Posted on 04/23/2012 8:32:40 PM PDT by anymouse
A newly unveiled company with some high-profile backers including filmmaker James Cameron and Google co-founder Larry Page has announced plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources such as precious metals and water.
Planetary Resources, Inc. intends to sell these materials, generating a healthy profit for itself. But it also aims to advance humanity's exploration and exploitation of space, with resource extraction serving as an anchor industry that helps our species spread throughout the solar system.
(snip)
"We're out there right now, talking to customers," Anderson said. "We are open for discussions with companies aerospace companies, mining companies, prospecting companies, resource companies. We're out working in that field, to really open up the solar system for business."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Commercial space ping.
Mining....an asteroid.....for WATER....
Ooooooh kaaaaaay.........
Water mined in space is cheaper than water shipped from the earth's gravity well. Much, much, much cheaper. It costs about $5KUSD per pound to put something into orbit.
Water, paper, whatever.
The economics makes sense, and it's not NASA doing it, so I'm good with it.
/johnny
Sorry, you have the wrong forum.
I'll eat crow if you have a net worth of over $700 million.
Otherwise, I'll go with the free-market guy that has a track record of sucess.
/johnny
That actually makes sense in a space-based economy. Other operations in space will need water, and extraction it from the Moon or an asteroid would be more cost-effective than shipping it up from Earth.
-- Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York
Some folks just can't accept progress.
/johnny
So you’re saying that someone without $700 mil is unqualified to render a negative opinion of the venture?
But if you aren't worth as much as Cameron, I'm going to assume it's based in ignorance.
Cameron has folks, after all, to do due diligence on the concept.
Do you? Didn't think so. So it's just another un-informed opinion worthy of being ridiculed.
/johnny
Since NASA will be occupied with its outreach program to the Muslim world I’m glad someone will have a space program.
We find them quaint an provencial.
/johnny
Getting government out of the way is becoming a problem, though.
/johnny
-- Boston Post, 1865
Some folks never learn.
/johnny
Are you worth $700 mil?
You would think a conservative would applaud an attempt to move mankind forward, instead of making a dope-smoking comment.
"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."
-- Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926
/johnny
There is a question of sovereignty. Who owns these asteroids?
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