Comments on: Asteroids mined for fuel to generate trillion dollar market, says firm

By: cocoajoe

cocoajoe — Thu, 16 Apr 2015 05:37:23 +0000

yes i agree with you completly.The real hurdle is the evil,money grabing non tax paying corporations!

By: Love Your Planet

Love Your Planet — Fri, 05 Sep 2014 11:13:50 +0000

Stop wasting time money effort and brains on Space – get our Planet Earth back in good health first with controlled fish stocks, clean regular water supplies for all and a living, breathing atmosphere that we can all survive and thrive in. This talk of using more fossil fuels is just bananas. Wake up to the reality of what is going on around you on this Planet.

By: Mike Failla

Mike Failla — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 11:59:14 +0000

What is needed is support from industry and a commitment to do it without the government meddling which will doom those projects to failure.
Dreams can and sometimes do become reality in some cases.Civilization advance a step at a time. There is a place for dreamers but they need to have doers also to make it happen.

By: Steve Treloar

Steve Treloar — Sun, 15 Jun 2014 14:05:12 +0000

It’s a nice idea and all and the CEO’s statement that the fuels (hydrogen and water) manufactured are needed right now for geostationary satellites and our low earth orbit activities. I feel someone should break it to him that they use hypergolic fuels like hydrazine/nitric acid for thrusters and station keeping/maneuvering on these satellites not cryogenic fuels like hydrogen and oxygen that really are not suited to this purpose at all. Cryogenic fuels would be insanely problematic for his primary market as to make it all but impractical. How will he deal with fuel boil off if even every other obstacle can be dealt with without doubling the size of the satellite?

By: advanceddeepspacepropeller

advanceddeepspacepropeller — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 10:26:25 +0000

sure this will work, it won t be easy but it will work! 🙂
check out the book: Asteroids -Prospective Energy and Material Resources, 2013 by v. badescu et al.

By: rooniware

rooniware — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:48:01 +0000

Maybe Bruce Willis can help.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:03:24 +0000

The legal framework is a non-issue. Whoever mines it will own it…

By: Dlweld

Dlweld — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:04:36 +0000

re the crawler illustration: Yeah, hard to get away from how we expect things to behave. Like the moon landing deniers picking on the point that no lunar dust, disturbed by the rocket exhaust of the lander, appeared to settle on the top of the landing feet – duh! The dust was blown away at exhaust velocity 12,000 feet per second or so and would’ve landed miles away – if not an attempt at orbit.

By: GinaHaspellsStrongMoralCompass

GinaHaspellsStrongMoralCompass — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:08:54 +0000

The only real use for mass-extraction of water from asteroids is for manned expeditions. But the more water you add for shielding, the bigger the engines must be and the greater the fuel consumption. So the more water (hydrogen and oxygen) craft must carry. You can see where this is going. And how are you going to break down that water (for propellant use) without the energy density of sunlight needed, especially out beyond Mars?

The thing is hopeless.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:56:00 +0000

Keep on dreamin’!

By: cdevboy

cdevboy — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 01:40:37 +0000

I totally agree with most of the logic but i wonder about the deep space support. At this time all of our deep space exploration is based on one off, large , complex, and fragile probes. To reach orbit and then dock at a fueling station to fuel tanks will require extraordinary measures to ensure the probe is not contaminated in any way that could foul cameras etc. Many issues for these probes will have to be addressed. I feel strongly about all other uses for the fuel and oxygen.

By: Dlweld

Dlweld — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 16:02:40 +0000

An odd picture of big-tyred crawlers on the asteroid’s surface – if those things were there as pictured one bump would send them into orbit (for a 2 km radius asteroid a fast walking speed is orbital velocity) – with the low gravity existing on a space rock the crawlers would weigh 10 pounds or so (ie push down force) but with a mass of several tons – a real one would have to be wired down.

By: RickY

RickY — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 15:34:52 +0000

So, it will be lawyers who decide whether we will be able to explore farther into space? In the colonoal days it was the drive for wealth and power that pushed exploration of the globe. If there was the lawers back then that we have now Christopher Columbus probablly would not have gotten a permit to sail to the Americas

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 14:38:02 +0000

Not only fuel, but also drinking water, oxygen for life-support, naturally occurring stainless steel… the challenge is largely an engineering one at this point. While it is true that we currently lack a legal framework for the development of space resources, it didn’t stop the Europeans from settling the Americas… I have a feeling the lack of legal frameworks will not be such a hurdle.