Conference 7.286::space

    The preceeding is, in my opinion very interesting and points the way to
    big time space activity.
    
    Reduce the launch cost to something acceptable, like $10/pound, and you
    will get all the space exploration you want.  If a mineral company like
    say Kennicot Mining, could get a hold of this asteroid, they could make
    huge profits.  Profits will open up space, not things like the space
    station.
    
    FWIW, funding for the space station was restored yesterday.
    
    Tony

    ...or crash the commodities market with the prospect of an over-supply
    of metals, precious or otherwise.  Think of all of the out-of-work
    miners that would be created in Pennsylvania alone.  The picture is not
    as simple as the one commonly painted.

  If it's a filling for a tooth, I hope we never meet the guy who lost it.


  George

>    ...or crash the commodities market with the prospect of an over-supply
>    of metals, precious or otherwise.  Think of all of the out-of-work
>    miners that would be created in Pennsylvania alone.  The picture is not
>    as simple as the one commonly painted.

But, crashing the price of commodities is what technology is supposed to do. 
300 years of the industrial revolution should be enough to tell us that
crashing comodities markets is goodness!  

If you have people who are out of work because technology has replaced their
jobs, but the economy is just as productive and commodities are cheaper, this
is the best possible scenario.  Sure it is bad for those directly effected, but
it is easy enough to develop a plan that ameloreates the problem and everybody
can still win.  Think of the economics of growth and productivity, not the
economics of "protect what I got".  Move to the future or be left behind.

Tony

    Shades of ``The Man Who Sold the Moon'', by Robert A. Heinlein.
        John Sauter

Just when I was beginning to wonder if we really did have any
business out there, this comes along.

We've discussed before the need for motivation to explore space,
in the form of monetary reward.  Since there isn't any fur out
there (so far anyway), it looks like the miners will lead the way
this time.  I'd venture that as time goes on commercial interests
will be fairly slobbering over the opportunity to exploit this
lode, large enough that any imaginable obstacle or hardship is
worth overcomming to reach it.  

Of course, the other side of the coin is that any territory
opened up in this manner has a history of being raped in the
process.  Once again, there will be a hell-bent tearing up of the
path to the riches.

Can someone put the distance of 20 million miles into
perspective? 

    20 million miles in perspective?  Try 83 times the distance to the
    moon, and that's only at it's closest.  Miners would need to hop on at
    that point, mine the heck out of it until next closest approach, and
    delivery the booty.  Anybody know the periodicity of this closest
    approach?  Would you care to venture a guess at the expense UNDER
    CURRENT TECHNOLOGY to carry consumables for that period of time along
    with them?  Keep in mind that a lot of work still needs to be done on
    the "salad machine", and that the ability to build a permanent one has
    never been demonstrated.  Space will be opened up when people start to
    get realistic about the challenge.

Article        31930
From: [email protected] (Richard Akerman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Astro-Nugget worth $$$ trillions
Date: 9 Jun 91 21:57:12 GMT
Organization: Physics Department, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Can.
 
In article <[email protected]>
[email protected] (mike santangelo (UNIX/VMS Sys Staff)) writes: 

>From the Washington Post, June 7, 1991 (y114#184), p. A11:
>
>                 Nearby Asteroid Worth a Trillion
>
>     "  An astronimical El Dorado containing some 10,000 tons of
>      gold and 100,000 tons of platinum has been found orbiting
>      the sun tantalizingly close to Earth, according to a report
>      in today's issue of Science.
>        Asteroid 1986 DA, as the solid metal ''near-Earth-object'' is
>      known is 1.2 miles wide and shaped roughly like a canned ham.
 
