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Thread: Asteroid mining company

  1. #41
    Lord Rahl's Avatar Behold the Beard
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    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    Quote Originally Posted by visser300 View Post
    profitability

    But surely both projects are potentially profitable.

    Quote Originally Posted by xcorps View Post
    Why would we care about the atmosphere being blown away? Would it kill off all the trees that are supporting the animal life?

    Well, if the atmosphere is being blown away there's no use in planting trees. Not to mention the lack of water means planting trees wouldn't make any sense. Then you have Mars' weather like planet-wide dust storms. Not good for vegetation.

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  2. #42
    xcorps's Avatar Praefectus
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    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Rahl View Post
    But surely both projects are potentially profitable.




    Well, if the atmosphere is being blown away there's no use in planting trees. Not to mention the lack of water means planting trees wouldn't make any sense. Then you have Mars' weather like planet-wide dust storms. Not good for vegetation.

    The environmentalists are going to go nuts.
    "Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker's enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set fire to reason." -Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

  3. #43
    MathiasOfAthens's Avatar Comes Rei Militaris
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    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    Quote Originally Posted by Sphere View Post
    A worthy project, but there's no way it is going to be profitable.
    If they can get there and get back it will be.

  4. #44

    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    Quote Originally Posted by MathiasOfAthens View Post
    If they can get there and get back it will be.
    Everyone is underestimating the swag.
    "When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims."

    My shameful truth.

  5. #45
    Magister Militum Flavius Aetius's Avatar δούξ θρᾳκήσιου
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    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    They'll have to make sure they outweigh the energy expenditure. This venture could finally make Humanity a class 2 civilization.

  6. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by Magister Militum Flavius Aetius View Post
    They'll have to make sure they outweigh the energy expenditure. This venture could finally make Humanity a class 2 civilization.
    Class 1, dude. We do not even come close to class 1 yet.

  7. #47
    Magister Militum Flavius Aetius's Avatar δούξ θρᾳκήσιου
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    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    I thought class 1 was you use your own planet for resources, class 2 was you use the solar system for resources, and class 3 is when you begin interstellar resource aquizition/settlement.

  8. #48

    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    Quote Originally Posted by Phier View Post
    Personally I'd just hit it with a tachyon pulse and then increase its mass using a warp bubble.
    Sure it's ridiculously impractical. But so was space flight in 1903. There sun probably emits more energy per second that the interior of our planet holds in total. And there's plenty of solid material floating around the solar system just waiting to be used for our ends.
    Quote Originally Posted by Magister Militum Flavius Aetius View Post
    I thought class 1 was you use your own planet for resources, class 2 was you use the solar system for resources, and class 3 is when you begin interstellar resource aquizition/settlement.
    We don't use our planet's maximum resources. Even if you count "we won't harvest the energy from much of nature because it looks nice" as a use.
    Quote Originally Posted by Phier View Post
    Everyone is underestimating the swag.
    Of course this project will be a tremendous loss, and the investors all know this. But it will bring plenty of valuable research that will bring the cost of future endeavours down. It's just a matter of pumping money into science until some day (within our lifetimes probably) it actually becomes profitable. This is how all technologies are developed.
    Last edited by removeduser_4536284751384; April 30, 2012 at 06:10 AM.

  9. #49
    Dubh the dark's Avatar Campidoctor
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    Default Re: Asteroid mining company

    Quote Originally Posted by irelandeb View Post
    Of course this project will be a tremendous loss, and the investors all know this. But it will bring plenty of valuable research that will bring the cost of future endeavours down. It's just a matter of pumping money into science until some day (within our lifetimes probably) it actually becomes profitable. This is how all technologies are developed.
    They are pushing the trillions in global profits over decades angle, which could mean losses in the next decade first;

    the company’s co-founder, Eric Anderson, says that a single 80-meter asteroid could dish out $100 billion in materials. So it’s easy to see why the company thinks its work can “add trillions of dollars to the global GDP.”

    On the technology side I found this fascinating;

    After precious metals, it doesn’t seem like water would be such a hot commodity. But the company believes it’s just as important, as it can be broken down and used to develop rocket fuel. In fact, that same 500-meter-wide asteroid above “contains 80 times more water than the largest supertanker could carry and could provide… If the water were converted to rocket propellant, [the asteroid would produce] more than 200 times the rocket fuel required to launch all the rockets ever launched in human history.”

    extracting water from asteroids could come in handy if things get rough here on Earth. And it could also allow for deeper exploration of the solar system by creating what amounts to “gas stations” throughout space. Like Anderson says, the company’s technology will help deliver materials “to the point of need. Whether it’s a fuel depot orbiting the earth, or elsewhere in space.”

    http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2012/...stry-in-space/
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