Space mining startup prepping to launch 'demo' refinery... this April

Cast your mind back to the year 2012 and you might stumble upon a very similar story, but this isn't a flashback: There's a new startup in town that wants to mine asteroids, and this one claims to be ahead of the game. AstroForge, which came onto the scene last May with the announcement of a successful $13 million seed round, …

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this work?

So, they put a mining "factory" type capability on an asteroid...that's expensive.

One assumes the power for this will come from solar panels? So, the asteroid has to be near-ish to the Sun.

And exactly where will the chosen asteroid be, in space? In a stable orbit in the asteroid belt (which is a long way from our star)? or whizzing through the solar system on some elliptical orbit bringing it close to Earth every few months/years?

I assume that ideally the asteroid will not be rotating too fast (so it can capture as much solar energy as possible and for stable communications with an Earth base).

But how exactly would the mined resources be returned to Earth? Hasn't Bruce WIllis retired now? Can Musks sports car make a return trip loaded with goodies?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: How does this work?

Pay no attention to the reality behind the PowerPoint

[jmch]

Re: How does this work?

Probably the largest costs of such an operation would be how to change orbits to (a) reach a mineable asteroid and (b) move the mined materials to a useful place.

However the description of how the refining works gives a small clue - If the material is heated to a plasma, has the useful bits separated out and re-solidified, that leaves a bunch of waste, possibly already in a vaporised or otherwise more manageable form (eg solifified into pellets), that can then be ejected out one end to push the refinery (or possibly the whole asteroid with refinery attached) the other way.

It still leaves the question of the energy required to vaporise the rock in the first place - will solar panels cut it?

[UCAP]

Re: How does this work?

... will solar panels cut it?

Only if you have a large enough area; the actual power generated by solar panels is not great (even with modern technology they are not very efficient in converting light into useful energy), and I suspect the power requirements for any commercially viable refinery device is probably going to be pretty high.

Maybe a nuclear reactor (not RTGs) might do the job, but launching one of those is going to raise all sorts of hackles.

[DJO]

Re: How does this work?

Seems a bit of a waste to convert sunlight to electricity then use that to make heat. Far simpler to have a bunch of mirrors and use the sunlight directly to heat the sample. Still pretty impractical though - hard to see how it could be profitable - if they succeed and bring back tonnes of rare earth metals it'll be hard to sell them without affecting the price which will reduce profitability

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: How does this work?

The end-game, which is still very much in speculative sci-fi land, is presumably to be able to refine materials to sufficient purity for them to be useful, and then to use those materials to produce goods in situ for other uses in space.

For example, the major cost of putting a kilo of gold into orbit isn't the gold, it's putting it into orbit. The same goes for any useful material that might be in an asteroid, such as platinum or iridium, or even just plain old iron/nickel. If you had a use for those materials in orbit, it might make sense to get them from an asteroid. Of course, you also need fuel to get to/from that asteroid, retrieve the materials, bring them into a useful orbit, etc. But arguably, that could be done with solar-powered ion thrusters, if you're not in a hurry, as long as you can find suitable materials for reaction mass up there in the big black.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: How does this work?

>to be able to refine materials to sufficient purity for them to be useful

Wasn't the whole point of doing this in space that the elements are already in their pure state unmolested by the processes of geology?

[Graham Dawson]

Re: How does this work?

For things like iron and nickel, yes. To a degree. The real point is that space has a functionally infinite supply, at least in the near term, and few environmental issues to get in the way of harvesting the materials. There are also potential, novel microgravity fabrication techniques to explore, as well as gaining the ability to construct much larger structures in space than we could ever hope to launch from the surface.

[hoola]

Re: How does this work?

The only reason there are no environmental issues is that in the current interpretation, we pretty much don't care what happens in space and the impact of filling it with OUR debris.

It is this mindset that has resulted in us destroying large swathes of Earth.

All for greed or to make things that are used for a bit then chucked out and buried in a hole.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: How does this work?

The elements might be "pure" as in not chemically reacted with stuff, but your average "space rock" tends to be a lump of lots of tiny grains that have come together. Individually, those grains might be pretty pure, but typically asteroids are conglomerates. Exceptions do apply, but those tend to mostly be lumps of iron/nickel, as iron is the limiting element for nuclear fusion in stars, so the element you get just before the thing goes bang. Heavier elements are created in supernovae themselves, and I think it would be wishful thinking to expect something made inside one of the universe's biggest explosions to come in nice neat pure lumps.

