Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I Heart Radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And at this time for another classic
Speaker 1: episode of tech Stuff. The episode you are about to
Speaker 1: hear originally published on June four, two thousand twelve. It
Speaker 1: is called text Stuff Minds Some Asteroids. And I remember
Speaker 1: when we recorded this because it was kind of funny.
Speaker 1: It was right around the same time that Stuff you
Speaker 1: should Know, was recording an episode about asteroid mining, and
Speaker 1: we didn't know that they were doing it, and they
Speaker 1: didn't know we were doing it. So there was a
Speaker 1: bit of a rush, a gold rush if you will,
Speaker 1: on asteroid mining podcasts. That all came out of How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works at around the same time, but it was
Speaker 1: completely uncoordinated, because that's how we roll here at podcast World.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoy this classic episode. I'll be
Speaker 1: back in just a moment to to um. So that
Speaker 1: was that was a hint. Actually it would be more
Speaker 1: like running Coward. We're talking today about asteroids. We did
Speaker 1: an episode about you know, figuring out how to deflect
Speaker 1: an asteroid if it were coming towards the Earth in
Speaker 1: a in a threatening manner, like it said, it's a
Speaker 1: nice play. You got here be a shame with someone
Speaker 1: I don't know, flattened it. Um, So, apart from dealing
Speaker 1: with asteroids trying to extort your planet for for various resources,
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about extorting asteroids for resources. I'm
Speaker 1: a little frightened right now. I'm a little goofy right now.
Speaker 1: Bonus points if you get the reference to the video
Speaker 1: game in which you do mind asteroids. Yes, so we're
Speaker 1: talking about asteroid mining and why would we do it, what,
Speaker 1: how would we do it, and what's going on with
Speaker 1: that whole idea anyway out? Before we get started, I
Speaker 1: should mention we do on how stuff works. Dot Com
Speaker 1: have an article about how asteroid mining will work. The
Speaker 1: will there is important because as of this moment we
Speaker 1: are not mining asteroids. We have um ideas about how
Speaker 1: we would do this, and there is in fact a
Speaker 1: company that exists right now that plans on mining asteroids,
Speaker 1: but that even that plan is about a decade out
Speaker 1: from fruition, assuming everything goes well. Yeah, just just for
Speaker 1: the record, I want to say that I'm I'm coming
Speaker 1: up with my own company to pan for asteroids. I'm
Speaker 1: not certain exactly how we'll do it, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make an effort. I claim that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of them on the ground of the Georgia Renaissance Festival,
Speaker 1: which is you know, most people would just call it gravel,
Speaker 1: but I maintain it's actually asteroids, and that they are
Speaker 1: they're they're intruding upon my property because I claim them.
Speaker 1: Because well, we'll get into the complications of the legal
Speaker 1: system and mining for asteroids and a little bit because well,
Speaker 1: we're treading new ground in space. Well, that's that's true. Actually,
Speaker 1: some of the people involved with this company are are
Speaker 1: very interested in space anyway. I mean, they have been
Speaker 1: sort of citizens supporters of the space effort, you might say,
Speaker 1: people like Larry Page and Eric Schmidt yes, Googlers yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And James Cameron Yes, who has has made a movie
Speaker 1: or two involving space exploration. Um documentaries, I should say, right,
Speaker 1: he's done some documentaries about ocean stuff as well space stuff. Yes.
Speaker 1: Game over man. So so we're gonna talk a bit
Speaker 1: about let's talk a bit about in general, about mining
Speaker 1: asteroids and why you would want to. Here's why if
Speaker 1: we ever want to get to a point where we're
Speaker 1: getting off this rock to move to some other rock. Uh,
Speaker 1: one of the big problems that faces us is where
Speaker 1: do we get our raw materials in order to make
Speaker 1: the kind of infrastructure we will require in order to say,
Speaker 1: survive somewhere else. It's not like you can go and
Speaker 1: take it all with you, not easily anyway, because well
Speaker 1: and right now there really is no way because the
Speaker 1: last cargo carrying UH ships that we use, the Space Shuttle,
Speaker 1: are retired. So now we have to build specific vehicles
Speaker 1: to launch stuff out there into space because the vehicles
Speaker 1: we would have used are no longer in service. But um,
Speaker 1: and there's no at least in the United States, there's
Speaker 1: no plan to replace them anytime soon, so at least
Speaker 1: not by the government. Privately could be a different issue.
