http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-dawn-of-the-space-mining-age/
>The recent passage of the Space Act of 2015 in the U.S. House and Senate marks a key milestone for the commercial space industry. Ever since the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, nations have been banned from claiming or appropriating any celestial resource such as the Moon or another planet. Formally titled the “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,” the nearly fifty year old agreement has formed the basis of international space law ever since.
>Now that’s about to change.
I would post more but the character limit in OP posts on this board is ridiculously low.
first the space race
now the space mining laws
wish you stole more German scientists, eh?
>>559
This really makes me wonder if there are going to be asteroid wars between corporations and nations of earth in 50-100 years.
>>593
One this is for sure. War is going to change drastically in space. I'm not talking about different weapons. You'll have very little warning time against any kind of attack, and anybody with a spaceship would be capable of dealing critical damage to an entire colony.
>>604
All they would have to do is rain down asteroids on cities and it would be just as bad or worse than a nuke.
It would certainly be hard to protect against an attack like that with missiles without doing more harm than good.
But I would think the greedy nations and corporations of the earth wouldn't even attempt that if they thought those asteroids were full of things like platinum and rare earth metals
Countries will throw asteroids at each other
>>628
>the greedy nations and corporations
The problem is that not everybody is a nation.
Some people are just angry. If you have an angry guy with a gun, the worst he can do is shoot up a school.
If you have an angry guy with a space ship, the worst he can do is take out an entire city.
>>638
Remind me not to piss off Elon Musk.
>>666
Go away, Satan.
>>638
Are you implying it would be possible for an everyday murderous asshole to buy a space ship? How many guys do you know who own planes at all let alone airships capable of doing real damage that isn't just a kamikaze attack or throwing bricks on car stuck in traffic?
>>666
Don't piss off Elon Musk
>>695
What about the Germanwings crash? Just imagine he was piloting a space ship, and not a plane.
>>695
If the guy with the spaceship was smart and able he could go to space and use asteroids or old satellites for weapons instead of his spaceship.
>>706
he would have crashed with absolutely no survivors
>>709
>killers with spaceships
>smart
>>942
Who knows what some Lex Luthor type is building in some hanger on some abandoned air force base in the desert.
>>947
Nobody cares about what he does on Earth. Starting the ship from Earth requires a huge amount of energy. This is more than most people can afford to spend on some random killing spree.
If he lives on a small satellite (artificial or otherwise) then he gets that same energy basically for free.
>>953
How does he get into space in the first place though?
>>1101
very carefully.
>>1101
By living there.
When you have space colonies, you probably also have people living in those colonies.
>>522
Citizens are not governments. It gives rights to citizens and corporations for asteroids.
>>1172
I appreciate you clarifying how they were able to get around the 1967 UN Space Treaty.
I, for one, welcome Richard Branson's glorious future moon base hotel and casino.
>>1214
Like David Cross and the bible said, 'the meek will inherit the Earth [cuz we're going to the Moon]'.
Space mining will benefit humankind as a sector, anyhow. Conflict minerals kill and when many countries are perusing policies of resource capitalism the market could act as a savior.
>>1264
if I could post images I'd post a nice infographic map of China's rare earth resources vs. that of the rest of the world.
it's in a google image search
>>1268
Yeah, they have something like 40% of all known. I didn't want to put them on blast.
It's a little deceptive, though, of what they have "proprietary access" too most finds it's way on the black market.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/27/china-s-stranglehold-on-u-s-defense-tech.html
>>1274
relevant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_missions_to_the_Moon
Sounds like a real shit deal.
Imagine looking up in the night sky, and instead of seeing a giant, glowing pearlescent orb, you see an ad for maxi pads
>>1294
>you see an ad for maxi pads
No, that's what you see today when you grow up in the wrong city.
You are not going to get moon-based ads.
Do you have any idea how large the moon is?
>>1287
I want to believe that all of this is right around the corner.
I also just remembered another instance relevant to violating international space law:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKvvrNrCOnw
>>1301
GLOB2 is going to build a lunar base before GLOB1 starts work?
>>1294
Why would anyone do that? That's way to much work and building materials to be profitable.
>>1314
There are people of means that would pay that to be able to advertise a message to all of humanity.
>>1309
Later on in the article it says both have only "been proposed"
I think space news today is done by idiots and I blame Neil Degrasse Tyson
>>1318
>There are people of means
No.
Nobody can afford that.
>>1326
>Trump wouldn't do it
You get the price down to tens of millions and it would get done.
>>1328
>You get the price down to tens of millions
Nigger, the price isn't in the billions. I'm not sure it's in the trillions.
You are talking about a huge, HUGE project here.
It's the fucking moon, not a soccer ball.
