CAJ - meet some of the asteroids

Hi,

Since this is one of my last blog posts, it will be dedicated to the leading actors of my CAJ – the asteroids themselves.

Gaspra

is located in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. From its irregular shape and its big craters it is suggested that Gaspra is between 300 and 500 million years old. Given the fact that the Universe is at least 13 to 16 billion years old, it is a rather young asteroid. Gaspra is about 17 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide. Every seven hours it revolves around itself completely.

Eros

is with about 33 kilometres one of the largest asteroids that is drifting dangerously close to Earth. It is an S-type asteroid which means that it contains nickel, iron and magnesium. Here is the blog post that informs you about the classification of asteroids. Eros, which was named after the Greek god of love and desire orbits the Sun.

Wild 2

is in fact a comet but has an asteroid-like composition. In 2006 the NASA stardust mission came back to Earth and brought samples of Wild 2 with them. This was the time scientists managed to bring a specimen of an asteroid back to Earth. Grains of Wild 2 were collected and the material was analysed. Because of its ejection of dust and gas, it is believed that Wild 2 is the second most active planetary surface in our solar system. The most active is the Sun.

Ceres

is with a diameter of about 950 kilometres (about the size of Texas) a very big asteroid and a dwarf planet at the same time. Moreover, it is the closest dwarf planet to Earth. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and makes up nearly one third of its mass. In 2013 scientists could prove that there is water on Ceres which may erupt from its surface. Here you can read the full story.

Next year a specimen of this asteroid will arrive on Earth which should prove if there is also an ocean. Scientists think that this dwarf planet could contain more fresh water than Earth does. Isn’t this amazing? Because of its closeness and its mineral resources, Eros could be a suitable asteroid in terms of mining. 

CAJ - Elon Musk

When I first read about Elon Musk, I decided that he deserves his very own blog post. I am not sure whether you have heard about him but Elon is the founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, Solar City and, the company I am currently most interested in, SpaceX. In my previous blog posts I have already started introducing SpaceX’s philosophy and its aims. If you would like to read the post again click here.

This post is dedicated to the mastermind behind these companies which all have something in common. They were controversially discussed when public was first informed about the projects. Tesla Motors, for example, was founded to produce electric cars. German companies such as Daimler and Robert Bosch criticised Musk because his supercharging network does not work with models from other manufacturers. SolarCity provides customers with solar energy and is, despite criticism, now America’s largest solar power provider. SpaceX, finally, was founded in order to extend human life to other planets and to take the first humans to Mars. Musk stated in a recent interview that he will reach this goal by 2026. This would mean that in less than 15 years people would be able to do something which was long considered impossible.

So, who is this man whose major goal is to make life multi-planetary in order to protect people from extinction? Musk did neither study aeronautic nor has ever been in space. He is an autodidact which means that he taught himself what he needed to know. Musk was born in South Africa and has been interested in the Universe ever since. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and was 28 years old when he founded the e-mail payment company PayPal. Only three years later PayPal was so successful that Ebay bought it and Musk received $ 160,000,000. Instead of buying a helicopter and a house in the Caribbean, he invested the money in new companies such as SolarCity or SpaceX.

There are some great interviews with him but this is the one I like most: http://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_the_mind_behind_tesla_spacex_solarcity. The way Musk talks about his projects and how he behaves on stage reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg. They both do not look like billionaires, although they are. Elon Musk is a very inspiring person and could be the role model for many young people who dream of inventing something. I was surprised that someone like Elon Musk is not very present in Austrian newspapers or TV programmes. However, there was an article about him in the “Standard”. I hope that people read it and got to know this fascinating personality. 

CAJ - Is it legal?