The biggest problem I see with the whole "space refinery" thing is scaling it up. Vapourising a few micrograms of material and separating it out in a vacuum chamber is a lot easier than doing that with even grams of material, let alone tonnes.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: How does this work?

"The end-game, which is still very much in speculative sci-fi land, is presumably to be able to refine materials to sufficient purity for them to be useful, and then to use those materials to produce goods in situ for other uses in space."

That may be the end result and with current tech the only viable option, but the stated aim in the article is "preserving Earth's declining resources" which strongly implies space mining for use on Earth. And to be fair, I think it might be a while before there's any actual manufacturing in space from raw materials.

[Spherical Cow]

Re: How does this work?

"For example, the major cost of putting a kilo of gold into orbit isn't the gold, it's putting it into orbit."

Surprisingly, no. Cost of 1kg gold is approx 60k USD while cost to orbit per kg with SpaceX ride-share is only approx 4k USD.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: How does this work?

"bring back tonnes of rare earth metals"

Yeah, "tonnes". I can't wait to the plans for landing that safely on Earth.

A bit of Googling tells me that a SpaceX Dragon capsule can bring 3 tonnes of payload back. Is that enough capacity or will they need to develop a stripped down "one shot" capsule for larger payloads?

[that one in the corner]

Re: How does this work?

It would be massive overkill to use something like a Dragon to land this material, especially given that the capsule would have to catch the payload and stow it before the landing (although that might be the sort of thing done for the first one or two returns, to give them a good chance of returning intact for analysis, excess costs being rolled into R&D).

Depending upon the materials being returned, they won't need the mollycoddling a Dragon capsule can provide - plenty of iron reaches lands as meteorites and is still extremely cold from space on the inside (ok, it had a looong time to cool, which this ore won't have). It will need some ablative material (don't want to waste the good stuff) and some braking/steering but still nothing terribly precise: long term, let piles of small payloads whack into the ground across a broad area of desert. Go out once a month with your tracking data to collect them. I'm thinking that actual landing velocity might be chosen based more on whether the landing assist package could be reused if treated carefully or whether it wasn't worth the effort!

By the time an actual return is ready to be tried, we will have had more practice at things like skipping across the atmosphere to reduce speed and fly with minimal control surfaces towards the landing zone. Maybe then something weirdly simple might be dreamt up and made to work for the rest of the braking & landing.

[Dave 126]

Re: How does this work?

The cost is high at the moment, but there are raw materials and energy. Once you have done the very hard engineering* to create and deploy one self replicating factory mine, you will eventually get many self replicating factory mines for no additional expenditure.

*Very hard engineering, but doesn't violate any laws of physics so is fair game. Biology shows that self replicating complex adaptive systems can and do exist and it's just that not yet clever enough to create them ourselves.

Grey goo and paper clips.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: How does this work?

"Maybe a nuclear reactor (not RTGs) might do the job, but launching one of those is going to raise all sorts of hackles."

In fact, NASA have dusted off a nuclear propulsion plan. If that turns out to be politically acceptable, I suspect it would not be a hard sell to get nuclear-powered mining operations going in space.

The bit that seems somewhat challenging to me is prospecting, but I guess over sufficiently long time periods it won't be big deal. I'm truly amazed to be witnessing the possible birth of real space industry; not saying I'd like to be a Belter (and in all likelihood most will be robots), but I am ready to admire those who eventually go for it.

[zuckzuckgo]

Re: How does this work?

If they could mine fuel for a nuclear reactor from an asteroid then the reactor itself could be launched without risk of atmospheric contamination and be refuelled without using earthly resources. Of course we have to first find an asteroid with a uranium deposit and figure out how to refine it. Details, details...

[zuckzuckgo]

Re: How does this work?

> they are not very efficient in converting light into useful energy

Efficiency of the solar panels is not so much key as the power to weight ratio. Given that the panels would provide continuous power they just have to produce more watts per kilogram then the nuclear option.

A thin solar fabric that was inflated like a solar sail could provide a very large surface area with a very low structural weight.

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: How does this work?

Look, can we not have mining vessels in space using reactors? I mean, we all know what happens when you scale this up and end up having a Cadmium II leak caused by bad welds from a maintenance engineer.

No good will come off this I tell you.

Mines the leather one with the Ace Rimmer fan club patch...

