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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 Pslytely Psycho on Monday December 09 2019, @06:52PM (2 children)
No, not directly. The part of your comment that got me interested in what we may have discovered about metal asteroids was:
"If a company can somehow collect tons of pure gold, titanium, or other expensive minerals from asteroids, it would be well worth it to bring a load back to Earth."
Basically I had never heard of any other metals than iron and nickle being found in a metallic asteroid. I read a lot about space exploration and science, but obviously not everything. So asteroids have been one of the things I have read little recent information on.
I probably should of said: Having never heard of gold being found as part of the makeup of an asteroid. instead of: Never having heard of a gold asteroid.
I never meant to infer that you said gold asteroid. I apologize for not being more specific, as your comments always seem to be well researched. I assure you I never meant to put words in your mouth.
However Fox News did make such a statement, and only linked to the front page of the Sun rather than the article claimed to be the source. And there is no way I'm searching that website for anything. CBS which I didn't bother with a link, as it nearly duplicated NASA except for saying "possible rare and valuable minerals." It linked to the NASA article that did not state anything beyond the typical iron and nickle mix. Which was the point of my comment.
You just got me interested in possibilities I had not explored. A good thing.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 09 2019, @07:22PM (1 child)
https://phys.org/news/2011-09-gold.html [phys.org]
The theory is that the current gold we have in the crust came from asteroid impacts after Earth had cooled.
So it's reasonable that there are asteroids out there that did not hit anything, have been hanging around unmolested for 4.5 billion years, and contain these metals.
Amounts of gold, platinum, etc. in a giant metal asteroid like Psyche are speculative. But it's so massive that even a small % could dominate gold supplies. And it appears to have formed under the same conditions as Earth's core (gold and iron sinking to the center), only the whole thing is "the center", mostly solid and much easier to access than Earth's core.
The bad headlines related to asteroid mining are not going away. Fox likes them, Express likes them. Then you have this fancy website [asterank.com] that has put dollar values on thousands of asteroids. Ryugu is valued at over $82 billion, many are simply listed as >$100 trillion.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday December 10 2019, @01:51AM
Damn that is a fancy looking website. So much work for speculation.
I wish you were wrong about bad headlines, but that is another topic altogether....
A fascinating topic I will now have to read up on as my knowledge is apparently very out of date.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
A very good day to you!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.