lets see some credentials from everyone partaking in this "rocket science" episode

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hop David

For a more detailed critique Google: Murphy's Mangled Math

Which takes us to your blog

you've obviously taken it upon yourself to find all mentions of Tom Murphy on the internet and squash them with your delta v tirade, completely ignoring the hundreds of other aspects that makes this a seriously iffy proposition.
It is pretty clear that the only thing that planetary resources want to mine is investors.

Just thinking about it, assembling spacecraft in space is going to require the development of railgun launch technology or something similar, otherwise the cost of launching the individual parts with conventional booster rocket technology will be too costly and take too long between launches.

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

Which takes us to your blog

you've obviously taken it upon yourself to find all mentions of Tom Murphy on the internet and squash them with your delta v tirade,

Correct.

Space exploration is one of my passions. I very much want to see the human species break the bounds that confine us.

Is it possible? I don't know. I like to look at arguments pro and con. Devil's advocates are valuable, for two reasons:

1) If a goal's futility can indeed be demonstrated that saves wasted time and effort.

2) If an idea truly does have merit, a single thoughtful devil's advocate can be more helpful in bringing it to fruition than 100 enthusiastic fans.

But Murphy isn't a thoughtful Devil's advocate. He is a passionate zealot trying to debunk any ideas that he perceives as distracting to his message.

I actually agree with Murphy's central theme that we should consume less and conserve our resources. Exponential economic growth is indeed unsustainable.But having a worthy message doesn't give him license to use dishonest or wrong arguments. In fact that only subtracts from his credibility and is counterproductive to his goals.

Murphy's math is wrong and his straw man scenarios are downright silly. What is worse is he presents these arguments in a condescending tone. Murphy's fans echo this tone. Know this: you're in no position to be condescending.

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

completely ignoring the hundreds of other aspects that makes this a seriously iffy proposition.

One thing at a time. As you've guessed, I Google to find discussions where people are citing Murphy to "prove" space resources are futile. My first goal is to debunk Murphy's flawed arguments.

You, Claude Glass and Griggle have embraced Murphy's Stranded Resources. But none of you have answered my criticisms. Vaguely waving your hands and mumbling about 100s of other problems Murphy didn't discuss isn't a defense. It's a dishonest smokescreen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

It is pretty clear that the only thing that planetary resources want to mine is investors.

Do you know who Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are? They have more money than they could spend in 10 lifetimes. And rightly so, their company's services are immensely useful.

If they did offer PR shares on the stock market (which they haven't done yet), the revenues would be a small fraction of the founder's assets. That they would destroy their reputations for a two bit scam is ludicrous.

It is pretty clear that these wealthy investors aren't in it to make more money.

They hope to leave a legacy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hop David

Correct.

Space exploration is one of my passions. I very much want to see the human species break the bounds that confine us.

Is it possible? I don't know. I like to look at arguments pro and con. Devil's advocates are valuable, for two reasons:

1) If a goal's futility can indeed be demonstrated that saves wasted time and effort.

2) If an idea truly does have merit, a single thoughtful devil's advocate can be more helpful in bringing it to fruition than 100 enthusiastic fans.

But Murphy isn't a thoughtful Devil's advocate. He is a passionate zealot trying to debunk any ideas that he perceives as distracting to his message.

I actually agree with Murphy's central theme that we should consume less and conserve our resources. Exponential economic growth is indeed unsustainable.But having a worthy message doesn't give him license to use dishonest or wrong arguments. In fact that only subtracts from his credibility and is counterproductive to his goals.

Murphy's math is wrong and his straw man scenarios are downright silly. What is worse is he presents these arguments in a condescending tone. Murphy's fans echo this tone. Know this: you're in no position to be condescending.



One thing at a time. As you've guessed, I Google to find discussions where people are citing Murphy to "prove" space resources are futile. My first goal is to debunk Murphy's flawed arguments.

You, Claude Glass and Griggle have embraced Murphy's Stranded Resources. But none of you have answered my criticisms. Vaguely waving your hands and mumbling about 100s of other problems Murphy didn't discuss isn't a defense. It's a dishonest smokescreen.