Speaker 1: In fact, privately is really where all this is is
Speaker 1: falling upon. But if we were to try and create
Speaker 1: a colony, say upon the Moon's surface or on Mars,
Speaker 1: we would need to be able to get materials to
Speaker 1: that place in order to create the right environment for
Speaker 1: to sustain life. Because I don't know if you realize this,
Speaker 1: but they are both rather hostile environments when it comes
Speaker 1: to human survivability not survive. Yeah, if you've if you've
Speaker 1: seen the documentary Total Recall, you know that if you
Speaker 1: were to take your mask off in Mars, your eyes
Speaker 1: would pop out of your head and uh, you would
Speaker 1: turn into Donald Schwarzenegger. Um little and in fact, okay,
Speaker 1: for in reality, we could not survive in either place
Speaker 1: without life support systems. Right, So how do we get
Speaker 1: the stuff we need to the plants, including things like
Speaker 1: water and oxygen? That's part of it. Actually we would
Speaker 1: we would likely ship stuff in various kinds of of
Speaker 1: of vessels. But when you absolutely positively need it there
Speaker 1: in three months, it would be so much better if
Speaker 1: we could get that material either from wherever it is
Speaker 1: we land or nearby asteroids. And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: a lot of asteroids have materials in them that would
Speaker 1: be very useful in either life support features or in
Speaker 1: building out an infrastructure itself. And uh, in fact, in
Speaker 1: our article we talk about three basic categories of asteroids.
Speaker 1: All right, there's the C type asteroid, which is the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the types that we would find in
Speaker 1: our Solar system. And by the way, we mainly think
Speaker 1: that asteroids are sort of remnants of the formation of
Speaker 1: the Solar system. Yeah, so in some cases leftovers. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's from uh perhaps a collision, an interstellar collision, but
Speaker 1: mostly it's just leftovers from the Solar system itself forming.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like you know when you take
Speaker 1: apart piece of electronic equipment or car's engine and you
Speaker 1: reassemble it, and then there's the there's pieces. I think
Speaker 1: of it as any time I buy anything from Ikea,
Speaker 1: and I think, oh, there's some pieces here that should
Speaker 1: have been used in the formation of this cabinet, and
Speaker 1: yet here they are in my hand, and I don't
Speaker 1: see any place to put them in. Three years later,
Speaker 1: all my dishes break. The two are the two I
Speaker 1: maintain are not connected. No one tell my wife anyway.
Speaker 1: So the Yeah, the the asteroids. You would expect to
Speaker 1: find many of the same elements within asteroids as you
Speaker 1: would find within the various planets and other bodies in
Speaker 1: our Solar System, And as it turns out, that is
Speaker 1: exactly the case. So in the C type of asteroid,
Speaker 1: which comprises about of the asteroids in our Solar system.
Speaker 1: They have uh a lot of the same elements that
Speaker 1: you would find in our in the Sun, apart from
Speaker 1: hydrogen and helium and other volatile elements, because they would
Speaker 1: have boiled off into space, which is really too bad
Speaker 1: because helium mining for helium would be great because, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, we're running out on Earth, and you know,
Speaker 1: the main culprit of why we're running out of helium
Speaker 1: on Earth, that's right, it's crazy to think about. But
Speaker 1: those party balloons that we enjoy oh so very much
Speaker 1: are actually a problem in scientific research because helium is
Speaker 1: very useful for doing things like using it as a
Speaker 1: cooling agent. You know, the large Hadron collider uses liquid
Speaker 1: helium to get the superconductors as cold as possible to
Speaker 1: reduce electrical resistance. But meanwhile, little Timmy, who's speaking a
Speaker 1: long the has been brilliant in his balloon all day long,
Speaker 1: has just to set scientific research back for decades. Thanks Timmy,
Speaker 1: happy freaking birthday. You can switch to hydrogen. I can't
Speaker 1: see a problem with that. And looking for balloons get
Speaker 1: too near the birthday, can right? Yeah, so hydrogen combustible,
Speaker 1: don't put it near the birthday. Candles um, unless you
Speaker 1: know you don't like timmy anyway. Moving on, so let's
Speaker 1: see type of asteroid. Then we've also got the S
Speaker 1: type of asteroid. This is about sev of the asteroids
Speaker 1: we would find in our Solar system, and they contain magnesium, nickel,
Speaker 1: and iron. These are very useful elements. Uh. The M
Speaker 1: type asteroid not an M type planet, as we learned
Speaker 1: in Star Trek, which by the way, no scientific basis there.
Speaker 1: They just decided to call it M type planet to
Speaker 1: mean any sort of earth like planet that human being
Speaker 1: could survive upon. You No M is for my planet.
Speaker 1: So the M type asteroids have uh, nickel and iron.
