A new private company called Deep Space Industries
announced today that it intends to send a fleet of small spacecraft to
near-Earth asteroids with the aim of mining resources and turning them
into products using space-based 3-D printers. Last year was thick with audacious private spaceflight company unveilings, including the announcement from Planetary Resources, Inc. of their plans to mine relatively valuable platinum group metals
from asteroids. With the formation of Deep Space Industries, it seems
that 2013 could see a new crop of private space companies with lofty
goals.“We are about prospecting, exploring, harvesting, extracting, and manufacturing based on the resources of space,” said Rick Tumlinson, founder and chairman of DSI, during a press conference on Jan. 22. There exists potentially extremely valuable material on asteroids,
including nickel, silicon, platinum group metals such as platinum and
palladium, and water, which can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen
to make rocket fuel. DSI intends to create a fleet of prospecting
spacecraft called “FireFlies” (perhaps trying to rouse interest in their
plans from Joss Whedon acolytes) that will travel to asteroids in
Earth’s vicinity on journeys of two to six months. The spacecraft will
be built up from teams of small CubeSats — low-cost miniature satellites
— to form 25 kg (55 lbs) machines that can collect data about the best
asteroids to mine from. The company hopes to launch the first FireFly in
2015. A year later, DSI wants to launch larger spacecraft called
DragonFlies that can make a round-trip journey to an asteroid and bring
back samples. They estimate the trip will take two to four years and can
return as much as 70 kg (150 lbs) of asteroid material to Earth orbit.
DSI has patented technology they claim can extract precious metals from
raw asteroid material and build it into parts with a 3-D printer...more
We've all read how rules, regulations, restrictions and taxes are driving firms overseas...now they are driving them clear into outer space. Expect the UN to get involved pronto.
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
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