I just thought I would clear up one minor detail with the post.  When
asteroids are discovered they are given provisional numbers in the
form of the year of discovery followed by two letters indicating the
half-month and order of discovery.  Asteroid 1986 DA was, therefore,
discovered in 1986, in the second half of February.  The fact that
asteroids contain vast amounts of valuable metals has also been known
for some time, see:
 
Drexler, K.E.  (1987).  _Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology_
	(New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday), pp. 88-89, 123, 257.
Lewis, J.S. & R.A. Lewis  (1987).  _Space Resources_.  (New York: Columbia
	University Press).
O'Leary, B.  (1977).  Mining the Apollo and Amor asteroids.  _Science_ 197,
	363-366.
 
Although I haven't seen the recent report in _Science_, I would suspect it
just reports new spectrophotometric readings.
 
Richard Akerman
Incompetent Physics Graduate Student
Currently Under the Weather
 

    	See SPACE Topic 403 for a discussion on planetoid mining.
    

    With current technology, its obviously not economical. To mine an
    asteroid such as this one. But technology gets better and cheaper, 
    thus a time will come when it will be economic and it will be done...
    
    Although I suspect, gold will not be among the first materials
    to become economical.   Lots of things are more expensive then
    gold in space, for example water.
    
    Gil

    re .7
    
    20 million miles is further than the moon, you said 83 times, I accept
    that.  From an energy standpoint tho, it it virtually the same distance
    as the moon.  Also, it is far nearer than Mars.  If I remember
    correctly, Mars is on the order of 60 million miles at closest
    approach.
    
    Also, your assumption that miners would hop on the asteroid, then mine
    it until the next closest approach is unnecessarily conservative.  When
    we have the technology to reach the asteroid we should be able to move
    it.  With its apparent nearness to the sun, a solar powered mass driver
    would be interesting.  It should be able to move it to a LaGrange orbit
    in several years, depending on orbital mechanics, etc. with the loss of
    only 15 or so %.  You could even process it first to extract the gold
    and platinum (and other valuable ores) and just use iron as the
    propellent.  Once in Lagrange orbit, moving the product to earth should
    be possible year round.  
    
    Don't get me wrong, the infrastructure investment is enormous, but the
    technology is mostly there.  I think it will be almost 100% there when
    the aerosopace plane is proven, that should reduce earth to orbit costs
    to an acceptable level, say $10/lb.
    
    Tony

It's true that in space, distance does not count much (although it implies time).
Thus, if the asteroid were orbiting the earth at 20 million miles, it would
not be that much different from the moon.  However, what DOES count is delta-v,
the difference in velocity between where you are going and where you are coming
from.  As you go out from the earth, the earth-orbital speed decreases quickly
at first and then more and more slowly.  Thus my previous statement.

However, the Apollo asteroids orbit THE SUN.  If they stayed close to the
earth all the time, they would have to have similar velocities.  However,
since they only approach once in a while, that implies they have more highly
elliptical orbits around the sun than the earth does, and thus that they have
a much different velocity than the earth does as the same distance from the sun.

Thus, I conclude (tentatively given the meager data available) that the delta
V for reaching an Apollo asteroid could be a lot more than for reaching the
moon.

Of course a trillion dollars would buy a lot of rocket fuel and engineering...

Burns

    The comment in .12 that a trillion dollars (is that $1,000,000,000,000
    in the American number convention?) would buy a lot of rocket fuel and
    engineering set me wondering.
    
    Even if the cost of getting all this raw material was more than a
    trillion dollars, would it not be worth planning to get it as soon as
    possible, and treat the pay-off as being simply a partial one? In other
    words, aim to break even, or perhaps slightly lose on the deal. That
    way, the research and development done to achieve the aim of the
    project would cost less to the nation (world?) than if it were done for
    pure research purposes.
    
    Of course, it would have to be near to break-even point, otherwise the
    project would still be too expensive.
    
    It could be taken as an opportunity to develop new technologies for
    propulsion within the Solar System, for example.
    
    
    Dave Hazel

    ...not to mention the lack of environmental damage from mining the same
    amount of metals here on Earth.  But that cost has hardly ever been
    factored into the overall cost of production.  Imagine the price of
    gasoline and home heating oil if it were!