    When I discussed my CAJ with some of my flatmates, a very interesting question came up. I told them about asteroid mining and how companies such as Planetary Resources or SpaceX are trying to actually achieve their goal when someone interrupted me “But is it legal to do that? I mean, do they buy asteroids beforehand and then send their rockets there to mine for mineral resources?”. This reminded me of the question Hendrik asked me in class. “Who should own asteroids – are there any laws?”. I honestly had no idea but I have to admit that the question was reasonable, so I started looking this issue up.

    

    There is a United Nations Outer Space Treaty that prohibits ownership of celestial bodies by nations. However, there is no specific regulation for companies or individuals. Here is the link to it: http://www.state.gov/www/global/arms/treaties/space1.html

    Theoretically, every country has the right to withdraw from this treaty. If the United States pulled out, the problem would be solved and Planetary Resources would be officially allowed to mine for minerals.

    

    In June 2012 several experts met at a Space Resources Roundtable to discuss the legal issue behind off-Earth resources. The discussion revealed that the opinion of legal experts is deeply divided on this issue. According to Leslie Gertsch, director of the Rock Mechanics & Explosives Research Centre at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, "the form that space law will finally take will depend on who has the guts and funds to start the process, what case it’s started with, […] and how the lawyers chose to argue their respective points during its course".

    

    One of the most interesting questions to me is what one of the companies has to say about owning asteroids.

    Unsurprisingly, the founders of Planetary Resources are convinced that space mining is legal. Co-founder Eric Anderson told Discovery News in an interview "We as a U.S. company certainly have the right to go on asteroid and make use of its resources. It is a stated goal of the U.S. government to enable and promote commercial activities and economic activity in space.”

    

    Another person who is in favor that private companies should have the right to mine on asteroids is Art Dula. He is a space law professor at the University of Houston. Dula states that the outer space treaty permits the ‘use’ of outer space by nongovernmental organizations. However, it does not permit commercial or business use. Moreover, he is convinced that the project cannot be realized at the moment and that people should not worry too much about it. “It costs so much just to get up there. You have to get a gang of billionaires together to even talk about this stuff."

CAJ - discussion

I have discussed my CAJ top (asteroid mining) with my flat mates. The discussion was interesting and really informative. There were some aspects I have not thought of before:

• The question “Can asteroids collide with each other?” came up. I was not quite sure but would have said so. In order to clear it up, we googled it and found out that asteroids can collide. We then imagined the consequence of a collision between two asteroids when one had a “fuel station” on it. We discussed what would happen to them. Would the fuel explode? Would the shock wave be big enough to harm or destroy life on Earth?

• David said: Sometimes asteroids leave orbit. It could happen that they burn up in the atmosphere or, in the worst case, crash into Earth (that already happened). We looked that up on the NASA website and found out that he is right. About once a year, an asteroid, in the size of a car, hits Earth’s atmosphere and creates a fireball. What would happen if there was a fuel depot on this specific asteroid?

• When Hendrik asked me “Who should own asteroids?”, I honestly had no idea what to answer. Meanwhile I have found out that there is a United Nations treaty that prohibits ownership of celestial bodies by nations. However, there is no specific regulation for companies or individuals. I asked my friends the same question and they came up with answers ranging from “no one should own them” to “the company that first manages to mine them” to “everyone should be allowed to buy asteroids and do with them whatever they want”.

• Unsurprisingly, the biggest question was “Why would you mine on asteroids and not use the money for more ‘sensible purposes’?” I tried to explain them the advantages of asteroid mining (that the mined materials could be used for various purposes such as spaceship fuel or in medicine (platinum is needed for implants or pacemakers)) but I think I could not convince them. “Wouldn’t it be cleverer to invest in sustainable development and the conservation of resources rather than thinking about mining for mineral resources somewhere in the universe?”, one person asked.

CAJ - News

Hi,

There happened something quite interesting regarding my CAJ topic. Chris Lewicky, the Chief Engineer of Planetary Resources announced at the annual FiRe (the Future in Review Conference) in Utah that they decided to reduce their efforts in terms of mining for metals on asteroids and shifted their focus towards mining water. At the conference he explained different ways of how the company could mine for hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in order to produce space fuel out of these components. Lewicky also announced that the number of suitable NEAs is growing rapidly. Three new near-Earth asteroids are discovered every day.