Speaker 1: And so once we see these asteroids out there, and
Speaker 1: we you know, most of them exist between Mars and
Speaker 1: Jupiter and a belt, an asteroid belt. You may remember
Speaker 1: famous explorations of asteroid belts, like in the documentary UH
Speaker 1: Empires Strikes Back, which was had a very expirited exploration
Speaker 1: of an asteroid belt. What, yes, they have giant animals
Speaker 1: on them? They do not. That is that's me being
Speaker 1: silly again. But no, the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter,
Speaker 1: that's where the majority of the asteroids in our Solar
Speaker 1: System reside, but sometimes they break free from that belt
Speaker 1: and they float around in space. Occasionally they come near
Speaker 1: the Earth. Near being a relative term. We're talking in
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands and thousands of miles, but that's still
Speaker 1: relatively close when you think space is enormous. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we would probably be targeting the asteroids that break free
Speaker 1: first because maybe the easiest to get to getting to
Speaker 1: the asteroids beyond Mars would take so much time that
Speaker 1: perhaps by the time they would get back with whatever
Speaker 1: resources you are trying to mind, you might not have
Speaker 1: anything to build anymore. So, uh, the asteroids that break free,
Speaker 1: we can actually determine what type of asteroid they are
Speaker 1: based upon the way they reflect light. And that's because
Speaker 1: different materials reflect light in different ways, and you will
Speaker 1: get a different spectrum if you were to uh to
Speaker 1: measure that light and based upon the the composition of
Speaker 1: the light that you are looking at. Based upon that,
Speaker 1: you can determine what kind of elements are in that
Speaker 1: asteroid and you could figure out, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: a perfect candidate for us to go in mind, and
Speaker 1: there are other elements that could also be on on
Speaker 1: an asteroid, including oxygen. Uh, platinum, gold, both of both
Speaker 1: gold and platinum are very useful in electronics, and uh,
Speaker 1: perhaps even water. So you might be able to find
Speaker 1: frozen water on an asteroid, which could be obviously very
Speaker 1: important to human survival. So if you find a few
Speaker 1: asteroids with frozen water on it and you mind them,
Speaker 1: you get the water off of that, you bring it
Speaker 1: to whatever space colony you have, then you can have
Speaker 1: not just water, but also oxygen. And I understand too
Speaker 1: that it's possible that rarer Earth metals might be on
Speaker 1: some of these asters and golden platinum kind of fall
Speaker 1: into that category, but but others as well. There's and
Speaker 1: and these are very important, like I said, in electronics.
Speaker 1: You know, platinum, as it turns out, is very useful
Speaker 1: in electronics, but is also very rare on Earth. So
Speaker 1: again one of those things where we would be able
Speaker 1: to to exploit a an asteroid without having to do
Speaker 1: the same thing on the surface of the planet. You know,
Speaker 1: clearly mining on Earth can be a very disruptive process.
Speaker 1: It can be ecologically disastrous depending on how you're mining
Speaker 1: and what it is you're mining. Um, So if we
Speaker 1: were able to offload that literally to an asteroid, then
Speaker 1: that would be beneficial, not just from a resources standpoint,
Speaker 1: but an ecological standpoint, because I mean, really, who cares
Speaker 1: if your asteroid is falling apart, right, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's no one there. Um. So using telescopes we look
Speaker 1: at these asteroids, we determine what is what those asteroids
Speaker 1: are made of based on the light that's coming back,
Speaker 1: and then that would allow us to say which ones
Speaker 1: are good candidates for mining. Now, how would we actually
Speaker 1: mind the asteroids? Okay, Um, that's a good question, I'll admit. Uh.
Speaker 1: Turns out, um, no one has the answer right now
Speaker 1: because because we're just not there yet. Even the company
Speaker 1: that we were talking about, which is called Planetary Resources.
Speaker 1: Planetary Resources, they come out and they admit the like, um,
Speaker 1: we don't know how we're going to mind these asteroids
Speaker 1: because that's a decade out at best. What we're gonna
Speaker 1: do is we're gonna build the machines that can identify asteroids,
Speaker 1: detect asteroids, travel to asteroids, and by the time we
Speaker 1: get to that point, hopefully we figured out what the
Speaker 1: best way of mining these asteroids would be. Now, from
Speaker 1: what I've understood so far in my study of this
Speaker 1: comprehensive study of asteroid mining. Uh, they're hoping that they
Speaker 1: can do a lot of work with robots, which makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense. You want to have an you want to
Speaker 1: have these robotic devices to mine and asteroid because, uh,
Speaker 1: mining mining on its own is dangerous, right, and then
Speaker 1: you add in the the dangers of space travel, which
Speaker 1: are numerous and certainly deadly. You do not want to
Speaker 1: put human lives at risk if you don't have to.