Article        14246
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: sci.astro,sci.space
Subject: Platinum-group metal concentrations in Earth-crossing objects
Date: 12 Jun 91 07:34:15 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (News on Muncher)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
 
In article <[email protected]>
[email protected] (Hal Chambers) writes: 
 
>... the asteroid is no more than 0.001% platinum and 0.0001% gold.
>How does this compare with terrestrial ores?...
 
The gold concentration is very poor -- its distribution in the
metal is fairly homogenous, from the limited meteorite studies 
we have done to date.  Unless we find concentrated ores or the space 
environment gives us a _very_ large advantage in processing the 
metal, we won't be able to efficiently get gold from this source.
 
10 ppm platinum is a pretty good ore, about matching the highest 
concentrations found on Earth.  From the very crude media numbers, 
this particular asteroid doesn't look very good, as asteroid metal
goes.
 
The best data we have come from the asteroid samples fallen to Earth,
meteorites, many of which contain metal or metal grains from core 
material.  The best platinum-group concentrations have been
found in the metal grains of LL-type chondrites, as follows:
 
Platinum	21 ppm
Ruthenium	12 
Osmium		10
Iridium		10	
Rhenium		1.0
 
As an aside, they also contain 1-15 ppm gallium, 200 ppm germanium, and 
1.2 ppm arsenic.   Space Industries Inc. is currently working on a 
wake shield to produce large volumes of very high vacuum, which can 
be used with microgravity to create GaAs and other semiconductors 
with much greater purity than in Earthside semiconductor fabs.  
GaAs is used for expensive, high-speed chips, for example in the
latest Cray supercomputer.  Asteroids could provide the raw materials 
to produce very large quantities of these semiconductors, instead
of launching them from Earth at $5,000/kg.
 
Back to platinum: we have a total of 55 ppm platinum group, about 5 
times better than the best Earth ore.  This still wouldn't be that 
good, given the high costs of launching mining equipment, except 
that there exists a process which, taking advantage of the large 
amounts of solar-thermal power available in space, could make 
extracting the platinum economical.
 
First, we should find grains with the above concentrations or better
in a high-metal regolith (a task for space exploration).  We
extract the metal grains with a magnetic rake.  Next, we process
the metal regolith with the gaseous carbonyl process, as follows:
 
First phase: 
 
Treat the regolith with CO at c. 5 atm pressure, 100 degrees 
C.  This forms a vapor of gaseous carbonyl compounds. 
Nickel and iron are selectively deposited in pure metallic form
by lowering the pressure and/or increasing the temperature.  
The CO is released and recycled. The residue has a Pt-group 
concentration of 5,000 ppm, and Ga/Ge/As at 15,000 to 20,000 ppm.
 
Second phase: 
 
Treat the residue with moist CO at 100 atm near 100 degrees C.
This deposits out cobalt.  What is left is largely Pt group
and Ga/Ge/As, and is worth $20,000 per kg at today's prices.
The water and CO are again recycled.
 
This technique, called the gaseous carbonyl process, is currently
used at the Sudbury mine in Ontario, primarily to extract the nickel,
and secondarily to extract the c. 5 ppm platinum.  By some accounts
the Sudbury ore is actually the remains of an impacted asteroid, 
but I won't get into _that_ broohaha.  :-)
 
If we want to get the pure elements additional processing is required.
 
The method of depositing the nickel and iron can itself be put to use.
 For example, using a technique of chemical vapor deposition (CVD)
developed by Vaporform Products Inc., the nickel can be doped with 100
ppm of a boron compound and deposited in molds to obtain nickel parts
with strengths of 200,000 psi (13,000 kg/cm^2).  Laser CVD can be used
to deposit wire-reinforced mirrors a few micrometers thick, which is
strong enough to be used for very large mirrors in microgravity. 
Various forms of vacuum deposition and creation of new alloys and
foamed metal in microgravity are possible.  We have only begun to
scratch the surface in researching the possibilities. 
 