In an interview, co-founder Eric Anderson made clear that he did not give up his idea but that mining for water is the company's main goal now. The reason behind the decision to scale back the space-mining mission is attributed to insurmountable technical hurdles and great costs. Although the company has some very wealthy donators and is not dependent on financial aid from governments or other organizations, the project is not financially worthwhile.

The advantage of mining water is that it could be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen and used as propellants. If it would be possible to construct "gas stations" on asteroids, satellites, which would normally burn up when they run out of fuel and get back to Earth, could be used more often. Mr. Anderson admitted that it is "more sexy to talk about [...] bringing something back to Earth" but that this goal is more difficult and cannot be realized by now. Moreover, it is important that there are already gas stations or other fuel depots on asteroids because the machines which could mine for minerals also need fuel. Eric Anderson does already have a tight schedule for his new project. Test launches should start by the end of this year and the first telescopes should be send to asteroids in 2016.

Here is the BBC World Service Podcast about the FiRe and Lewicky's talk: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01z6f5n

CAJ - SpaceX

The focus in my previous blog posts was either on asteroid mining itself or on the company Planetary Resources. I think that it is important to mention that Planetary Resources is not the only company that is interested in this matter. The company SpaceX was founded in 2002 in order to “revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets”, according to their website. Its founder Elon Musk, also the founder of PayPal, is convinced that space exploration is important for preserving human life. He is worried that something like a natural disaster, a super virus or other threats could be responsible for our extinction. Therefore, he thinks that it is necessary to have a backup plan in case something bad happens to our Earth. SpaceX’s rocket “Falcon 9” and the spacecraft “Dragon” were sent 12 times to the International Space Station in order replace its space shuttle.

This sounds all very promising but Elon is not only interested in space exploration. He also thinks about how to revolutionize the transportation system. For this reason he suggested the construction of something he called “Hyperloop”. This would be a tube over or under the ground which could connect Los Angeles with San Francisco. The Hyperloop should be, among others, safe, fast, cheap, self-powering and would look something like that: 

Looks very futuristic, doesn't it?

Of course, this project has not that much to do with asteroid mining but I think that it has more in common than you probably would think. Both projects are yet not realizable and both need visionary people who believe in their ideas in order to make them happen in the future.

SpaceX's website: http://www.spacex.com/

More information about the Hyperloop:  

http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha.pdf

CAJ - my abstract

Asteroid mining describes the general idea of finding suitable Near Earth Asteroids - NEAs. Suitable in this context means that they are rich in one or more mineral resources, such as water, metals, oxygen or hydrogen. This CAJ focuses on various phases of asteroid mining, from the beginning, when it deals with the question “how to find suitable NEAs” to the actual stage of mining for mineral resources. All of these steps contain some problems and questions that are yet unsolved. There is, for example, the problem of how to attach machines to asteroids since their gravity field is very small. Another aspect scientists think about is where to actually process the mined material. It could be either done directly on the asteroid, on the Earth or maybe somewhere else, such as on the ISS, the international space station. Various sources have been used to write this CAJ. Many different people, who work in this field, have published or contributed to all sorts of mediums, such as books, presentations, videos, academic papers or scientific websites. It is important to mention that the problem of having various sources is that they do sometimes contradict each other. A company that is really interested in asteroid mining and is investing much money is Planetary Ressources. Although they did not yet manage to actually mine for materials on asteroids, they have made progress. However, Planetary Ressources made clear that they do not expect to make profit with their idea overnight, since asteroid mining is something that takes time. Many problems are yet unsolved and need to be fixed in order to make this project happen in the future. 