Speaker 1: So a robotic force makes a lot of sense. I
Speaker 1: mean it. It certainly takes away from great documentaries like Armageddon,
Speaker 1: where you know, because I doubt that the robots would
Speaker 1: all get together and sing leaving on a jet plane.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, it means that those lives
Speaker 1: would be relatively safe. Yeah. You think about this and
Speaker 1: in the way that you might actually tackle the problem yourself,
Speaker 1: and you realize that there are several significant challenges. Let's
Speaker 1: say money as no object. Even getting there challenge is
Speaker 1: a challenge. Landing on the asteroids safely is going to
Speaker 1: be a challenge. Mining the asteroids resources another challenge, and
Speaker 1: then getting back right loading them into your vehicle, which
Speaker 1: would have to be designed so that not only could
Speaker 1: it travel to the asteroid, but it could bring a
Speaker 1: payload back from the asteroid to Earth. Now, granted, when
Speaker 1: you're not dealing with gravity out in space, that it's
Speaker 1: a little easier to do in the sense that you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about escaping gravity in order to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the payload is not gonna affect you in
Speaker 1: that sense. But there are other issues as well, like
Speaker 1: how will the mining activity change the behavior of the asteroid. So,
Speaker 1: if the asteroid, for example, is an orbit around Earth,
Speaker 1: if you start mining the asteroid, is that going to
Speaker 1: alter the orbit of the asteroid? Is it going to
Speaker 1: possibly either push it to a point where it's going
Speaker 1: away from Earth, which means that you're going to have
Speaker 1: to take down to consideration, when you're flying back, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to make sure you have enough fuel to
Speaker 1: make it back to Earth um or that you know
Speaker 1: you've got enough whatever you need enough power there to
Speaker 1: get back, or if it brings it closer to Earth
Speaker 1: than you have, the consideration of could this potentially create
Speaker 1: an impact arc where the asteroid could hit Earth And
Speaker 1: in some cases, you know, maybe the asteroids of a
Speaker 1: size that it wouldn't necessarily hold together and perhaps it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be as big an impact. But anytime you're talking
Speaker 1: about an impact at that speed, I mean forces mass
Speaker 1: times acceleration, right, So even if your mass isn't very big,
Speaker 1: if your acceleration is really high, that's that's a lot
Speaker 1: of force. So even a relatively small asteroid, if it's
Speaker 1: not going to burn up, could be pretty the disastrous
Speaker 1: thing that hit the Earth, especially depending on where, I mean,
Speaker 1: even in the ocean. Then you're talking about tsunamis things
Speaker 1: like that. So yeah, there there's that element as well.
Speaker 1: And when you're mining it, how do you collect what
Speaker 1: you're mining? That's that's an interesting problem too, because if
Speaker 1: you're if you're talking about an area where there's no gravity,
Speaker 1: and let's say you're breaking apart the surface of the
Speaker 1: asteroid in order to get at some resources underneath, then
Speaker 1: you have to have some way of catching that stuff
Speaker 1: as it's floating away. So there's talk about perhaps the
Speaker 1: would be some sort of canopy system so that you
Speaker 1: would have essentially like a net that would catch stuff
Speaker 1: as it flew off the asteroids, so that you didn't
Speaker 1: lose the resources you're trying to mind, Uh, Frank, you
Speaker 1: have a lot. And then there's also the case of
Speaker 1: you know, what is the specific method of mining. Are
Speaker 1: you using lasers to try and weakend and break apart material,
Speaker 1: are you using other forms of heat? Are you using chemicals? Um?
Speaker 1: Are you using physical force? You know that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of considerations to make, and frankly, no one
Speaker 1: has come up with the right approach yet because we
Speaker 1: still haven't tried it. You know, it may very well
Speaker 1: be that the first dozen times we try to mine
Speaker 1: asteroids we realize there's got to be a better way
Speaker 1: because this method is not efficient enough. If the process
Speaker 1: takes more money, time and effort, then you would uh,
Speaker 1: then you would have if you tried to get those
Speaker 1: resources some other way. Then clearly that's not the right answer.
Speaker 1: That's all you're doing is storing money away. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of questions to answer at this point.
Speaker 1: But let's let's talk a little bit about planetary resources. Now.
