How Billionaire Asteroid Miners Make Money -- Without Mining Asteroids

<i>Part of the reason for using a swarm is rather than just one Arkyd is, counter-intuitively, the cost. “The key is redundancy and safety in numbers. We’re planning for a certain amount of failure, and it’s a lot cheaper to work for 80% reliability than it is for 99.9% reliability.”</i><p>This is going to be the killer [NPI] feature of using automated rather than manned systems. Aiming for just-reliable-enough + spares, rather than Failure Is Not An Option is going to impact just about every single part of it, and reduce costs massively.

As it turns out, they don't have a real plan to mine asteroids. It is just a big hairy audacious goal. Their actionable plan is more realistic (cheap telescopy).<p>Making a spectacular but unprovable and therefore undeniable goal is an effective way of announcing and positioning your company to the world through public relations.<p>Nothing wrong with that. People love to dream and back the dreamers.

I was excited to see this article, because I reacted the same way as the author to the initial press release. I was wondering how are they making money now. Especially since someone mentioned that they had 20-30 engineers and that is pretty expensive.<p>Unfortunately the article completely failed to answer the question it posed in its own title. It listed a bunch of ways they hope to make money in the future, but did not mention how they make money now.

I have no idea why the guys at Planetary Resources do not redirect curious people to the KISS studies they talk about in their press conference.<p><a href="http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120307_IEEE_Presentation.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120307_IEEE_Pre...</a><p><a href="http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_re...</a><p><a href="http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120314_ESA_ESTEC.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/20120314_ESA_ESTE...</a><p>I had to dig around for sometime and I thought these papers must be behind some pay-wall. I was surprised to find them on the KISS website. It is not that they are clueless about how to bring back an asteroid and extract resources from it. They just want their MVP to the be the act of prospecting itself. Also I was really surprised to learn that Ion Engines have been routinely used before for asteroid missions like Dawn(<a href="http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp" rel="nofollow">http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp</a>). The scaling they need to achieve for these missions is much smaller than the average non space geek would expect. Does anyone here know if the scalability requirements of solar ion propulsion systems they need for the mission of tugging an asteroid into lunar orbit is realistically achievable by 2020?

"That’s because by being able to put a high supply of precious metals on the market, they might very well depress prices significantly, which would harm their investment return."<p>They should consult with the diamond industry on how to keep prices high for a non-scarce commodity.<p>As for the commoditizing the equipment for space travel, you have to be excited about the possibilities. Hobbyist space travel can't be more than 100 years away if you can buy and launch an Arkyd for $5mm today. In the shorter term, you could do space exploration ventures for the capital equivalent of what it cost Columbus or Magellan to make expeditions to the West.<p>It's very exciting. I'm quite pleased work like this is being done.

"In addition, the telescopes are capable of being pointed at Earth for observati0n [sic], as well. All of this potential for gathering data is a potential opportunity to sell that data to universities, businesses, and government."<p>I wonder if this is the main source of their positive cashflow.

<i>...they’re focused on low cost delivery. To get to that point, they’re bringing current approaches to building spacecraft into the 21st century by focusing on mass production</i><p>Jerry Pournelle proposed this approach to cheap space access decades ago. If one used well established models for economies of scale, weekly rocket launches in a free market would cut launch costs by an order of magnitude. That's also what SpaceX is out to do as well: just take what we know how to do now, and find ways to do more of it.

I can't really see a business case where these guys would make a profit before their billionaire club gets bored. I don't think images from hundreds of little cameras are going to be equal the image from the Hubble or its replacement, the Webb. I hope these guys won't be another Iridium.<p>Maybe the military is funding them: <a href="http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Space_Enabled_Effects_for_Military_Engagements_(SeeMe).aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Space_Enabled_Eff...</a>

As an occasional EVE Online player, I keep thinking these stories are about the EVE universe. It's always a little world-inverting when I realize they're actually about real life. This whole concept of asteroid mining is incredibly awe-inspiring.

They say that the only people who got rich off the California gold rush were the ones selling shovels and pickaxes.<p>It sounds like Planetary Resources wants to position itself to be the "asteroid mining rush" equivalent.

Towards the end, did he say that yes, they will be dumping minerals into the commodities markets? "It's not about scarcity, it's about access."

I am excited about this. This would be like a space Renaissance, after the '60s.

I assumed they were profitable because they just stuck Billions of dollars in a savings account... o and robot swarms are cool too.<p>Orbital fuel anyone? That may be a bigger deal than the automation, in regards to launch price dropping. Just for assisted reentry allowing reusable vehicles.

That's a pretty neat article but the title undersells it. It makes it sound like it's just about finance. Robot satellite swarms, anyone?

&#60;i&#62;“It’s like computers,” he continued. “They used to be in clean rooms and handled by guys in isolation suits. Now they’re in your pocket and it’s no big deal if you drop it.&#60;/i&#62;<p>What computers have ever required clean rooms and isolation suits? Maybe chip fabrication, but not assembled computers.

So, in short, How Do Billionaire Asteroid Miners Make Money, Without Mining Asteroids? I didn't get it

How billionaries make money: by being billionaires.

This scares me. It really does.<p>These idiots are planning to put swarms of objects in orbit, planning on a significant percentage failing? Are they actively trying to get the Kessler syndrome under way? (See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome</a> if you don't know what I am talking about.)<p>Seriously, they need to have a plan for what to do with the junk they will be creating. If they have no plan, I don't think that they should be allowed into orbit.