Launch costs are poised to make a dramatic drop (by a factor of 10-100) within the next decade or two. Now, you could say that it's silly to make a financial bet on this coming to fruition but such a bet is unnecessary, one can simply do research and prototyping and then make the decision on whether to scale up and go for broke or not based on the development of launch costs.
By the same token, launch costs will also affect the growth in orbital assets and infrastructure, which can both facilitate certain aspects of asteroid mining as well as potentially serve as a market for mined resources. Not everything from such mines need to be delivered to the Earth's surface, for example.
Using robotics and efficient propulsion technologies like solar sails or ion engines make it possible to deliver to Earth or Earth orbit far more mass than the mass of the machinery launched from Earth, which will be the major cost involved.
Consider a few things that might be worthwhile. Precious metals and rare Earths could be worth a considerable amount of money. Iridium alone is worth $15 million per tonne, for example. Gold and Platinum are also worth a lot of money. But other things might also be worthwhile, such as water, methane, and silicon. Not necessarily on Earth, but perhaps in orbit. If there is a substantial population of humans living in orbit then water and oxygen could be a valuable commodity, as would propellant (oxygen, methane, hydrogen, etc.)
Or, consider a small near Earth asteroid that is robotically mined to deliver large quantities of silicon and aluminum to Earth orbit, where they are used to manufacture solar cells, supporting structure, and power systems in geostationary orbit to build space based solar power systems. Then, only the ground components (rectenna fields) need to be built on Earth, and only a small amount of components and materials need to be launched from Earth for each new power station. It could well be a cost effective way to deliver electrical power in the near future, although much of that is dependent on automated mining operations and the costs of operating a manufacturing facility in orbit.
It's certainly a risky endeavor at present, but it's not such a crazy idea as it may seem.
Could someone smarter than myself explain what the possible targets for a mining mission would be?
The only ones I can think of would be Luna, Phobos, Deimos and the Asteroid Belt beyond Mars' orbit.
Are these really viable targets? Aside from Luna, they're all pretty far away, or am I missing some obvious asteroids that are known to be within convenient distance of Earth?
And people have been talking for a long time about how eventually launch costs would drop. In theory. But with SpaceX's recent successes, with their stated intentions, with the nature of their leadership, I think the folks behind Planetary Resources thought, "You know. Now might be the time. SpaceX, in particular, looks about to really bring down cost to orbit. Let's get in on that. What's going to be enabled by that? That's right, asteroid mining. Let's fill out the paperwork and start assembling the cash, the team, to get the ball rolling."
Launch costs are poised to make a dramatic drop (by a factor of 10-100) within the next decade or two. Now, you could say that it's silly to make a financial bet on this coming to fruition but such a bet is unnecessary, one can simply do research and prototyping and then make the decision on whether to scale up and go for broke or not based on the development of launch costs.
By the same token, launch costs will also affect the growth in orbital assets and infrastructure, which can both facilitate certain aspects of asteroid mining as well as potentially serve as a market for mined resources. Not everything from such mines need to be delivered to the Earth's surface, for example.
Using robotics and efficient propulsion technologies like solar sails or ion engines make it possible to deliver to Earth or Earth orbit far more mass than the mass of the machinery launched from Earth, which will be the major cost involved.
Consider a few things that might be worthwhile. Precious metals and rare Earths could be worth a considerable amount of money. Iridium alone is worth $15 million per tonne, for example. Gold and Platinum are also worth a lot of money. But other things might also be worthwhile, such as water, methane, and silicon. Not necessarily on Earth, but perhaps in orbit. If there is a substantial population of humans living in orbit then water and oxygen could be a valuable commodity, as would propellant (oxygen, methane, hydrogen, etc.)
Or, consider a small near Earth asteroid that is robotically mined to deliver large quantities of silicon and aluminum to Earth orbit, where they are used to manufacture solar cells, supporting structure, and power systems in geostationary orbit to build space based solar power systems. Then, only the ground components (rectenna fields) need to be built on Earth, and only a small amount of components and materials need to be launched from Earth for each new power station. It could well be a cost effective way to deliver electrical power in the near future, although much of that is dependent on automated mining operations and the costs of operating a manufacturing facility in orbit.
It's certainly a risky endeavor at present, but it's not such a crazy idea as it may seem.