According to a previous post, annual world production of the
platinum group is 8.668 million troy ounces, which at $400/oz. is 
$3.4 billion. 
 
It is difficult to predict the effects of flooding a market. Generally
(not always) demand volume rises by a greater factor than prices fall,
so that we can, with some risk, assume at least a $3.4 billion/year
revenue stream from the platinum group elements. Given the demand for
Pt-group metals in a wide variety of industries, including oil
refining and the rapidly growing industry of environmental cleanup
technology, IMHO this is a reasonably safe assumption.  Assuming
operating costs of $1.7 billion/year, the net present value (NPV) of
this cash flow at the junk-bond rate of 18% is $10 billion. 
Additional capabilities (GaAs, solar cells, microgravity alloys, etc.)
could provide additional revenue.  Of course, part of the _first_
$million invested should go towards a much more detailed market
analysis this one. 
 
Which brings us to the billion dollar question: how soon will we have
sufficient knowledge (through exploration) and technology (through 
research and prototyping) to be able to undertake this projects for
less than $10 billion?
  
References:
 
_Space Resources: Breaking the Bonds of Earth_, John and Gail Lewis
_Asteroids II_, Tom Gerhels, ed. 

-- 
Nick Szabo				[email protected]
"If you understand something the first time you see it, you probably
knew it already.  The more bewildered you are, the more successful
the mission was." -- Ed Stone, Voyager space explorer

    
Article        32015
From: [email protected] (Richard Akerman)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Astro-Nugget worth $$$ trillions
Date: 11 Jun 91 20:34:24 GMT
Organization: Physics Department, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Can.
 
In article <[email protected]>
[email protected] (mike santangelo (UNIX/VMS Sys Staff)) writes: 

>From the Washington Post, June 7, 1991 (y114#184), p. A11:
>
>                 Nearby Asteroid Worth a Trillion
>
>     "  An astronimical El Dorado containing some 10,000 tons of
>      gold and 100,000 tons of platinum has been found orbiting
>      the sun tantalizingly close to Earth, according to a report
>      in today's issue of Science.
>        Asteroid 1986 DA, as the solid metal ''near-Earth-object'' is
>      known is 1.2 miles wide and shaped roughly like a canned ham.
 
I just thought I would clear up one minor detail with the post.  When
asteroids are discovered they are given provisional numbers in the
form of the year of discovery followed by two letters indicating the
half-month and order of discovery.  Asteroid 1986 DA was, therefore,
discovered in 1986, in the second half of February. 

The fact that asteroids contain vast amounts of valuable metals has
also been known for some time, see:
 
Drexler, K.E.  (1987).  _Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology_
	(New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday), pp. 88-89, 123, 257.
Lewis, J.S. & R.A. Lewis  (1987).  _Space Resources_.  (New York: Columbia
	University Press).
O'Leary, B.  (1977).  Mining the Apollo and Amor asteroids.  _Science_ 197,
	363-366.
 
I would speculate that the recent report in _Science_, which I haven't yet 
seen, contains new spectrophotmetric measurements.  
 
On a slightly related note, a letter in the May/June 1991 _Planetary Report_
(Vol. XI, #3, p. 3) indicates that Asteroid 1989 ML is easier to reach
(energetically speaking) than the previously favour 1982 DB, which I believe
was energetically easier to reach than Earth's Moon.
 
Richard Akerman
Incompetent Physics Graduate Student
Currently Under the Weather
                                              

    re .13 and .14
    
    Let me be the first to state that I strongly believe that we should do
    something with this asteroid.
    
    That said, the first step is to reduce earth lanuch costs.  This is the
    strongest positive influence on viability.  Right now we are talking
    more than $1000/lb, this numjber must be reduced by at least a factor
    of 10, if not 100, to make any space effort profitable.  I believe
    reducing launch costs should be the #1 proirity of the American space
    program, yes that's right, it should take a back seat to the space
    station and launching that beast the shuttle.  I firmly believe that
    our best bet on getting into space would be to make the shuttle
    obsolete.
    