Speaker 1: We've mentioned it a couple of times, and we talked
Speaker 1: about how people like James Cameron and Eric Schmidt and
Speaker 1: Larry Page are interested in supporting this company, and you
Speaker 1: might think, well, why why would we worry about why
Speaker 1: would we want to support a company that has admitted
Speaker 1: that the earliest they expect to be able to actually
Speaker 1: mind an asteroid would be ten years from now. And
Speaker 1: part of it is that actually is what I've seen,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, uh, I was reading an article from
Speaker 1: Forbes and and in the article they did an interview
Speaker 1: with some executives from Planetary Resources, and they talked about
Speaker 1: why company this company is an interesting company and why
Speaker 1: it may be able. And it's already making money now
Speaker 1: right now, it's making money through investment, but it's also
Speaker 1: going to It's got revenue generation plans for each step
Speaker 1: in the journey to having a mining asteroid operation or
Speaker 1: astro remining operation. I'm having some issues with some word
Speaker 1: order anyway, order word. The first stage is talking about
Speaker 1: creating a space faring telescope called the ARKID one hundred,
Speaker 1: and they're expecting to be able to do this within
Speaker 1: the next two years. And this is UH telescopes with
Speaker 1: remote sensing technology. And the idea is to launch around
Speaker 1: six or so of these telescopes into low Earth orbit
Speaker 1: and each one would be part of a second It
Speaker 1: would be a secondary payload. So in other words, you
Speaker 1: would not send a spacecraft up loaded down with these telescopes,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Um. Instead, what would happen is, let's
Speaker 1: say some communications company wants to launch a new communication
Speaker 1: satellite and enters into a contract with a private company
Speaker 1: that's going to launch the satellite. Then Planetary Resources could say, hey,
Speaker 1: you've got this much cargo space left over in the vehicle,
Speaker 1: can we put one of our telescopes in there with
Speaker 1: your communication satellite and have it deployed in that same mission.
Speaker 1: And thus it will save money in that it's not
Speaker 1: having a dedicated flight just for the telescopes. That's the idea. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Chris and I have to go digging on some more
Speaker 1: asteroids in just a moment, but first we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break to thank our sponsor. So these telescopes
Speaker 1: would be able to look out into space with the
Speaker 1: idea that they're they're looking for asteroids, so it's asteroid
Speaker 1: location identification, uh, that sort of thing. This could be
Speaker 1: useful for lots of other purposes though, and so the
Speaker 1: thought behind Planetary Resources is that they could even rent
Speaker 1: out time on these telescopes for other facilities so that
Speaker 1: they could do research on, you know whatever, some astronomical
Speaker 1: approach and so these telescopes, which are you know, when
Speaker 1: you're floating in space, you've got some you can get
Speaker 1: some really nice pictures of stuff because you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about atmospheric interference and um. And so you
Speaker 1: might be able to make quite a bit of money
Speaker 1: essentially leasing out these telescopes. Also, I like the idea
Speaker 1: that one of the other benefits to this approach is
Speaker 1: the possibility of being able to identify potentially problematic asteroids
Speaker 1: much earlier than otherwise we might be able to, because
Speaker 1: I mean that is that's a legitimate concern as well.
Speaker 1: There are there are plenty of astronomers out there who
Speaker 1: say we need to be able to identify asteroids that
Speaker 1: could potentially become a problem um, and then be able
Speaker 1: to come up with a solution to that problem. And
Speaker 1: we talked about that in our our podcast about as
Speaker 1: could an asteroid destroy the art and what could we
Speaker 1: do to stop that? As it turns out, blowing it
Speaker 1: up is the wrong answer, by the way, spoiler alert, UM,
Speaker 1: that's a great episode. You should listen to it. There's
Speaker 1: lots of other points we make in it besides don't
Speaker 1: blow it up. Um. One of the interesting things too
Speaker 1: about these telescopes is we're not talking about something the
Speaker 1: size of say that the Hubble telescope. These are actually
Speaker 1: very small and could be held in your hand, um,
Speaker 1: and the company expects to that it could cost less
Speaker 1: than uh ten million dollars, which you know, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty small amount really when you start talking about space exploration.
Speaker 1: So it is an easy way for them to, if
Speaker 1: you'll pardon the pun, get off the ground with the
Speaker 1: effort and then their next phase, so that our Kid one,
Speaker 1: phase one, phase two is our KID two hundred series.
Speaker 1: Now this is of course something you know, even though
Speaker 1: our Kid one is in the prototype stage or or
Speaker 1: the research and planning stage, our Kid two hundred would
Speaker 1: be the next the next generation, and uh these would
Speaker 1: be equipped with additional stuff on it to help the
Speaker 1: telescope maintain a higher orbit. So the one series would
Speaker 1: be in a low Earth orbit, so essentially falling towards
Speaker 1: the Earth all the time. The two hundred would be
Speaker 1: in a higher orbit and would be equipped to track
Speaker 1: asteroids and also have proportional propulsion systems built into the
Speaker 1: telescope itself so that uh you could change their orientation
Speaker 1: and orbit path from the ground. So you might think, um,
Speaker 1: I we spotted this one asteroid, but we're not in
Speaker 1: an ideal position in order to really hone in on it.
Speaker 1: So we're going to move the telescope so that we
Speaker 1: can get a better look. That kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: then again they would be leasing this out as well.