>>1328
How to you suppose we get the price down to such a low price then, hotshot?
I'm studying to become a geologist. Hopefully decades down the line I'll be able to have my old-ass cyber-augmented self shot up to a mining asteroid on company money to help out with shit. That would be cool.
>>1354
oy vey, not so fast... are you finished paying for holocaust, you are not a nazi are you?
>>1347
Jokes aside it really is a very lucrative industry and the right time to be getting in on the ground floor of some future Weyland-Yutani type company.
>>1318
What kind of ad would the whole world be interested in? Kind of a shitty ad space though, as it only works about 7 days every month.
>>1354
You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. But please, do continue.
>>1367
I'd bet there are American billionaires through inheritance who would use it for a cheezy marriage proposal, much less selling Coca-Cola or Buicks.
>>1376
You just wait and let some smuck sink the dual use fixed costs and ???, and before you know it you have "I am God and I want you to say Trump's name when you prey" up on an asteroid.
It's science,
http://www.accountingtools.com/questions-and-answers/how-to-calculate-cost-per-unit.html
>>1406
Here's the deal.
The ISS is much closer to Earth than the moon is. When you look down on Earth from the ISS, what do you think you can see of human constructs?
I mean, there's lots of human work on Earth. We have vast fields, huge cities, streets...
The Chinese great wall is said to be the one human construction visible from space. Except it isn't visible.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Nasa_blue_marble.jpg
There's not a whole lot of stuff visible there.
The only thing that's visible from up there is the lights from human cities. Lights that require lots and lots of energy to be maintained.
http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/images/north%20america%20on%20a%20globe.jpg
So, what you'd have to do is a) build power plants on the moon, and then a wide array of trillions of lights (or billions of very, very big lights). So either you also build a light factory on the moon, or you import everything from elsewhere. Either way, you have huge expenses in all directions, and that's even before you start powering your light system.
Building your ad far away from the person who's supposed to read it is simply ineffective. You can have a much better effect by hacking people's google glasses here on Earth and adding pop-ups there that serve the same purpose.
Nobody will ever use the moon as an advertising platform for Earth.
>>633
Countries are gonna do it anyways. We really do need to get some anti asteroid defense going.
>>1507
You mean force fields? What could possibly defend against an asteroid? Blowing it up just makes millions of little radioactive asteroids.
>>1530
>Blowing it up just makes millions of little radioactive asteroids.
You don't want to blow it up. You want to enact a lot of kinetic energy on it *without* blowing it up. So long as you reaction is fast enough and you hit it while it's still far away from its target it should take a (relatively) small amount of energy to change the trajectory sufficiently to just let it pass by without doing any real damage.
The trick, of course, is where you don't break it into little pieces. But that's possible.
>>638
>the future
>spree killings are done with spaceships and asteroids
Born into the wrong time.
I suggest we find a way to cure psychopathy and mental illnesses that lead to mass murder.
Should be possible by the time space terrorism becomes a possibility, or else we are truly fucked.
>>666
shit get tbh
>>522
>ban people from making money off stuff in space
>wonder why we haven't gone back to the moon
>>1834
I think the point of Congress passing the law was to clarify that it was never illegal for individuals or corporations to 'make money off stuff in space', only for nations to do that. But at the time the treaty was written only nations had the power to do that.
>>2311
Yeah, but the alternative is banning space colonization entirely.
>>2333
Also they needed to clarify that American companies and individuals are subject to US law while in space, it was kind of a legal gray area before. They've solidified that now.
All these people commenting on how corporations are going to fight over asteroids and shit like that...
Don't you anons know that the beginning of asteroids and other celestial bodies being mined is the end of scarcity? Why waste lives fighting over an asteroid when there are literally nigh infinite of them, probably with next to the same chemical and metal composition? Why would anyone with access to a space ship go on a murdering spree? There's a planet out there literally full of like minded people out there somewhere.
>>2965
Well it's going to radically change the world economy with all these non terrestrial resources coming in for the first time. Not that it is going to be like that for at least 40 or 60 years though.
>>2965
>the end of scarcity
No.
We already had the end of scarcity, except nobody liked that and then artificial scarcity was introduced.
We produce more food than all humans on Earth could possibly eat and we have people in food-insecure households even in America.
We have proven that music piracy is not actually bad for the music industry and it's still illegal.
Scarcity will never end.
Also, you seem to have some misconceptions about space. Spaceships are and always will be expensive. Space trips will be expensive and more importantly time consuming. It will lead to a fracturing up of humanity, and this may very easily lead to conflict.
Which asteroid is most likely to be mined first?
When do you think that will happen?
>>3022
They might go for a swarm so they can use one set of machines for as much mining as possible.
Second priority is likely that the asteroids don't travel too far away from the sun. That would just come with needless delays.
