Last year, we took an in-depth look at Planetary Resources' asteroid mining plans. Now the Washington-based company has revealed a full-scale prototype of its Arkyd-100 Low Earth Orbit spacecraft that will search for promising mining candidates. Planetary Resources President and "Chief Asteroid Miner" Chris Lewicki has provided a tour of the 11 kilogram (24.2 lb) spacecraft's features and outlined the company's immediate goals.
The Arkyd-100 is the first in a series of different spacecraft that Planetary Resources is developing for asteroid mining. In this case, it's a space telescope and technology demonstrator that will soon be employed for prospecting missions looking for likely mining candidates among near-Earth asteroids while also providing commercial Earth imaging and educational space telescope services.
The propulsion-less Arkyd-100 is small, with a fold-up telescope tube, deployable solar arrays, an integrated avionics bay, and instrument and sensor package at the back of large optical assembly that takes up most of the craft's volume. There's also innovative software that Lewicki assures "is there," though it can't be seen.
The optics operate over a wide range of wavelengths and intensity levels and, though its primary use is for prospecting, it also serves as a means of deep-space communications using lasers. This is important because the spacecraft that Planetary Resources is developing are too small for conventional radio-based deep-space communications systems. Far from an afterthought, Lewicki pointed out that the company is under contract to NASA to develop such a laser-based communications system.
Billed by the company as the "most advanced spacecraft per kilogram that exists today," the Arkyd-100 was designed and built using in-house resources as much as possible. The company is currently developing other spacecraft for its asteroid mining plans and Lewicki says that the team is learning more about how to cut the costs of the assembly, integration and testing as they move toward mass production. The company is also developing computer-controlled machining to create single-piece parts for major structural elements of the Arkyd-100 series. The ultimate goal is to require only a few staff to deliver finished spacecraft in a very short time.
Planetary Resources sees the first launch of several Arkyd-100s in 2014 or 2015.
Source: Planetary Resources
When they have technology in place, the greed will change the law.
The same principle applies for the surveillance technology and privacy.
I'm of the opinion that space needs to be divided up not between nations, but between individuals and corporations who are going to use the given resources in an area, whether for habitation or resources.
Mining asteroids is one thing, but the same technologies will also make it possible to turn smaller asteroids into habitats. While there will be a movement toward planetary colonization, space habitats off-planet will also develop.
What some people don't get is that the value of raw materials in orbit is equal to the value of the materials on earth, plus the cost to lift them into orbit. When you consider that Planetary Resources is focusing on platinum and related metals, that value will be very high indeed.
The value of a metric ton of platinum is roughly 54 million dollars on earth, plus another 5-10 million dollars for launch costs.
There's also the boost to science that their efforts will produce. We're going to find out a LOT more about near earth asteroids, and we'll also have swarms of space telescopes out there that can do astronomical observations in their spare time.
There are metals more valuable than gold and have high temperature structure caricaturists that makes for easy reentry and landing of the material. Titanium spheres almost always make it to the ground intact.
But I think asteroid mining is a good idea if the frame work for prospecting gets a clear set of easy good rules. Like that you have to land an object onto the asteroid to claim it..then send in a claim to a central claim agency.. then if the asteroid isnt started being full-scale mine with in 5 years the claim is forfeit..or some thing like that.
Also to add value to the metal that you mine is that you have manufacture of certain specialised materials that can only be done in micro g (0 G).