Holy Bean Counters:

What exactly is the problem with understanding that anything launched into space from Earth's gravity well costs $20,000/pound. It means that of one pound of water were found in an icy asteroid it would save $20K, 10 lbs. saves $200K, 100 labs $2,000K ... The fuel used by the Saturn V in 150 seconds saves $90 Billion.

Second challenge to common sense, if you found sources of water and used to make fuel then you would not be able to send fuel back the Earth for the simple reason above, AND it is really valuable in space, uses like getting more water and making more energy.

The purpose of finding water and making energy first is to leverage those investments to than take the mineral rich asteroid iron/nickel and refine it, again upscale the water/fuel enterprise.

The Economy of space is not connected to Wall Street valuations; Economy of Space is measured in Energy, if anyone seriously wanted a gold standard for a monetary system (currency that) who on "earth" would not be measured in units energy.

One, Two, Three

One - Set as an objective a visit to water bearing asteroid, using vehicle that is capable of taking in water, of converting that water to fuel, of obtaining a cargo, and returning it, leaving the conversion apparatus to continue to mine and convert water to fuel and store it until the next visit.

Two - Set as an objective the use of space refueled vehicle(s) to speed up the flight times, to carry additional conversion units, storage units, and then a facility to process found materials into additional conversion and storage hardware units, return flights will then fuel additional fast flights bringing additional manufacturing and vital components to utilize the processed materials.

Three - Now you have created a high energy fuel source, it is a system that expands and renews itself, in the traffic to and from the initial station, it might dawn on you that the fuel you made can be used effectively to propel all the fast missions you plan to use.

(Here's where the plan will go wrong: The plan will not be understood as simple and workable, then a design committee will met all the requirements, then the budget committee will attempt to accomplish the whole project with one rocket launch, and the project will end within one election cycle, the Air Force will want a new spy satellite, and in small compartment the Asteroid Energy Station weigh 3 pounds and sent a onetime message back, "I'm here awaiting orders".)

Politics of billionaires, and poorly prepared announcements, reflect badly all around, unfortunate but these are the times we are living and have accepted the wastage.

It is important that the necessary goal of providing fuel in space for space vehicles and taking benefit of that fuel intensity is spelled out in a list of requirements for and list of things that are false benefits.

Facts:

The specific impulse that available from chemical rocket fuel coincides with one curious planetary fact, if the Earth's gravity were ten percent greater no chemical rocket could not made powerful enough to achieve Earth orbit. The proof matters less, but the expense of launching fuel from Earth to outer space is one obvious problem. It is not glamorous to discuss elements so important, so basic, and so necessary, the formula H2O is not that difficult to master, and the math is not problem either remembering that the Saturn V was designed with a circular slide rule.

The fastest space craft we have launched started from Earth's deep gravity well, a simplification since only one rocket was needed, we never achieved the obvious technology of refueling a vehicle in space to then achieve fantastic speeds. Our total program is based on sling vehicles on time consuming long loops about the planets, begging gravity to do what human ingenuity has bypassed.

Speeding to a destination to save valuable time then necessarily suggests slowing the craft down before arriving. Yes adds complexity, but if we master these details on paper (hard dives), then what? Ask the next question. Would it be smart to force the one-shot-moon-rocket out of our minds, and recognize that practical presence in space makes no sense without a fuel system to provide the Energy needed to shorten development? There are many ways to design a practical system in multiple phases, for low Earth orbits, synchronous Earth orbit ranges, Mars/Asteroid distances, and finally Icy Asteroids. There is value in designing all four phases/scales into one system, as there is value in testing the actual technology, in miniature in earth orbit.

Facts are that few are willing to make any real contribution, and those who can make contribution fear nothing more than being criticized, both if the hard facts cripple any process, just because it must include the objections, things unknown, and always remain open to critical thinking.

Such a project is mildly daunting enough, including mockery is so cheap, and so damaging that only cost the entire future.

Funny stuff Alan ....

It's a nice expensive doable dream to me though ....

I think practicing blowing them up would be more of a benefit ....

And there is so much still here that can be mined at a much lower cost ....

Thanks ....

No bull, but all the s#*t. The moon affords a better way to protect from radiation and meteors by living deep underground. Launching an asteroid diversion mission would be much more practical and the long range radar signals to detect objects wouldn't be absorbed by an atmosphere. Older folks like myself, might not mind the idea of a one way trip to accomplish something that would change space travel forever. In the process, methods might be developed to maintain physical integrity to allow for returning for 1G. Humans are a lot more versatile than robots and can react to the unexpected. Some techniques might come straight out of the early iron age but as function increased, cutting edge technology wouldn't be too far down the path. Especially because the techniques to catch up to the present are already known. At the poles, solar energy should be abundant and putting up a tower and maybe flattening a few peaks would make it almost continuous. A compartmented sphere with valves to each section, filled with refrigerant, would supply a steady stream of high pressure gas to run a turbine with few moving parts. A good start would cost billions but the long term impact would be immense.

