James Cameron's space venture "Planetary Resources" - an asteroid mining company

[Vivek]

James Cameron Continues to Put His Money Where His Sci-Fi Mouth Is With Ambitious Space Venture | Movie News | Movies.com
If this ever becomes a reality I will probably be a bigger Cameron fan than I have been of his movies.

 

[SmilingOtter]

I'll be ecstatic to see private industry pick up NASA's considerable slack.

 

[aeonpulse]

Ok. As long as he doesn't bring back any suspicious embryos.

 

[SmilingOtter]

Or oppress the blue people living on the asteroids.

 

[Nataku]

Or oppress the blue people living on the asteroids.

It's inevitable. Enslaving the locals would be far cheaper than dealing with the interplanetary mining unions.

 

[Flagwaver]

Well, seeing as how the asteroids are, in theory, part of Earth (Sumerian cosmology), there should be a fairly decent amount of heavy metals in them.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

It's inevitable. Enslaving the locals would be far cheaper than dealing with the interplanetary mining unions.

Not when it's UNOBTANIUM! I hear that thing is hard to get.

 

[Jayn]

This is AWESOME! Saw a news bit this morning..

Spacevidcast ?? Making Space Commonplace » Spacevidcast Live Channel

Livestream of the announcement coming up.

 

[phase pistol]

Did somebody say INFOGRAPHIC?

No? :unsure

Here it is anyway...

How Asteroid Mining Could Work (Infographic) | Planetary Resources Asteroid Mining | Space.com

 

[Clutch]

enough precious metals to bankrupt everyone

 

[CessnaDriver]

enough precious metals to bankrupt everyone

Yeah but..

I am having a hard time seeing this as profitable.
Given the relative ease of doing it on earth compared to deep space for now. That is a massive leap of complication for going after things you can find on earth already.


I think they are too early for a working business model.
There are a lot of steps that have to come first I think before
mining asteroids becomes a viable business model that can compete with earth mining.

 

[Wes R]

You'd have to wait for the things to come really close to make it worthwhile, he'd be better off mining mars or the moon.

 

[CessnaDriver]

I suppose one could attempt to move a small asteroid to earth orbit and mine at your leisure returning small payloads over time.

But who would trust them to move something to a safe earth orbit that will not smack us?

Zero gravity mining? How much material can you get?

It's hard enough in earth gravity.

 

[Riceball]

I suppose one could attempt to move a small asteroid to earth orbit and mine at your leisure returning small payloads over time.

But who would trust them to move something to a safe earth orbit that will not smack us?

Zero gravity mining? How much material can you get?

It's hard enough in Earth gravity.

But in space and zero G you have some advantages over doing it on Earth. First, there will be far fewer, if any, environmental concerns when mining an asteroid so lots of short cuts that you wouldn't be allowed to use on Earth could be used on the asteroid.

The other issue, zero G, can be used to your advantage since in 0 G weight is not an issue so moving huge chunks of metal or rock becomes a lot easier since they no longer weigh the tons they would on Earth. The only issue would be overcoming its mass but once you have enough thrust to move you don't need any more to keep it moving, you just have to be able to steer and slow it down.

 

[Colin Droidmilk]

I hope this is a career change.

 

[CB2001]

Cameron should rename the company Benthic Planetary Resources, name the drilling spacecraft "The Rig" and get a bald-guy named Bud to run it. :lol

 

[EyeofSauron]

also, they should get bruce willis, just in case

 

[firesprite]

The corporate headquarters is in Bellevue so I'm looking at submitting a resume for one of the admin/support positions they're sure to have available.

 

[Java]

Planetary Resources – Careers

 

[firesprite]

Planetary Resources – Careers

Yup. I was looking at that earlier. I'm working on fun, pithy answers to those questions to draw attention to myself.