ASTROFORGE is the most recent company to (starting from scratch as several others have already attempted…and dropped to the wayside…) to make claims to bring down the riches of the asteroids.
You’ll find two links to their website below, but for now, emblazoned across their Homepage, you’ll see “At AstroForge, our mission is to make space resources accessible on Earth. We mine asteroids to extract valuable minerals in space at a lower cost and smaller carbon footprint than the current terrestrial mining methods.”
I absolutely respect optimism, and the magnitude of the attempt to reach space NOT for show or to “beat the…” isn't viable anymore. AstroForge's plan is practical and they have a business model.
If you think about it and are reading this in North America, it was the almighty peso/franc/escuedo/ringsdaler/lire/pound that drove the European invasion of this continent. (And lest everyone forget – as they apparently have – those first invaders weren’t AMERICANS. The Norse, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch (I’m sure no one has ever heard of the Dutch East India Company, eh?) Denmark-Norway, British, and Italian all landed original “exploratory sorties” here with exactly ONE intent: to make money. Why?
The Turkish Empire had blocked Europe from making money East of them, so they turned West.
As there are no more continents on Earth [and we’re mostly afraid of the water (which is, actually kinda weird as 76% of the planet is water…I actually had a few things to say about that subject, if you’re interested: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2018/03/slice-of-pie-exploring-solar-system.html], we’re looking “up”.
The Moon seems sorta doable; certainly we have our sights on Mars, but I honestly can’t see how that one is going to work out in the long term unless we redesign Humanity (not such a big deal for the Moon as by the time we have real cities there, it’ll be like commuting to Seoul from Minneapolis (13 hours, 45 minutes in case you were wondering)), but long-term occupation of Mars means things will have to REALLY change for the Humanity who lives there.
The Moon and Mars seem to me to be pipe dreams – in particular, there’s no real economic driver for colonizing them.
The asteroids are QUITE different. Typically, proponents of asteroid mining bandy about numbers that would return MILLIONS on the dollar invested and the saleable minerals and metals on some asteroids are enthusiastically estimated at TRILLIONS of dollars. Conceivably, the return (they don’t care about “exploration” except when it has the word “metal” in front of it) would be enough to make truly powerful people out of a very few – in the process making Arnault, Musk, Bezos, Ellison, Buffet, Gates, et al look like paupers in comparison.
HOW can AstroForge do this when so many others before them dreamed and drowned? Their tagline certainly sounds impressive – until you realize that they’ve DONE NOTHING YET; they have no spacecraft, they’ve never landed on an asteroid, let alone drilled into the surface of one. Don’t even get me started on the fact that they’ve no returned a speck of asteroid dust to Earth. Yet, they claim “We mine asteroids to extract valuable minerals in space at a lower cost and smaller carbon footprint than the current terrestrial mining methods.” It makes it sound as if it’s a done deal…
I suppose you could say it’s bold; I’d venture a different word like, say, fatuous…(the mildest synonym I’d go along with is “wild-eyed optimism”). As evidence, I offer this quote from the most recent article on their website: “The first launch, scheduled for April 2023, will test AstroForge’s technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, will scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine."
“The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon dioxide emissions that stem from mining rare Earth elements on our own planet, Chief Executive Officer Matthew Gialich said in an interview.”
An April 13, 2023 article on Mining.com states: “The first launch, scheduled for April 2023, will test AstroForge's technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, will scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine.
"The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon dioxide emissions that stem from mining rare Earth elements on our own planet, Chief Executive Officer Matthew Gialich said in an interview.” (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-24/asteroid-mining-startup-astroforge-plans-first-platinum-refining-space-missions?leadSource=uverify%20wall)
That was Friday, April 14, 2023 (two and a half weeks ago as I write this…).
The Moon and Mars seem to me to be pipe dreams – in particular, there’s no real economic driver for colonizing them.
The asteroids are QUITE different. Typically, proponents of asteroid mining bandy about numbers that would return MILLIONS on the dollar invested and the saleable minerals and metals on some asteroids are enthusiastically estimated at TRILLIONS of dollars. Conceivably, the return (they don’t care about “exploration” except when it has the word “metal” in front of it) would be enough to make truly powerful people out of a very few – in the process making Arnault, Musk, Bezos, Ellison, Buffet, Gates, et al look like paupers in comparison.
HOW can AstroForge do this when so many others before them dreamed and drowned? Their tagline certainly sounds impressive – until you realize that they’ve DONE NOTHING YET; they have no spacecraft, they’ve never landed on an asteroid, let alone drilled into the surface of one. Don’t even get me started on the fact that they’ve no returned a speck of asteroid dust to Earth. Yet, they claim “We mine asteroids to extract valuable minerals in space at a lower cost and smaller carbon footprint than the current terrestrial mining methods.” It makes it sound as if it’s a done deal…
I suppose you could say it’s bold; I’d venture a different word like, say, fatuous…(the mildest synonym I’d go along with is “wild-eyed optimism”). As evidence, I offer this quote from the most recent article on their website: “The first launch, scheduled for April 2023, will test AstroForge’s technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, will scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine."
“The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon dioxide emissions that stem from mining rare Earth elements on our own planet, Chief Executive Officer Matthew Gialich said in an interview.”
An April 13, 2023 article on Mining.com states: “The first launch, scheduled for April 2023, will test AstroForge's technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, will scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine.
"The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon dioxide emissions that stem from mining rare Earth elements on our own planet, Chief Executive Officer Matthew Gialich said in an interview.” (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-24/asteroid-mining-startup-astroforge-plans-first-platinum-refining-space-missions?leadSource=uverify%20wall)
That was Friday, April 14, 2023 (two and a half weeks ago as I write this…).
Did it happen? Hmmm?
IT DID!!! “The spacecraft will be operated by a variety of customers. The main payload, for example, is the Imece Earth-observation satellite, which was provided by the Turkish government. Another three belong to Canadian company GHGSat, which detects greenhouse gas emissions from space. And another satellite, called Brokkr-1, will be operated by AstroForge, a California-based startup that aims to mine asteroids. ‘During this mission, we will demonstrate our refinery capabilities with the goal of validating our technology and performing extractions in zero gravity,’ AstroForge wrote in a January blog post. ‘The spacecraft will launch pre-loaded with an asteroid-like material that the refinery payload will vaporize and sort into its elemental components.’”
The AstroForge website didn’t have an update, and while it seems to be the mission was small potatoes, these people GOT FARTHER THAN ANY OTHER ASTEROID MINING COMPANY THUS FAR!!!
Maybe, folks, this is IT. I can only HOPE from today onward!
IT DID!!! “The spacecraft will be operated by a variety of customers. The main payload, for example, is the Imece Earth-observation satellite, which was provided by the Turkish government. Another three belong to Canadian company GHGSat, which detects greenhouse gas emissions from space. And another satellite, called Brokkr-1, will be operated by AstroForge, a California-based startup that aims to mine asteroids. ‘During this mission, we will demonstrate our refinery capabilities with the goal of validating our technology and performing extractions in zero gravity,’ AstroForge wrote in a January blog post. ‘The spacecraft will launch pre-loaded with an asteroid-like material that the refinery payload will vaporize and sort into its elemental components.’”
The AstroForge website didn’t have an update, and while it seems to be the mission was small potatoes, these people GOT FARTHER THAN ANY OTHER ASTEROID MINING COMPANY THUS FAR!!!
Maybe, folks, this is IT. I can only HOPE from today onward!
New Sources: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/astroforge, https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/startups-are-still-keen-mine-space-rocks-rcna68256, https://www.astroforge.io/
Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg
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