Speaker 1: Then you have the three hundred series. That's that's the
Speaker 1: that's the final phase of the plan, and the three
Speaker 1: D series is this super cool series. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: this wills not an official designation then, not officially, I
Speaker 1: mean maybe internally. They have not communicated that to the press.
Speaker 1: But the super cool phase involves the ARCID three hundreds,
Speaker 1: which would be robotic, so they are no longer being
Speaker 1: controlled from the ground necessarily. They would. It would be
Speaker 1: a swarm of robotic devices that could work together in
Speaker 1: a network and communicate with each other. So let's say
Speaker 1: one spots and asteroid. Suddenly other ones can all hone
Speaker 1: in on that same asteroid, and all three could be
Speaker 1: gathering data simultaneously. One might be using spectography to figure
Speaker 1: out what is that asteroid made of. Others might be
Speaker 1: taking pictures or plotting the course of the asteroid. So
Speaker 1: you've got this sort of distributed computing model in space
Speaker 1: with robotic space probes slowly moving towards the singularity. And
Speaker 1: then these would be essentially the same sort of robots
Speaker 1: that would ultimately mine asteroids. They would work together to
Speaker 1: mind an asteroid. And how they would do that, well,
Speaker 1: we don't know, because, like I said, we haven't really
Speaker 1: determined what the best approaches, and even Planetary Resources says
Speaker 1: we have no idea how we're going to mind the
Speaker 1: asteroids yet. We know that we're gonna work on that problem,
Speaker 1: but we've got these other benchmarks we have to meet
Speaker 1: first before that can even become a consideration. So we're
Speaker 1: going to focus on achieving these goals, with the ongoing
Speaker 1: goal being let's figure out what the best approaches to
Speaker 1: mind these things. Once we have tracked it UH launched
Speaker 1: a a an intercept path with these these robotic entities,
Speaker 1: and then then we'll fix it out. You know, we'll
Speaker 1: burn that bridge when we come to it. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the UH, one of the goal as though that
Speaker 1: they're working on, is is actually eliminating one of the
Speaker 1: problems that Jonathan and I were talking about a few
Speaker 1: moments ago, because rather than bringing things back to Earth, necessarily.
Speaker 1: They're talking about the idea of creating, well, basically an
Speaker 1: interplanetary gas station. They want to to create a station where, uh,
Speaker 1: once you launch from Earth, you could stop to refuel
Speaker 1: and get more supplies, and the supplies would be replenished
Speaker 1: from asteroid mining. So you know, you could stop platinum,
Speaker 1: some water, some platinum, pick up a a big drink,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe a peak, and log stuckies in space. That's
Speaker 1: gonna make no sense to anyone who doesn't live in
Speaker 1: the Southeast. Yeah, you know, but that's all right, I'm
Speaker 1: okay with that. So United States, I should add, yeah,
Speaker 1: good point. Um. So yeah, I mean that's that's sort
Speaker 1: of the the uh the next step after that the yeah,
Speaker 1: I think uh. I think every glamorous. Every time the
Speaker 1: robots deliver more material to this interstellar gas station, I
Speaker 1: think there should be an alert on Earth, like whatever
Speaker 1: computer is designed to indicate that there's been a new delivery.
Speaker 1: I think that the the verbal alert should be good
Speaker 1: news everyone, because I can't believe we've gone this far
Speaker 1: talking about planetary resources and asteroid mining and we haven't
Speaker 1: referenced Futurama yet, so, which is an awesome show, but
Speaker 1: let's also talk about the legality of mining asteroids, because
Speaker 1: this is this is the funny part. This is kind
Speaker 1: of complicate because we're talking about stuff that no one's
Speaker 1: managed to do yet. So really we don't have a
Speaker 1: whole lot of laws about it because well, it really
Speaker 1: wasn't pertinent. You know, there's no reason to make a
Speaker 1: law because who was gonna do it? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's we talk about these kinds of things all
Speaker 1: the time, about uh going undersea and salvaging a wreck. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: a ship that that sunk, you know, six years ago,
Speaker 1: and depending on whether or not it's in international waters,
Speaker 1: it may fall into that wonderful category of finders keepers
Speaker 1: or or or you know. Do you have the right
Speaker 1: to build a base in Antarctica? Yes, um, you do,
Speaker 1: Yes I do. I've got got a certificate on my wall. Hey,
Speaker 1: because I have the right to do that. I haven't
Speaker 1: done it yet. I tried one in the Arctic, but
Speaker 1: then this thing crashed, and uh, I haven't heard from
Speaker 1: them in a while, So maybe I should check on that.
