Reports Hint at Asteroid Mining Project for New Space Exploration Company 'Plane

[whiteodian]

I thought this was fake at first: Like a viral video for Prometheus. I guess I'm just excited to see that movie. Here is a link to the site https://www.weylandindustries.com/

If there is a will (desire/need), there is a way.

 

[whiteodian]

Link didn't work https/www.weylandindustries.com/
www.weylandindustries.com

 

[zak_mckraken]

"Yes, there's no safer occupation than mining. Especially when you're perched on a snowball whipping through space at a million miles per hour!"

 

[Zingam_Duo]

[citation][nom]stingstang[/nom]Hopefully this will be an automated system, or at least remote. Costs would sky-rocket if we had to bring humans along. Those darn fleshy, needy creatures.[/citation]

Actually there are way too many humans on this planet. It is time to start shipping some into space already.

 

[jkflipflop98]

[citation][nom]deksman[/nom]You want infinite resources?Use recycling technology to transform mountains of trash that piled up all over the planet into usable materials.We could have done this decades ago.Not only would it alleviate the environmental contamination, but it would also lower our need to use new untapped resources.And call me crazy, but wouldn't creating a fully-self sufficient society via recycling methods be cheaper than shuffling resources from space?I'm hardly opposed to the idea of using resources from asteroids or going into space, but people can be real morons if they are thinking we are in a shortage of any resources here on Earth in the first place (ah but wait... we live in a Capitalist society - sensibility and logic regularly fly out the window for the sake of profits and money - and its very possible that shuffling resources from space will probably require increased costs which will probably raise prices on products made from those resources - that is, if they ever reach the consumers in the first place).[/citation]

Orly? Why don't you get me 2.5 tons of Promethium for a project I'm working on. Oh you can't, because that much doesn't exist on Earth.

 

[bbfknight]

[citation][nom]jkflipflop98[/nom]Orly? Why don't you get me 2.5 tons of Promethium for a project I'm working on. Oh you can't, because that much doesn't exist on Earth.[/citation]
are you also building the worlds most expensive flashlight?

we should swap ideas

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]leo2kp[/nom]I hope they've calculated the consequences of increasing Earth's mass....[/citation]

Should not be a problem with the quantities they can drag back home as the earth gets hit every day by material from space.

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]deksman[/nom]...As for gold and platinum... they can be man-made....[/citation]

Yes, but very expensive and the resulting material is unfortunately radioactive and that artificial gold necklace will glow in the dark

 

[Guest]

getting minerals is just a cover for some other agenda. Dont you read ANYTHING by Asimov or Heinlein? Try the "Man Who Sold the Moon."

 

[willard]

For those of you wondering about the effect on the rotation of the Earth, here are some numbers.

The mass of the Earth is around 5,974,200,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons. To result in the loss of one second per year, you'd need to add .000003% of the mass of the Earth.

That's about 190 trillion metric tons of material, or roughly equal to the 100 tallest mountains on Earth combined (or Mount Everest thirty times over), and that's just to change the length of a day by 0.0027 seconds. To lose an hour each day we'd need 248,925,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons, or 50 million Mount Everests.

There is absolutely no risk of screwing up our orbit or day/night length by mining asteroids.

 

[itpro]

Likely scenario: Locate a suitable candidate, say a 20 mile diameter nickel/iron planetary core fragment. Send a booster payload to land on its surface and slowly nudge it out of orbit and back toward Earth. Park it in a safe orbit above the Earth. Carve it up and process the ore on a space station. Finally, deliver the new alloys down to Earth for consumption.

Can this process be profitable? Yes, once the initial details are worked out for bringing the asteroid back here. Mining it in orbit would be reasonable in cost, and processing the ore in orbit would allow the production of alloys that are impossible here on Earth due to gravity influences. This would also eliminate the need to mine here, and the associated environmental challenges and impacts. The startup time and costs would be huge, but the long term benefits and profits would be tremendous.

 

[husker]

[citation][nom]bbfknight[/nom]any thought about the physics of this?the amount of trips it would take to pull back enough to make it worth while would be silly... not to mention they are not going to find any oil out there, just rock and other minerals that we have plenty of already... also.. think about this... the earth is a specific mass no matter what we do to it, mine, pollute, it is always has the same mass. if we change it by adding more, what does that do to our rotation, or orbit, our gravity.. for everything we add to our planet would we not have to discard the same in mass?[/citation]
Good point... um... how much do you weigh?

 

[atmos929]

"SCV reporting for duty!"

 

[guruofchem]

Most efficient (and safest) way is to de-orbit the asteroid from the Asteroid Belt and park it in one of the Earth-Sun Trojan points (60 degrees ahead or behind the Earth in its orbit). Then you bring the mass down in smaller chunks as needed, and the material is a lot closer to us without getting close enough to be a problem...

 

[derekullo]

If this is anything like Eve I would imagine a person mining for 16 hours a day while being guarded by space battleships in case "Anonymous Cruisers" try to gank them.

 

[gm0n3y]

I've been waiting for enough unobtainium to make my home-made railgun.

 

[fb39ca4]

this sounds like the plot line for shattered horizon...

 

[Guest]

Grab the largest Asteroid possable, park it near earth, Take over global television signals, broadcast demand for larger amount of money than the economic/bank bailout, stroke fuzzy lap kitty, place pinkey tip on dimple, evil laughter!

 

[sanadanosa]

Galaxy on Fire become real thing

 

[dreadlokz]

hard to believe it is worth it! One thing is research, other is profit from it! I don't believe it will be profitable before 2 or 3 decades! Better chance of mining the moon till there!