[EricB123]

Re: How does this work?

"Maybe a nuclear reactor (not RTGs) might do the job, but launching one of those is going to raise all sorts of hackles."

Maybe not for China?

[DJ]

Re: How does this work?

It doesn't.

Unless you mean getting a few people to be well-paid for a little while.

(Mine's the one with another bit of science fiction in the pocket.)

[ciaran]

Thanks for the update!

I was wondering what happened to the 2 space exploration companies that launched around the same time. Looks like they didn't last long.

I have high hopes for the space sector once SpaceX Starship becomes operation. I really, really hope they don't go bankrupt first!

I'm not sure its worth hoping that Europe gets its act together! Arianne was the leader until SpaceX ate its lunch.

Time to get those StarCops episodes out again...

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Thanks for the update!

"Time to get those StarCops episodes out again..."

...and the full cast audio drama sequels from Big Finish

(and yes, original actors playing Nathan, Devis and Kenzy :-))

[RegGuy1]

Re: Thanks for the update!

Arianne was the leader until SpaceX ate its lunch.

Well, they still don't seem too happy with the current launch environment: European launch chief insists there be no competition with Ariane rockets. I know Musk can be a dick, but he has already achieved something amazing. By demonstrating reusability and thereby reducing the cost of getting into orbit, he has done what the big boys always said wasn't possible. Now he's doing it regularly, with something like 200 F9 launches under his belt, and apart from a few early mishaps, he now offers a reliable service.

That has so pissed so many people off!

[Mike 137]

"Houston, the locust has landed"

Like all other living organisms, the human species is basically insatiable. They all go on consuming until there's not enough left to sustain it, then (if so capable) it moves on, or if not it dies out.

The human species is however apparently unique in the potential capacity to curb its consumption voluntarily based on forethought. Maybe it's time we started to exercise this capacity. If not, we'll go extinct sooner than expected, despite grasping for ever more remote (and thus more costly) resources.

[ChoHag]

Re: "Houston, the locust has landed"

> until there's not enough left

Space is very, very big.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "Houston, the locust has landed"

>Space is very, very big.

And getting bigger

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Space is very, very big.

Nah, I don't believe you. But it is a long way down the road to the shops.

.

:-)

[LybsterRoy]

Re: "Houston, the locust has landed"

-- Space is very, very big. --

Correct but there is a big BUT - we can't run or fly fast enough to get there :(

[Potemkine!]

Re: "Houston, the locust has landed"

The Asteroid belt is not that far, and there are plenty of asteroids wandering nearer.

The question is more how Earthers will treat Belters.

[Eclectic Man]

I thought this was about 2023 BU

"Asteroid 2023 BU about to pass Earth in one of closest ever encounters"

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jan/26/asteroid-2023-bu-about-to-pass-earth-in-one-of-closest-ever-encounters

I suppose that they have no chance of mining that 'bus-sized' lump of asteroid.

By 'bus-sized' do they mean British 'Double decker', London 'bendy' bus or something else? What is the Register collective's formal definition of the size of a bus (in Blue Whales, please).

[Vulch]

Re: I thought this was about 2023 BU

I believe the standard is as described by Messrs Flanders and Swann.

[Snake]

Re: I thought this was about 2023 BU

Why, oh why, did my mind automatically recall Don't Look Up?

o_O

[NapTime ForTruth]

Misunderstanding, Technical Error

The success of this startup only seems unlikely because of some confusing language used. It's probably inadvertent, no worse than a typo, really.

When they say "asteroid" mining, they mean to say "investor bank accounts" mining. With that correction, the entire scheme becomes an obvious success.

Surprised the Regeditors didn't catch that, but I'm happy to have helped!

[HausWolf]

Wasn't Alien about a mining ship returning to Earth?

[UCAP]

Not quite - the Nostromo was towing an automated refinery that was processing (if my memory serves me correctly) something like a million tonnes of crude oil while en route to Earth.

[John Brown (no body)]

That kinda "dates" the story a bit. The greens wouldn't stand for importing even more oil from off planet. We're currently trying to burn less, not only because there may be less of it, but because of the results of burning it :-)

[DS999]

Not to worry

Predators already hunted all the xenomorphs living in the asteroid belt to extinction. That's why they came to Earth and started hunting us.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Not to worry

> That's why they came to Earth and started hunting us.

That's OK - we've got plenty of spare politicians to feed them..