the lattice one at a time.
And all that "waste" iron would be just begging to be put to use in more mining/refining equipment. Cast iron isn't the strongest material in the world, but it is incredibly easy to work with - and there's plenty of nickle to make steel as well. Or we can 3D print the stuff if we don't want to be bothered with making sand molds. (though 3D printing the molds would probably give you much stronger parts).