All I want to know is one thing...where can I begin to buy stock in this company, because it's not going to be for me, but for my children's children, so that they can become millionares. This is a stock worth investing in and even if it doesn't make a damn penny whatsoever, your investing in the future.

Reminds me of the movie 'Moon Zero Two', released in 1969...

The sooner Humans develop the Off Planet Economy the better. If some folks with billions of dollars in bank accounts want to mine out in the asteroids, let them. If it's a bad idea thier savings are the only money at risk, not tax payer's money. However it is done, an inter-solar system mining and transportation effort will not use Fossil Fuels (other than some heavy lift rocket system designs (like the Space X, Falcon 9 Heavy lift rocket or the new 2 stage to orbit (airplane/rocket) designs that will be flying up to space from New Mexico's new space port). Find water in the asteroids, in the zero gravity environment of space and you have fuel to move around, and air to breath and water to drink. Wikipedia: Asteroid mining. And while your at it Wikipedia: Thorium Reactors and find out how we Humans can power that space based economy because the sun does not shine as bright out that far from our local star. Find out how we can power our Post Fossil Fuel economy here on Earth also. The U.S. Government developed some very interesting Nuclear reactors at Oak Ridge National Labs in the 1960's. NASA developed NERVA space propulsion systems. Heat up some gas in a Thorium LFTR reactor and you get specific impulses of 800 plus. You can move around a lot stuff quicker and cheaper in space. You can mine and refine and manufacture the stuff you need and want in space a lot less cheaply that boosting it up off the Earth. This is brilliant stuff, my hat's off to these visionaries. Think UP! Think Off Planet! They new world are calling. Will our kids be able to live in Space Colonies? Will are grandkids start the thousand year effort to Terraform Mars into an air breathing, liquid water planetary eco-system? I think the potential for these efforts are our greatest hope for a bright future. Read Robert Zubrin's "The Case For Mars" for more on this. And visit www.ThoriumEneryAlliance.com for more on the future of energy. I am very optimistic after seeing this story in the news.

Think UP! Think Off Planet! The new world are calling. (spelling error corrected)

Maybe history would be a better judge of this verdict, and this is all the result of my several comments here on the subject in the Vine and here at MSNBC, or this issue wouldn't have even made into a circus of clowns like the newsmedia is so well known for shaping and distorting. The future will look back and say who was that guy on the Daily Show. In fact to prove that I am the source of this asteroid and space mining I can only point out what was actually missed. How are these billionaires going to accomplish this if they don't include in their research the expertise of metallurgists, the mining industry, the robotics industry, and real physicists doing real physics rather than scampy Discovery Channel excerpts with fancy imagery that is repeated tens of times throughout the entire series of documentaries. I mean one might as well go into the private space telescope business.

Achieving the capability of mining asteroids possibly in this century brings a familiar phrase to mind.

The future is now!

While billionaires could provide the capital investment for a burgeoning commercial space industry, or an asteroid mining industry, it is all of the groups of scientists and researchers with the expertise I mentioned above who will ultimately bring the potential of asteroid mining to fruition. Let's say that the Kuiper asteroid belt in the outer solar system which is known to contain the majority of Icy asteroids would be humanity's ticket to interstellar travel. Whereas most of the asteroids in the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter are mostly metallic rocky asteroids left over from the creation of the inner rocky worlds. It would stand to reason logically that if we were to mine asteroids for their resources we would have to plan our mining activities with a dual purpose, as the outer solar system is much richer in icy asteroids, the inner solar system is richer in metallic and rocky asteroids. We have a path or roadway before us that leads to interstellar space, what is at the end of our road from interstellar space to our solar system might also be at the end of the road in other solar systems where resources are concerned with asteroid belts in their outer solar system. And given the variations and differences we now know exists in other solar systems such as stars with inner gas giant planets and outer rocky planets, we have yet to discover even among the nearest stars within 100 light years what types of resources may exist and how the characteristics of resources may be distributed in different solar systems.