    Then, I have some major problems with .15.  I don't doubt for one
    minute that the process proposed is viable, but the author ignores two
    of the primary advantages of the space environment when he proposes his
    reaction mechanisms, free energy and vacuum.  With free, high power
    solar energy, you can achieve any arbitrary temperature, vacuum will
    allow for efficient distillation or deposition.  I can readily imagine
    a solar furnace heating a chunk of metal that is vaporized and then
    passed to a tube on the darkside where heat is radiated away and
    selective deposition occurs, as the gas mixture cools.
    
    Tony

    
    	Earlier a noter asked about the orbit of asteroid 1986 DA. I just
    received the June 7, 1991 issue of "Science" and it has a six page
    research article on the radar studies of this particular asteroid. The
    orbital elements are as follows:
    
    Epoch: 1986 Mar. 31.0 TDT (JD 2446520.5)
    
    Semimajor axis: 2.81164 AU
    Eccentricity: 0.58538
    Inclination: 4.2958 degrees
    Longitude of ascending node: 64.5355 degrees
    Argument of perihelion: 126.7040 degrees
    Mean anomaly: 358.4117 degrees
    Mean motion: 0.2085 degrees per day
    Period: 4.728 years
    
    
    	In lay terms this means that the orbit of this asteroid ranges from
    108,370,000 miles (1.1658 AU) to  414,370,000 miles (4.4575 AU) from
    the sun over the course of 4.728 years. The average time between
    "closest" approaches with the Earth would be about every 15 months.
    Because of the elliptical orbit, this will vary from about 13 to 17
    months and "closest" approaches will vary from about 20 to 337 million
    miles. Especially close (but not necessarily most favorable from a
    total energy perspective) passes would occur about every 5 years. The
    next close approach can be expected in early 1996.
    	It should also be noted that this asteroid is within 1% of a 5:2
    resonance with Jupiter and that its orbit is chaoticly unstable on time
    scales of 10,000 to 100,000 years. If we don't do something with it
    "soon", it will probably be ejected from the solar system anyway.
    
    
    					Drew

    
    I hate to damp people's  enthusiasm, but gold is not very valuable
    compared to the cost of space hardware and launch costs.
    Gold is about $370 / oz or $ 12 million / metric ton.
    The heaviest space shuttle payload ever, the Gamma Ray Observatory
    was 17 tons, and the hardware cost was $ 617 million, according
    to one of the reports in this notesfile.  17 tons of gold is 
    only worth $204 million, so GRO is 3x the value of gold.
    Similarly, HST is $1.5 billion / 12 tons, or 10x the value of gold.
    The space shuttle itself is close to 1x the value of gold.
    $1.9 billion / approx 100 tons.
    The B2 bomber was widely reported to be worth.. oops, I mean cost
    more than its weight in gold.
    
    The cost of the launch can be added to these figures.
    
    Also we are talking about low earth orbit, here.  Deep space costs
    a bit more to get to.
    
    I can't believe it would ever be cost effective to send miners to
    the asteroid to send gold or platinum back to earth.  Or to send
    enough fuel and engines there to move it to an orbit which would
    crash it into the earth.  Talk about environmental disruption...
    
    So how about using it to build spacecraft ?  Its already up there,
    after all.  Well, gold or platinum or even iron are not the most
    useful materials to build spaceships out of.
    
    I like aluminum a lot better.  Or magnesium.  The moon is made up
    of rocks, many of which are largely aluminum.  Its a lot easier
    to get to than this asteroid.  Lets mine the moon !  Refine aluminum
    oxide into aluminum and something else that is useful for space travel.
    
    Adrian Hlynka
    

    You want to go twenty million miles to mine gold at 1 part per
    million?   It's got to be easier to get it out of seawater.  /jlr