EPTThey've identified that there is almost infinite potential for energy/resources there, now they're going to be working on the "how to we aquire it?" issue
Planetary Resources - Page 8
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KnT
Australia243 Posts
They've identified that there is almost infinite potential for energy/resources there, now they're going to be working on the "how to we aquire it?" issue | ||
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xeo1
United States429 Posts
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Rhine
187 Posts
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 20 2012 07:22 amazingxkcd wrote: It sounds cool, but there's this little skeptic inside of me that says "Illuminati's grand plan to take over all of us"!. Hope this isn't that... Someone's been playing too much Deus Ex :D | ||
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Crissaegrim
2947 Posts
It will be interesting to see what comes of this for sure. | ||
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FakeDouble
Australia676 Posts
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Pika Chu
Romania2510 Posts
Mining asteroids for profit won't happen for at least 50 years, because of the costs, and it just won't be worth transporting everything back to earth. But let's stop thinking about immediate profit, that's the whole idea, we need to do stuff that will bring the next generation closer to our dreams as a child. | ||
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Alex1Sun
494 Posts
On April 20 2012 03:57 farvacola wrote: I really hope that one of the foci of this organization is to continue heavy research into fusion/alternative energy, as it would seem that space only really begins to open once we fix our energy problems. This is just so true. Everything (prosperity, economy, research, education, medicine etc) depends first of all on energy. We can make everybody wealthy and healthy, we can stabilize population and save our environment, soils, oceans and climate if we only get enough clean sustainable energy. Until then scaling up space travel or even increasing space exploration is too energy intensive. I don't think that doomers are right that there will be a massive human die off and civilization collapse in a couple of decades. That is quite unlikely unless we start a nuclear war. But it is certainly possible that our quality of life will start gradually degrading quite soon, as getting fossil fuels becomes less energy efficient and more expensive (it's already happening with oil as oil from tar sands, oil shales and sea bed is much harder to extract then conventional oil; coal and gas will follow some time later, meanwhile ruining our environment). Just think about it: US as well as Southern Europe would have zero debt if oil was as cheap as 10 years ago. Get enough sustainable clean energy - and all problems from debt to enemployment, from pollution to poverty are automatically fixed. Then we can go and mine those asteroids. | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14081 Posts
On April 20 2012 23:11 Alex1Sun wrote: This is just so true. Everything (prosperity, economy, research, education, medicine etc) depends first of all on energy. We can make everybody wealthy and healthy, we can stabilize population and save our environment, soils, oceans and climate if we only get enough clean sustainable energy. Until then scaling up space travel or even increasing space exploration is too energy intensive. I don't think that doomers are right that there will be a massive human die off and civilization collapse in a couple of decades. That is quite unlikely unless we start a nuclear war. But it is certainly possible that our quality of life will start gradually degrading quite soon, as getting fossil fuels becomes less energy efficient and more expensive (it's already happening with oil as oil from tar sands, oil shales and sea bed is much harder to extract then conventional oil; coal and gas will follow some time later, meanwhile ruining our environment). Just think about it: US as well as Southern Europe would have zero debt if oil was as cheap as 10 years ago. Get enough sustainable clean energy - and all problems from debt to enemployment, from pollution to poverty are automatically fixed. Then we can go and mine those asteroids. What? Source? Sustainable energy will fix unemployment, poverty and debt? How? | ||
white_horse
1019 Posts
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Alex1Sun
494 Posts
On April 20 2012 23:43 r.Evo wrote: What? Source? Sustainable energy will fix unemployment, poverty and debt? How? Well, summ up how much extra US has paid for oil imports during the last 10 years above 2002 prices plus a part of military expenses (Afganistan, Iraq, air carriers) to secure oil flow from Middle East. You may say that US would have had huge military and wars regardless of oil, but to me it seems that oil is one of the major reasons. Anyway, for Italy and for a few other European countries you can just directly sum up oil import costs minus oil imports at 2002 prices to arrive at the numbers close to their national debts: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481433a.html As for energy extremely strongly correlating with economy and quality of life, look up this paper: http://www.aibs.org/bioscience-press-releases/resources/Davidson.pdf Here it is important to mention that you should have not only sustainable energy, but also enough of it. It may not fix all problems in itself (if you decide to start wars with your excess energy), but withough enough energy those problems can't be fixed. | ||
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 20 2012 23:50 white_horse wrote: too much hype. Our technology is wayyyy too limited at this point. The most advanced rockets that we have are not fast enough or efficient enough. From a business standpoint, the cost of bringing all those resources >>>>>>>>>> the revenue from selling all those resources - nobody would venture to do something like this. The only thing we can do is try to advance our technology as fast as we can!! You need to stop thinking about immediate profit and think about the long term. As one poster said, this might not immediately yield enormous amounts of profit, but over the long term, for our children's generation, for the people who will need these extra resources, this will be incredible. | ||
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Deleted User 101379
4849 Posts
On April 20 2012 23:50 white_horse wrote: too much hype. Our technology is wayyyy too limited at this point. The most advanced rockets that we have are not fast enough or efficient enough. From a business standpoint, the cost of bringing all those resources >>>>>>>>>> the revenue from selling all those resources - nobody would venture to do something like this. The only thing we can do is try to advance our technology as fast as we can!! True, the initial cost is huge, but once it's established, the rewards are a lot higher. I see it like expanding in BW/SC2, you spend a lot of money so that you get more stuff later. Sure, for the moment it might look like a bad decision because we have less money for other stuff like defending our base but if we stay on 1 base, eventually we run out of resources and that is even worse. The resources on asteroids are like gold minerals, there is so much of them that we could coat the earth in a meter thick layer of iron and still have enough left to build the NCC-1701-A. | ||
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
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r.Evo
Germany14081 Posts