Do you know who Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are? They have more money than they could spend in 10 lifetimes. And rightly so, their company's services are immensely useful.

If they did offer PR shares on the stock market (which they haven't done yet), the revenues would be a small fraction of the founder's assets. That they would destroy their reputations for a two bit scam is ludicrous.

It is pretty clear that these wealthy investors aren't in it to make more money.

They hope to leave a legacy.

Hop David, all I did was link to his site. I'm not necessarily a fan, nor trying to be dishonest. I stopped engaging with you because you jumped in here and immediately started to make condescending criticisms to those of us who think there are substantial obstacles to, and more important priorities than, mining asteroids. You might have some valid arguments regarding his maths but your whole tone puts me off, and it seems to me you are more interested in proving him wrong than looking at what may be faults with the proposition because you really want to see it work. When you ask questions like "Do you know who Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are?" it's really very annoying. You might regularly come across a few ignorant types in Ajo, Arizona but I think you should stop underestimating the people on this forum if you want any kind of respect for your hobbyist's interest in mathematics.

You know, even though I sorta agree with the points raised, I also have to agree with Claude's point about your tone.

You're not doing yourself any favours being condescending.

I know you haven't been here long, but claude, griggle and a few others present pretty logical, coherent arguments and don't really deserve that.

Just to be clear Hop:

I'm not saying space mining is impossible. Quite clearly we have managed to engage in space mining since the 1960's when the moon landing brought back moon rocks from the moon.

I'm questioning the economics of it all.

Just to be clear even with your 7m wide 500 ton mass asteroid (well more mass for a platinum rich asteroid but I digress) at a cost of $2.6B per retrieval and given a platinum price of $48,000,000 a ton that means 55 tons of the asteroid would have to be platinum group metals simply to cover the costs of moving the asteroid to HLO. And then they still have to refine the metal and transport it too market.

Unless the price of platinum group metals rises I simply don't think they can generate enough revenue from the platinum under current market conditions considering all the other costs associated in the business.

So basically they need to find asteroids that have 20%+ platinum content to even consider being able to make a profit. If the other costs associated with doing business are higher than the cost of transporting an asteroid to HLO they may actually need even higher percentages. Given we know one of their costs will be capturing non-platinum rich asteroids for fuel - which also costs $2.6B a shot - I think it's pretty fair to extrapolate that they are really looking at finding asteroids with 30-50%+ platinum content to make a profit. Which doesn't really seem like a reasonable proposition.

Quite possibly if they find a giant asteroid packed with platinum group metals they could refine the metal at the asteroid then send back 7m chunks of pure platinum to HLO. But that comes with it's own problems. First they then need to transport a refinery to the asteroid and then maintenance of the refinery becomes a problem as does loading the return craft with robotics. Not insurmountable problems but again all of this costs money.

Then we come to risk. I haven't actually brought it up considering that it doesn't look like their plan is economical simply based on their predicted operating costs but once you factor in the risks associated with space mining over terrestrial mining they are actually going to need an even higher profit margin of space mining to cover the risk of space craft malfunctioning, being hit by micrometeorites, Ex-NASA workers getting metric and imperial measurements confused while planning orbital trajectories, having the Chinese government hack the land craft through backdoors built into their Huawei communications equipment (used to reduce costs) and making it land in Beijing, etc.

Given the massive expenses of sending retrieval/maintenance crews/robots up to fix the problem in reality you are looking at them needing 50% platinum composition asteroids to even stand a chance of consistently making a profit.

Unless South Africa's mines suddenly run dry or disappear under water due to global warming I doubt there will be a price spike in platinum prices high enough to justify the capital outlay. Now when we run out of helium in a few decades, helium mining on the moon may become viable but this essentially is the problem with their business plan. If it is cheaper to source the material from a terrestrial source than from space there is no point mining it in space. Unless you hate capitalism.

so Planetary Resources are teaming up with Virgin Galactic
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...-galactic.html

For any lawyers looking for new territory apparently space law is the next big thing... seriously.

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

For any lawyers looking for new territory apparently space law is the next big thing... seriously.

I declare Martian Law!