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posted by martyb on Sunday December 08 2019, @11:09PM   Printer-friendly

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 c0lo on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:40AM (3 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 10 2019, @05:40AM (#930469) Journal

    You're probably thinking of using the Interplanetary Transport Network...
    If you're actually willing to spend the energy I listed, then you'd take a Hohmann transfer orbit...

    That's what I meant, sorry for not spelling it explicitly.

    Heck, if you're burning the gasoline in a rocket you're going to need a LOT more thanks to the rocket equation. You asked how much energy was needed - I only mentioned gasoline as a "real world" reference point.

    (there were so many other things that were ignored. Rocket engine efficiency, the energy to mine the asteroid at destination, unfolding/assembling the "space sled" to load and send the stuff back - doesn't make sense to use the same "rocket airframe", etc)

    Heck, let me spell the point I wanted to make, as clear as I can. So here I go:

    "The asteroid mining at megaton scale can be theoretically done with today's usual technology (chem energy), but is so impractical that it is likely to happen only after the space propulsion turns nuclear in practical terms (as in "you'd need at least 3-orders-of-magnitude-higher-than-chem propulsion on the energy density [soylentnews.org] scale").
    Until then, if you take 'asteroid mining in practical terms, starting tomorrow' seriously, it is likely you qualify in the category of intelligence that makes one prone to be parted with one's money."

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:14AM (2 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:14AM (#930475)

    Okay, fair enough. Let me make a counterpoint:

    Unless you're chasing Bezo's dream of moving all industry off Earth, there's no really much call for moving megatons of common materials around. Nor would you necessarily want to start shipping megatons of rare metals back to Earth - you'd devastate the market. But millions of megatons are there waiting to be brought back by anyone with the capacity, in whatever quantities they can manage. If it's possible to get 1 ton of rare metal back to Earth at a handsome profit (and at $40 million per tonne for gold, transportation at least won't be a serious cost concern), then somebody is going to do it. And once they prove it can be done, it'll be a gold rush to make California look like a day-old buffet line.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:00AM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 10 2019, @07:00AM (#930487) Journal

      If it's possible to get 1 ton of rare metal back to Earth at a handsome profit (and at $40 million per tonne for gold, transportation at least won't be a serious cost concern), then somebody is going to do it.

      Agreed. With the note that's a big if (and an unlikely one at the current tech level) - be it only for the reason that, to get them back, one needs to "go get it" in the first place and that's where the head-scratching starts.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:22PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:22PM (#930567)

        I don't know about head-scratching. We've already figured out how to get there, and done so repeatedly. The expense is currently a bit high, but we've got two orders of magnitude of cost reduction on the horizon.

        There'll be some challenges initially developing the technology, but you're dealing with metal deposits that are far purer than anything found on Earth outside a scrapyard - the biggest challenges are probably going to be adapting mining and refining technology to work in space. And probably basic industrial technology as well as mining operations are scaled up beyond proof of concept - fortunately iron-casting is simple technology with very low requirements (sand, a binding agent for it, and a heat source that could easily be provided by a large parabolic reflector and/or fresnel lens array), and we even have prototype 3D iron printers already, (sand too) so it shouldn't be hard to start putting the waste-heap to work.