35 comments

  1. Mining asteroids will absolutely happen, if not by this company then another will eventually. When that happens the price of these materials will plummet. If enough material can be mined over a long enough period terrestrial mining will become financially unviable. No longer needing to extract these materials from the Earth will be a huge boon to the environment in the long term.

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    2. @James Barnes If they have a lot of money they’ll likely want to get in on it instead of stopping it — mining platinum in space will eventually tank the price of platinum by oversaturating the market with it. The same goes for any other precious or rare earth material — and that will be a technological boon for all mankind, as it will make electronics (and activities heavily reliant upon electronics, such as space mining) much more affordable.

      But if you really want to make money long-term with space mining, while you’re poking around for gold and platinum you also identify and secure the sites rich in water ice, oxygen, and hydrogen — that’s fuel for future spacecraft and both air and water for future astronauts. No one goes anywhere in space without that, and if you have the largest source of them… $$ ka-ching! $$ ^_^

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  2. To better explain why asteroids are so much more rich than ore here: Earth’s gravity means that all motion on Earth’s surface buries heavier material. Put a gold ring in a bowl of dirt, and shake it. With no gravity on an asteroid, the good stuff, heavy metals, can remain on the surface where they are easily accessible.

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  3. Enough metals and earths to live and grow for ever. We just need anti gravity spaceships to get there easy.

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  4. this headline is just one of the thousands of distractions that keep humanity from focusing on our serious and urgent issues.

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  5. BREAKING: 1/6 political prisoner Jacob Chansley is freed 14 months early after Tucker aired footage of cops touring him around the Capital building 🥳

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    1. The federal prosecutors should be disbarred. Not presenting the full evidence to the court is unethical.

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    2. Sure… Like a robber could ever whine “oh… Why didn’t you look at all the surveillance evidence of me not robbing someone. And only at the one time where I did rob someone… The prosecutor should be disbarred for not showing all the evidence where I’m not committing a crime.”
      Obviously that’s not how evidence and justice works: If there is evidence showing that you committed a crime, all other evidence where you didn’t commit a crime is simply without juridical merits. And the Q Shaman’s lawyer could at anytime also have demanded access to all surveillance videos where he is present. But didn’t… because it didn’t matter.

      And if someone breaks into a house, the victim being threatened and therefore opts to do what the burglar wants him to do… The burglar can never argue “oh.. He showed me around the house, so I’m innocent”. But it’s always about the criminal: If he intentionally entered the house illegally. Never about what the victim did.
      So all that matter is: Did the Q Shaman illegally enter the Capitol? Yes! And did he know that he entered illegally? Yes, because everyone who isn’t a moron knows that you can’t enter the building in that way without passing through a security checkpoint (and although being a not so bright guy, he has himself admitted that he knew he entered illegally). Whatever the police ever did has no bearing on the matter. They are victims of the crime.
      But since the Trump cult are either anarchists or “not so reasonable persons” they can’t grasp these things. And whine when the courts don’t agree with their own ideas on how the laws should read. But the law doesn’t care about anarchists.

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    3. @Hakkebrakke I get your point, but this was a single event. Either way, the charges are still there and I believe he still has to be in a halfway house. Hope he fights to get this cleared.

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  6. “A hotshot junkman decides to go to the moon with his two young companions in a homemade rocket to recover millions of dollars worth of discarded space equipment in this lighthearted pilot to the series which began the following week as “Salvage 1,” with Griffith and his associates using the rocket for other weekly …” – the internet
    summary of the 1978 pilot for “Salvage 1”
    But not saying this to belittle what they are doing.
    Just saying, space salvaging and mining has been in sci-fi for a long time.
    Kind of reminds me of the Annunaki smashing planets together and mining for gold … but on a much smaller scale.

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  8. Whenever I hear this kind of news I get so excited. We are actually at yet another turning point for technological advancement in humanity.

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    2. “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 4:17

      “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Matthew 5:38-39

      “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” Matthew 6:5-6.

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    3. Its a dumb idea… Rare metals is not only rare on earth. The heat needed to create those metals comes from two sources, bigbang and starcollapses. So one must know where the asteroids are from and how old they are. And working on a asteroid that fly far away for years before it recirculating earth, means robots have to time shipments to earth when its here again.

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  9. If science would focus on the Rodin/Tesla coil we could do away with nuclear technologies all together.

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  13. This is what investment into space programs should be about. Good on him and hopefully it works out.

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    1. Its a dumb idea… Rare metals is not only rare on earth. The heat needed to create those metals comes from two sources, bigbang and starcollapses. So one must know where the asteroids are from and how old they are. And working on a asteroid that fly far away for years before it recirculating earth, means robots have to time shipments to earth when its here again.

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    2. Space (including asteroids) aren’t private or national property. It belongs to the international community. So one can’t just go and grab whatever. Just like in Antartica. As long as it’s more or less experiments, there’re no problems. But when it becomes commercial, no one can claim ownership. So just starting to mine on an asteroid that belongs to no one… or everyone… is theft. And if it happens, we’ll experience conflicts in Antarctica when minerals there will be up for grabs by the most ruthless.

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  16. Uhhhhhm, anyone else worried about companies mining asteroids irresponsibly and altering the trajectory of the asteroid and sending it hurtling toward Earth??? Or maybe mining its core mass so much that it alters its gravitational pull on nearby object–or, conversely, having larger objects around it having greater influence and sending it hurdling toward Earth??? In zero gravity, there is a much greater Butterfly Effect to consider and if these things aren’t studied extensively beforehand and closely monitored, it could be DISASTEROUS for us as a species! Cool technology and idea, but not without some BIG risks to consider!

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    1. It would be funny if we hit an alien civilization by redirecting a astronauts and cause a war or wipe them out go humans cosmically toxic 😂

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