Speaker 1: There's a great carpenter up there too. I'm gonna check
Speaker 1: and see how how John the carpenter over there is doing. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of references. So so the question is
Speaker 1: if there is an asteroid in space, um, and three
Speaker 1: or four countries want to go mind it, who'se asteroid
Speaker 1: is it to mine? So here's here's where we stand.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen sixty seven, believe it or not, there
Speaker 1: was a document that was put into law called the
Speaker 1: Outer a Treaty. Now, I'm sure any aliens that exist
Speaker 1: out there would object to not being included in the
Speaker 1: utter Space Treaty. Yeah, and Kodos don't blame me anyway,
Speaker 1: joking aside, there was this, there's really is an Outer
Speaker 1: Space Treaty that was signed in nine and Article too
Speaker 1: specifically states outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies,
Speaker 1: is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty,
Speaker 1: by means or of use or occupation, or by any
Speaker 1: other means. Essentially saying you cannot fly up into space
Speaker 1: and say I claim this asteroid for Spain. You can't do.
Speaker 1: Why you could, but it wouldn't have any legality to it.
Speaker 1: I remember, even if you have a flag at the
Speaker 1: izard vans, even if you have a flag, it does
Speaker 1: not help. Yea, it doesn't work the way it did
Speaker 1: in Duck Dodgers in the twenty four and a half century.
Speaker 1: Like I said, this plan is not big enough for
Speaker 1: the two of us, So off you go. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen that cartoon probably I don't know, a hundred
Speaker 1: times at least. Well, I've been mining this here asteroid
Speaker 1: for the last twenty of seven minutes and I just
Speaker 1: discovered there's ads and them the our hills. Let's listen
Speaker 1: to one. According to this, no government agency could claim
Speaker 1: ownership of a celestial body. Uh. It does not cover
Speaker 1: private industry, because that just really wasn't in anyone's mind
Speaker 1: back in nineteen sixty seven. This was during the space
Speaker 1: race between the United States and the USSR the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: and both were trying to get to the Moon. And
Speaker 1: the thing was they didn't want anybody to say, you know,
Speaker 1: the Moon is our. We got there first, so it's ours.
Speaker 1: You know, we're gonna build military bases all over the
Speaker 1: Moon and you can't do anything about it. Ha han
Speaker 1: nanni booboo. So that was an issue. It was a concern.
Speaker 1: It was a legitimate concern. I mean, who knew where
Speaker 1: the limits could go. I mean, back in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: We didn't know if we were going to just do
Speaker 1: a quick visit to the Moon or if we were
Speaker 1: going to have a lunar colony. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, we had no way of knowing we
Speaker 1: would only send a handful of missions to the Moon
Speaker 1: and that would be it. Well, we were in there.
Speaker 1: We were in a time of of scientific excitement, I
Speaker 1: would say, I mean, they're they're right. People all over
Speaker 1: the world were excited about the idea of going out
Speaker 1: in a space and going and landing on the Moon.
Speaker 1: And we were also in the middle of a the
Speaker 1: Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: where people were concerned about the ideas of weaponizing space.
Speaker 1: Um still are and exactly and so uh, you know
Speaker 1: that this was a very real thing that the Outer
Speaker 1: Space Tree was was signed. Um. But now it's pertinent
Speaker 1: to asteroid mining as well. Yeah. So in general, lawyers,
Speaker 1: who are really the only people we can consult on
Speaker 1: matters of this nature, have said that they think in general,
Speaker 1: most lawyers anyway, so they think that really appropriation means
Speaker 1: that you cannot lay claim to an entire celestial body
Speaker 1: asteroids included, like in other words, you could not land
Speaker 1: on an asteroid and say it was yours. However, you
Speaker 1: there is nothing in that treaty that would prevent you
Speaker 1: from landing on the celestial body and mining the heck
Speaker 1: out of it. So if you landed on an asteroid
Speaker 1: and just started a mining operation, there's nothing in that
Speaker 1: treaty to say that that is illegal. However, you also
Speaker 1: could not, um you couldn't interfere with someone else's mining operation.