I'm not very well versed with asteroids though.
>>3022
Obama had a plan when he first became president to capture an asteroid and move it into orbit around the moon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/president-obama-to-direct-nasa-to-grab-an-asteroid-send-astronauts/2013/04/05/02aa0a60-9e2a-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html
This was partially funded and greenlit by Congress in 2014, but I don't know what effect this new legislation has on that NASA program.
As far as private industry goes, they might have their own astronomers and researchers working on looking for candidate asteroids. Obama's program relied on this Cal Tech study from 2002 that narrowed down which asteroids were accessible and possibly able to be moved to the moon. Some of these have rough guesses as to their composition but nothing is certain.
http://www.kiss.caltech.edu/study/asteroid/asteroid_final_report.pdf
page 15 might be of interest
t;dr: there are about 300 known candidates within proximity of earth orbit and the cal tech team narrowed it down that down to 4 likely candidates in 2002, but nobody knows the exact one that will be the first to be landed on by corporate or NASA astronauts at this point.
>>522
> I would post more but the character limit in OP posts on this board is ridiculously low.
They want the news selection to be read more than the spin, I think.
>>2986
> Spaceships are and always will be expensive.
What about the inflatable spaceship I heard are up and coming as well as goat/spider hybrid fiber-supported space elevators that will make space travel more convenient I've heard about as early as 2003?!
>>3055
We still don't know if space elevators are actually possible. If they are, you still need spaceships to continue from orbit to wherever you want to go.
>inflatable spaceship
I'm sorry, what?
>>2986
>Spaceships are and always will be expensive
Computers are and always will be expensive.
Automobiles are and always will be expensive.
Electric lights are and always will be expensive.
Professionally made articles of clothing are and always will be expensive.
>>3087
Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
The problem with spaceships is that they must be perfectly sealed, must have excellent air conditioning, and if you want to go further than the moon, they also need a variety of other things, like air- and water purification. A spaceship is basically a bundle of thousands of different things some of which MUST work perfectly while others just need to work very well.
It's no disaster if a light bulb dies 2 weeks after you bought it. It is a disaster if there's a leak in your ship.
>>3058
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuZcwe1e2bM
>>3103
That sounds really cool. I may need to look into this.
>>3105
If you find anything interesting there's always /news/ to share it on...
>>1314
Just doing it is publicity in and of itself
>>3097
>Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
Spaceships are already dramatically cheaper than they used to be.
Yes, the stakes are high, because even a small amount of fault costs lives.
But that was true of automobiles, and still is. Electronic breaking and steering is incredibly complicated, and one small error will kill a large number of people.
Any argument to the contrary is one of two things:
One; just an argument of scale. Spaceships require more precision than cars, because more bad things will happen off of a single error. All that means is that spaceships will be more expensive than cars, not that spaceships will forever be expensive.
Two; a semantical argument over the definition of expensive.
>>633
Couldn't we have already put those big-ass rods into space and dropped them on people? Plus I mean we have nukes with relatively low radioactive yields these days, and we aren't (yet) hurling those around.
>>3194
Kinetic rods made of Tungsten are real. The problem is countries like China and Russia have the capabilities to shoot down satellites and people bitching in horror that the US has space weapons. Which as far we know they don't have any in space.
>>3194
At this point, arming Earth orbit (and using those weapons) is almost a bigger stigma than nuclear armament.
If one country showed they are willing to step over this line, then they would not just get a polite letter from the UN.
People are fucking scared.
>>638
Not really. Most school mass shootings seem to be suicide-by-proxy rather than straight-up 'kill everyone' rampages. Being in a space ship makes it harder for people to kill you. Heck, even terrorist attacks tended to be suicidal, at least until ISIS showed up.
Legit rage is actually fairly rare.
>>3350
>Legit rage is actually fairly rare.
Going postal is the term. Its pretty rare. Most people don't go off their rocker in a psychotic breakdown. Mass shooting are like you said suicide by either the police or themselves. Its a nervous breakdown.
this is a good thing, NASA has basically been fucked and underfunded and staffed with underqualified people. the passionate and motivated NASA that did the moon landing is dead, now we have to rely on corporations for space exploration and this will give them some actual motivation to do so. right now most corporations aren't going to explore space just for the sake of it
Still waiting for Pepsico to turn the moon into an advertisement
>>2965
>end of scarcity
Thats why we haven't and will never mine asteroids until the crony capitalists are dismantled. End of scarcity means the end of richfags power over society.
Its a pipe dream gents
>>6805
Nah. So long as the richfags manage to keep the asteroids for themselves there's no need to end scarcity.
So long as space flight is prohibitively expensive (and time intensive) asteroid mining is not a thing that random schmucks can do.