On April 20 2012 23:57 Alex1Sun wrote: Well, summ up how much extra US has paid for oil imports during the last 10 years above 2002 prices plus military expenses (Afganistan, Iraq, air carriers) to secure oil flow from Middle East. You may say that US would have huge military and wars regardless of oil, but to me it seems that oil is on of the major reasons. Anyway, for Italy and for a few other European countries you can just directly sum up oil imports costs minus oil imports at 2002 prices to arrive at their national debts: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483541a.html As for energy extremely strongly correlating with economy and quality of life, look up this paper: http://www.aibs.org/bioscience-press-releases/resources/Davidson.pdf That is not related to the countries debt. What you're saying is that the people in that country love to eat pineapple. In fact, they love to eat it so much that you keep carrying them into the country but you don't make your people pay for it even if the price rises. You even take loans to keep shoving them into your peoples mouths! And then you claim it's the pineapples fault that you had to make that debt, hell, you even had to pump up the military budget so you can secure vast fields of pineapples for your people - ALL WITHOUT CHARGING THEM FOR IT. ........ So all the oil that the US or southern european countries bought evaporated and was not sold, that's why they're in debt. Why exactly are there countries who have less national debt despite not exactly eating less pineapples? As for the paper it says "A country which has more energy for everyone has a higher standard of life" - that is a LOT different from saying "Using renewable energy sources will fix unemployment, poverty and debt". It doesn't matter where that energy comes from in that equation. What however DOES matter when it comes to securing the future of the non-renewable energies, here I'm bashing some western countries with e.g. Germany at the front, are countries who shut down e.g. very secure nuclear reactors just to then buy energy from countries with less safe ones or, even worse, who run mostly gas/oil/coal plants. | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14081 Posts
On April 20 2012 23:58 kollin wrote: You need to stop thinking about immediate profit and think about the long term. As one poster said, this might not immediately yield enormous amounts of profit, but over the long term, for our children's generation, for the people who will need these extra resources, this will be incredible. Not just the resources, but the technologies themselves. Almost all discoveries made at the frontier of science are almost useless for the next few years after their discovery. Computers are based on what was discovered in the 1920s. Electricity was a toy when it was discovered. 80 years later it was everywhere. I can't recall the exact quote, but when it was displayed for the first time that moving a wire around can cause an instrument to move a little bit, the inventor was asked "And THIS is what we are funding? What use does this toy have for the british empire?" - his reponse was: "I have no idea what use it will have in the future, but I'm sure you're going to tax it." Most people underestimate the time-delay between the first discoveries and the practical use of those later down the road. :S | ||
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Trollk
Belgium93 Posts
On April 20 2012 23:58 kollin wrote: You need to stop thinking about immediate profit and think about the long term. As one poster said, this might not immediately yield enormous amounts of profit, but over the long term, for our children's generation, for the people who will need these extra resources, this will be incredible. More like your grandchildren's grandchildren after a catastrophic event that wiped out everything. What 'extra resources' would they need in the first place. There is more than sufficient amount of resources on this planet, no matter how you put it. I mean your children will most likely see thermal solar energy systems that can provide the entire world population of energy by the time they are in their '50s or something. There are already very competitive businesses running nowadays solely on selling resources by recycling on its own. In addition, houses have already been built which completly exist out of garbage and waste, able to witstand heavy earthquakes and are fully self-sufficient in terms of water and energy. And then you support some company which will fly to outer space to provide us resources? If only one of those billionaire backers would support projects like research on energy/recycling and architecture, then you could actually make a difference which you might (if lucky) live long enough to witness. | ||
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 21 2012 00:15 Trollk wrote: More like your grandchildren's grandchildren after a catastrophic event that wiped out everything. What 'extra resources' would they need in the first place. There is more than sufficient amount of resources on this planet, no matter how you put it. I mean your children will most likely see thermal solar energy systems that can provide the entire world population of energy by the time they are in their '50s or something. There are already very competitive businesses running nowadays solely on selling resources by recycling on its own. In addition, houses have already been built which completly exist out of garbage and waste, able to witstand heavy earthquakes and are fully self-sufficient in terms of water and energy. And then you support some company which will fly to outer space to provide us resources? If only one of those billionaire backers would support projects like mentioned before, then you could actually make a difference which you might (if lucky) actual witness. So you are saying humanity should not go and mine the enormous enormous amounts of resources in space because we might not need them immediately? You have to remember that these resources never have to be sent back to earth. They can be used in the construction of factories and colonies in space, both of which are beneficial to humanity as a whole. | ||
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Trollk
Belgium93 Posts
On April 21 2012 00:20 kollin wrote: So you are saying humanity should not go and mine the enormous enormous amounts of resources in space because we might not need them immediately? You have to remember that these resources never have to be sent back to earth. They can be used in the construction of factories and colonies in space, both of which are beneficial to humanity as a whole. No Im saying that we do not need them at all to keep human life sustainable on earth. If you want to invest in space exploration and discovering new useful resources, then by all means go ahead.If man can somehow colonize space, that is awesome. But stating that we will need to invest in it to save/spare the lifes of the our next generations is blatantly wrong. | ||
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kollin
United Kingdom8380 Posts
On April 21 2012 00:25 Trollk wrote: No Im saying that we do not need them at all to keep human life sustainable on earth. If you want to invest in space exploration and discovering new useful resources, then by all means go ahead.If man can somehow colonize space, that is awesome. But stating that we will need to invest in it to save/spare the lifes of the our next generations is blatantly wrong. But this will make many many times easier to colonise space. And that is a good thing, because if some asteroid were to hit the earth, then there'd still be people somewhere. I believe strongly that humanity's best chance of survival lies in space. And sure we may not need the resources but the technology that will come from what could be a very profitable company, could change lives. | ||
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