CAJ - abstract

Acta Astronautica
Volume 73, April–May 2012, Pages 49–66
Assessment on the feasibility of future shepherding of asteroid resources

Abstract

Most plausible futures for space exploration and exploitation require a large mass in Earth orbit. Delivering this mass requires overcoming the Earth's natural gravity well, which imposes a distinct obstacle to any future space venture. An alternative solution is to search for more accessible resources elsewhere. In particular, this paper examines the possibility of future utilisation of near Earth asteroid resources. The accessibility of asteroid material can be estimated by analysing the volume of Keplerian orbital element space from which Earth can be reached under a certain energy threshold and then by mapping this analysis onto an existing statistical near Earth objects (NEO) model. Earth is reached through orbital transfers defined by a series of impulsive manoeuvres and computed using the patched-conic approximation. The NEO model allows an estimation of the probability of finding an object that could be transferred with a given Δv budget. For the first time, a resource map provides a realistic assessment of the mass of material resources in near Earth space as a function of energy investment. The results show that there is a considerable mass of resources that can be accessed and exploited at relatively low levels of energy. More importantly, asteroid resources can be accessed with an entire spectrum of levels of energy, unlike other more massive bodies such as the Earth or Moon, which require a minimum energy threshold implicit in their gravity well. With this resource map, the total change of velocity required to capture an asteroid, or transfer its resources to Earth, can be estimated as a function of object size. Thus, realistic examples of asteroid resource utilisation can be provided.

Purpose: Most plausible futures of space exploration require a large mass in Earth orbit. Delivering this mass requires overcoming the Earth’s natural gravity… (=Context of the problem);

Scope: This paper examines the possibility of future utilisation of NEA resources

Methods: Accessibility of asteroid material can be estimated by analysing the volume of Keplerian… ; the NEO model estimates probability of finding an object…; resource map provides realistic assessment of the mass of material resources

Findings: Results show that there is a considerable mass of resources that can be accessed and exploited; asteroid resources can be accessed with an entire spectrum of levels of energy

Conclusion: With this resource map, velocity required to transfer resources to Earth can be estimated; realistic examples of asteroid resource utilisation can be provided

The abstract is well written and organized and contains all elements of an abstract, namely the purpose (=the context of the problem), the scope (=what the author’s attention is exactly), methods (=methodology used and materials involved), findings (=what the results show, an interpretation of the results’ significance) and a conclusion (=what can be done with the findings).

However, there are some functions in it which makes the abstract a bit complicated.

CAJ - is it realistic?

Hi,

This post focuses on the question whether asteroid mining is realistic or not.

Eric Anderson, the founder of Planetary Resources, makes very clear that asteroid mining takes its time. He says that he “does not expect to be in the black overnight. We have long-term goals”. This means that the project will probably not start tomorrow or next week. In April 2012 the company announced that they would like to start mining for asteroids in 24 months with a spaceship called “Arkyd”. However, they did not reach their goal. On their website they mention that two NEAs (=near-Earth asteroids) have been explored by robotic spacecraft and that NASA is working on its own mission, the OSIRIS- Rex¹ spacecraft. It should explore the promising asteroid 1999 RQ 36 in 2016 of which observations suggest that it is rich in carbon.

1999 RQ 36: Pretty big, huh?

On the other hand, Planetary Resources is also making progress. Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian-American software executive donated $ 20 million to the company. Simonyi is the fifth space tourist worldwide, a fact that shows that he is a rather wealthy man. The company is investing the money in their Large Scale Synoptic Telescope which is used for further asteroid observation. As you can see, asteroid mining is something that takes time, a lot of money and effort. But the fact that they cannot realize their project now does not mean that it cannot happen in the further future.

Planetary Resources has created a very nice video on the subject of asteroid mining. Of course it supports it but the video is nicely animated, informative and not very complicated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYYPN0BdBw

CAJ - Asteroid mining

Hi!