If Moore's Law applied to development's in space technology as it has for the computer industry in the last 50-60 years or so, only commercial enterprising and entrepenuerial innovation like that of the computer industry may eventually apply Moore's Law to development of space technologies in the next 50 years. Mining asteroids in space will bring its own challenges. While asteroid miners won't have to worry about mine collapses or cave in's, they can't just blast or nuke an asteroid into millions of projectiles or sweep them all up and they would have to stabilize a tumbling asteroid, so there would be limitations on the size of asteroids that could be mined. There needs to be the heavy planning in the R&D of the type of space vehicle that would be used which can withstand the extremes of temperatures in the spatial vacuum environment of space as well as most collisions that could undoubtedly occur in tethering or securing a tumbling asteroid. Instead of trying to blast it into millions of bits the asteroid could be magnetically stabilized and drawn into the spacecraft where it could then be melted within the spacecraft. Most asteroids and space rocks are made of iron, nickel, lead, and may contain many other metals or even precious metals. Metalurgically they all have their own melting points. So the spacecraft would by design be capable of smelting and extracting or if neccessary centrifugally separate lighter from heavier minerals. Obviously the spacecraft would also have the capability to proccess the molten metals directly into ingots which are then cooled and stored in the vehicles cargo bay. The spacecraft(s) can then return to earth or a manned orbital mining station for further quality analysis and refinement into alloys and eventual fabrication-manufacture into useable construction materials. And if water could be extracted from these rocky metalic asteroids I'm sure we could find a good use to put that resource to as well when incorporatiing water extraction into the design of the mining vessel. It could be a manned vessel with a small three or four man crew consisting of a pilot and maintenance engineers. As the first mining vessel of its kind with more on the way I have no doubt it could prove the feasibility and need for mining asteroids and the resources it can provide for other building projects in space, without relying on any earthly resources other than fuel until it can produce its own fuel. With Ion engine technology currently in use today, the chemical rocket may become a neccessity for Ion powered spacecraft braking or counter thrust to the ion engines, to slow the craft. And of course crew planning would include human neccessities for the period of time the mining vessel takes to arrive at its target asteroids and return with a fully loaded cargo bay. A manned craft has its advantages over unmanned craft if the mining vessels systems malfunction or require any other type of maintenance out of the reach of robotic devices, as well as the time it would otherwise take to retrieve the craft or send a repair crew to it.

Most of the civilized world has three primary interests or purposes in our insatiable curiosity and need to explore the final frontier: To discover other worlds, to discover intelligent life other than our own, and to discover or explore everything else. We're getting number one down pat, and for number two...that may take awhile but if ET is in the neighborhood or if ET has visited earth before then ET can't be too far away, which might be a problem when we do venture beyond the confines of our solar system. Or unless ET is from another galaxy then we could really be in trouble. Humanity's development in space is only in its infancy, its like crawling out of the cave all over again and we barely know which tools we can or have to make.

But if through all of the commentaries I have written or articles I have responded to has inspired the billionaires of the world to gather together just to consider the possibilities of mining asteroids as they plan the rise of the commercial space sector, then I have achieved my goal.

I am the author of indian gaming in California and I wrote the strategy for indian gaming in California. I sent a single email to the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) detailing that strategy and only I can qoute directly from memory the contents of keywords and key phrases that only I can remember, and those who read that email. I knew Gray Davis's incumbency for the Governors seat in California was possibly the only window of opportunity to make indian gaming possible. And I modeled the free speech message campaign for proposition 5 after my own experience with Bay Area television stations on a Navajo issue concerning PL 93-531 and joint land use, rather how the government rewards the Navajo for their service in WWII by letting mining companies relocate them to take more of their land. I stated in that email that I wished it to be saved for "posterity", that "Alan Greenspan's indian lands", another key phrase, and the names of select individuals related to IITC, AIM, and a few old friends. Aside from the details of using Nevada gaming regulations, the casino to be built on their own lands, from loans from other tribes around the nation who already have casino's, and the initial phases of casino construction from the temporary Bingo Hall or aircraft hangar type to the permanent phase 2 of casino construction. I covered all of the ground in that email and I only awaited to see the first political ads for the Proposition on the California ballot. And I am proud of that successful campaign. I had held onto the idea for ten or so years prior to releasing that email prior to Gray Davis's successful election.

BTW that's one of the shortest articles I've ever read and ridiculous videos I've ever seen.

Epic fail if you ask me. Their money would be much better spent steering astroids away from destroying life on the planet but that would require these egomanics think of something other than themselves for once. I know, I know, its not likely. Check out minute 24. lang/en/stephen_petranek_counts_down_to_armageddon.html

There is already an asteroid being mined. It is located in N.E. Canada. The asteroid hit the area some millions of years ago. I believe the metals being mined are the Platinum group, Gold and Nickle. I would suggest this group contact the company doing the mining and quite likely they could learn much from their experience.