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Planetary Resources - Page 3
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lolspoon
450 Posts
WOW WOW hope it works well | ||
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 20 2012 04:59 jmack wrote: Does no one else feel like we should be fixing this planet before exploring others? Hear me out, we have how many people dying from starvation by the minute? How many suicides per minute? How many people who's entire life potential is completely wasted because our social structures place favor on a select few? How about we feed and regulate our own population, by actually harnessing and distributing our knowledge and technology in EFFICIENT ways before we chase pipe dreams.... Just feels backwards... ( I'm all for space exploration, I just don't think it's our ticket out of the shit world we've created ) But you see that is ridiculously hard. And every decade we spend trying to fix those things permanently is another decade where the population continues to grow and the earths resources continue to get used. It is an endless cycle, that will not end well. I do believe we should try and fix those things, but if a private company wants to back asteroid mining which will help many of our current problems, then I don't see the problem. | ||
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billyX333
United States1360 Posts
One NASA report estimates that the mineral wealth of the asteroids in the asteroid belt might exceed $100 billion for each of the six billion people on Earth. One fully mined asteroid could be worth from 150-300 billion++ so I'm not surprised this company is making large claims for the distant future. Nations have been researching asteroid mining for awhile as far as I understand | ||
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Perdac Curall
242 Posts
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NeMeSiS3
Canada2972 Posts
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sirachman
United States270 Posts
On April 20 2012 05:07 kollin wrote: But you see that is ridiculously hard. And every decade we spend trying to fix those things permanently is another decade where the population continues to grow and the earths resources continue to get used. It is an endless cycle, that will not end well. I do believe we should try and fix those things, but if a private company wants to back asteroid mining which will help many of our current problems, then I don't see the problem. Another way to look at it is that people said the same thing about exploring the oceans and searching for undiscovered lands for exploitation and habitation hundreds of years ago. | ||
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 20 2012 05:30 NeMeSiS3 wrote: The issues with anything in space, is that your body was made to handle (through billions of years of evolution) 1 G of pressure at all times through gravity... Yet you will be handling MUCH MUCH less, and thus your body will weaken drastically, this is very common with people who fly on the international space station. On the last page I linked to a Wikipedia page about artificial gravity and I'm sure surfing around you could find more sources. Basically the best way at the moment is the astronauts are in a centrifuge which keeps them at 1G. I also read somewhere that a spacesuit that has tiny weights over it could increase your weight sufficiently in low gravity, so there wouldn't be a difference. | ||
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sirachman
United States270 Posts
On April 20 2012 05:30 NeMeSiS3 wrote: The issues with anything in space, is that your body was made to handle (through billions of years of evolution) 1 G of pressure at all times through gravity... Yet you will be handling MUCH MUCH less, and thus your body will weaken drastically, this is very common with people who fly on the international space station. That is quite a bit easier to fix when you can make larger rotating habitats to induce artificial gravity due to being able to build from cheap in-space gathered resources rather than launch every little piece expensively from Earth's surface. | ||
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Meteora.GB
Canada2479 Posts
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mastergriggy
United States1312 Posts
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Diomedes7
67 Posts
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AnachronisticAnarchy
United States2957 Posts
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 20 2012 05:37 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Of course we need to be thinking about space more. Of course we will be needing to start extraterrestrial mining soon. But now? The technology isn't there yet. You can inject as much cash as you want into a project, but I don't think it's going to make any of our inventors or scientists smarter. If this is a long-term project, though, by all means, go ahead. The founders and contributors will most likely be very poor individuals by the time anything comes out of this, but at least their sacrifice will insure humanity's survival. Technology is so close to being there. It's definitely not impossible that within 10 years the will be mining in space. In 20 years these private companies might even set up colonies. Saying it won't happen is not the right way to think about it. You have to remember these people are some of the richest people on earth(and soon to out of earth :D). | ||
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Bowdz
United States202 Posts
Some day, the platinum, cobalt and other valuable elements from asteroids may even be returned to Earth for profit. At 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (0.99 mi) contains more than 20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals. Obviously, that is not factoring the costs of getting there and mining the asteroid, but nonetheless, the trillions of dollars claim is not that far fetched. Considering how little of the asteroid belt we have actually mapped out and the insane amount of wealth we have already found, I would say Cameron and company are definitely moving in the right direction. I can't wait to hear the full announcement. | ||
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Rhine
187 Posts
On April 20 2012 05:37 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Of course we need to be thinking about space more. Of course we will be needing to start extraterrestrial mining soon. But now? The technology isn't there yet. You can inject as much cash as you want into a project, but I don't think it's going to make any of our inventors or scientists smarter. If this is a long-term project, though, by all means, go ahead. The founders and contributors will most likely be very poor individuals by the time anything comes out of this, but at least their sacrifice will insure humanity's survival. It's of course a long term project. The tech isn't here yet, and that's why it's worth looking into. Because that technology+scientific knowledge will be useful right here on Earth as well. I get the outlook that some have "well let's deal with our problems here first." But this thinking is a bit flawed. Consider how much technology became mainstream as a result of discoveries made during the NASA golden age. Also consider how many discoveries came as a result of a few generations of people who were motivated by a new frontier to go into science and technology in the first place. That's the stuff that's driving the economy. Lastly, I feel like the poster above me is right. I'm sure some thought that exploring the oceans was also not of much use. But we found new resources and all kinds of new developments came from that understanding. I'd be ok with doubling or tripling NASA budget. But this is actually a private venture? I'm all up for that. | ||
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Gummy
United States2180 Posts
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Draconicfire
Canada2562 Posts
On April 20 2012 04:42 Ostby wrote: I have a theory. They could bring an asteroid to earth orbit, make a mining/research/fueling station on it. Holy shit this is the most epic thing ever. Would be the most awesome thing if they did this, although unlikely. | ||
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Attican
Denmark531 Posts
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Gummy
United States2180 Posts
On April 20 2012 05:58 Draconicfire wrote: Holy shit this is the most epic thing ever. Would be the most awesome thing if they did this, although unlikely. Would also be an unfortunate apocalypse scenario. | ||
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Vivax
22426 Posts
Projects like this are like skyscrapers built on sand.The guys on top will touch the sky and those below will get buried. More money spent for the wealth of few. | ||
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