In this blog post we will mainly focus on the question how to mine asteroids but at first some facts about a man who is very interested in asteroid mining. In 1997 the US astrophysicist John S. Lewis wrote a book called “Mining the Sky” in which he describes his vision that asteroid mining could save the world’s three most severe problems, namely mineral resources, generation of energy and food supply. Although this book was written over ten years ago it is still interesting for today’s scientists. Lewis was a highly regarded professor of planetary science at the University of Arizonas and is expert in this field. In his book he states that asteroids could not only be used for mining purposes but could also be hollowed out and used as living space.

This idea sounded a bit weird for me when I first read about it but then reminded me of the “Dystopia film” we watched in Hendrik’s class. Lewis thinks that living on other planets could solve the problem of overpopulation. Of course, these asteroids would have to be earth-like or terrestrial planets and be composed primarily of rocks or metals. The existence of water is also essential since human beings cannot live without it. John S. Lewis calculated that ten quadrillion people could live on these earth-like worlds. Ten quadrillion is that much: 10 000 000 000 000 000 = 10¹⁵ (I have no idea how you can calculate something like this but he is a professor and I am sure he knows what he is doing, so...).

Enough of that, let’s focus on how asteroid mining could work in practice. At the moment scientists can think of three possible ways.

    1.  The first one is to mine the materials and bring them back to Earth to process them there.

a.  Advantage: All needed machinery to process the material is on Earth

b.  Disadvantage: The room on the spaceship is limited à very time-consulting to mine whole planet

    2.  Process the materials directly on asteroids and bring the final product back to Earth

a.  Advantage: Some of the mined materials could be used as fuel for the return flight à spaceship has to transport less fuel à can transport more material

b.  Disadvantage: Every needed machine would have to be brought to the asteroids first

     3.  Bring the asteroids to the International Space Station (ISS)

a.  Advantage: Whole asteroids could be mined

b.  Disadvantage: If something goes wrong the asteroid could hit the Earth. This would lead to a catastrophic event.

As you can see scientists are thinking a lot about this subject but have not found the ideal way yet.

Asteroid mining (CAJ)

Hello and welcome to my first CAJ post!

I decided to write about a relatively unknown project – asteroid mining. I am 99% sure that most people do not know what this project is about and what the aim of it is. Luckily the uncertainty is over and over the next few weeks and months you will learn all important facts, at least what I consider important J, about asteroid mining.
Let’s begin.

•   Who is interested in asteroid mining?
•  The company Planetary Resources was founded in 2010 by Eric Anderson. Its mission is “to expand Earth’s natural resource base by exploring the space and developing technologies for asteroid mining”.
• Anderson is convinced that space mining could be the start of a completely new industry sector.

• Which elements do they think asteroids contain?

o   Scientists have already successfully discovered NEAs, Near-Earth Asteroids, which contain one or more of these elements: iron, nickel, magnesium, water, metal, oxygen, gold, platinum.

• Why do they want to mine for these elements in the universe? All of them can be found on earth.
•  Some of these elements are very expensive on Earth and/or are getting less. Platinum, for example, is very rare on Earth. On an Asteroid with about 30 meters diameter there could be platinum worth to 50 billion US dollars. If it became possible to mine for water in the universe, asteroids could be used as a kind of gas stations. Hydrogen and oxygen could be used for spaceship fuel and would reduce the price drastically because fuel would not have to be transported from the Earth to the universe.

• That sounds really interesting but what are asteroids anyway?
• Asteroids are leftover materials from the early solar system. They are classified into three different categories:
• C-type: More than 75% of all known asteroids are considered to be a C-type. Their structure is similar to that of the sun but do not contain hydrogen and helium.
• S-type: These asteroids contain nickel, iron and magnesium.
• M-type: Only a small number of asteroids fit into this category. Nickel and iron can be found on them.

• Where can I get more information about this topic?
•  In my next post J
• Also, this is a great video to start with:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9cLLNpo2f8

•