Speaker 1: That would be a problem. So if someone has already
Speaker 1: set up a mining operation on an asteroid, you could
Speaker 1: not try and land your mining asteroid right next to
Speaker 1: it and take over. That would be a problem. What
Speaker 1: you could do is land on the other side of
Speaker 1: the asteroid and start mining it from there. There's nothing
Speaker 1: stopping you from doing that, at least nothing in law
Speaker 1: right now. So you could have multiple companies mining the
Speaker 1: same asteroid from different points and it become kind of like,
Speaker 1: well like the Old West, when think of the gold
Speaker 1: rush in the Old West, and you have to think
Speaker 1: of all these different competing groups that we're trying to
Speaker 1: get pretty scarce resources, at least seemingly scarce resources. Uh,
Speaker 1: And you know there were a lot of um, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of a lot of little disagreements that
Speaker 1: popped up as a as a result of that. You
Speaker 1: might have heard of some of them, because the Wild
Speaker 1: West was kind of built on that among other things. Besides,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't just the gold rush, but that
Speaker 1: played a really large part. Well, we could see an
Speaker 1: equivalent asteroid rush. If someone, let's say, Planetary Resources, identifies
Speaker 1: an asteroid that is particularly rich with something like platinum,
Speaker 1: something that is really scarce on Earth, there could be
Speaker 1: a real rush to try and mind that as much
Speaker 1: as possible because it could be extremely profitable. Uh So,
Speaker 1: you might have multiple companies all hitting that asteroid at
Speaker 1: the same time. As long as you're not interfering with
Speaker 1: the other people, it's all fair game according to the treaty.
Speaker 1: And then once you start interfere in there and there's problems. Now,
Speaker 1: I would suspect that once we get closer to the
Speaker 1: reality of mining and asteroid we will see more laws
Speaker 1: put into place that clarify this because and again, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to make a law about something that we
Speaker 1: just can't do yet, and we we can start thinking
Speaker 1: about it, however, and I think that's the important thing
Speaker 1: is to start considering the various scenarios that could come
Speaker 1: out if asteroid mining becomes a reality, and anticipating that
Speaker 1: so that we can make laws that makes sense and
Speaker 1: protect the parties involved without giving preferential treatment to anyone. Um.
Speaker 1: It will also be interesting to see what happens if
Speaker 1: let's say that you find an asteroid that is positively
Speaker 1: latent with an element that is incredibly rare on Earth,
Speaker 1: like platinum? Uh, what does that do to the price
Speaker 1: of platinum? Would that actually impact the price? Would it
Speaker 1: affect profitability? Yeah, deep impact on the price of platinum.
Speaker 1: But would it would it possibly affect the price? Would it?
Speaker 1: Would that affect the profitability of the venture? In other words,
Speaker 1: could you actually be making less money mining because you
Speaker 1: have just made a scarce resource less scarce? Now, the
Speaker 1: planetary resources people said, look, we're going to be uh,
Speaker 1: we're going to be affected by the whole uh uh
Speaker 1: scarcity issue and the whole supply versus demand issue, just
Speaker 1: like anyone would be. However, we're seeing this less as
Speaker 1: a scarcity solution as it is an access solution because
Speaker 1: we need access to these materials. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: are our business should be profitable because we're giving companies
Speaker 1: access to materials they otherwise would not have. It's not that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about scarcity versus versus uh, whether
Speaker 1: it's it's plentiful, it's just really you need this, We've
Speaker 1: got it, we'll get it to you. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of which is kind of just really just looking at
Speaker 1: the same issue from a slightly different perspect now, whether
Speaker 1: or not that will hold true, or whether we'll see
Speaker 1: mining companies, you know, be initially incredibly successful and then
Speaker 1: end up falling into pieces because the stuff that they
Speaker 1: supply is so relatively plentiful that there's no longer demand
Speaker 1: for it that remains to be seen. I honestly don't
Speaker 1: think that that's something they're gonna have to worry about
Speaker 1: for probably two decades, you know, that first decade, just
Speaker 1: getting to the point where they can mind an asteroid
Speaker 1: in the second decade, worrying about how that's gonna fall
Speaker 1: out as far as supply versus demand, because it's just
Speaker 1: fall out. Huh, it's just not going to be uh.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna be an issue, at least
Speaker 1: not in the short term. But it's fascinating to think
Speaker 1: about nonetheless, and my favorite thing is just thinking about
Speaker 1: mining asteroids for water. I mean, that could be a
Speaker 1: huge benefit and and something that's truly necessary if we
Speaker 1: want to do a lot of interplanetary travel and and
Speaker 1: set up a colony somewhere else, because otherwise, the idea
Speaker 1: of having to send regular, uh regular missions filled with
Speaker 1: water so that whoever is living wherever can continue to survive,
Speaker 1: that's that's hard. Yeah, well, it's it's expensive to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, basically launched water into space. It's heavy. And
Speaker 1: also I can imagine that there's an ethical problem too,
Speaker 1: because you have so many people on the planet right
Speaker 1: now who do not have access to clean drinking water.
Speaker 1: That to suggest shooting clean drinking water into space for
Speaker 1: someone else, there's an ethical question that you there's not
Speaker 1: easy to answer. I agree. Now, if there's a way
Speaker 1: of bringing that water from asteroids back to Earth so
Speaker 1: that there's more clean water, then that's that's not so bad. However,
Speaker 1: really clean water again, just like just like the other issues,
Speaker 1: it's not really a scarcity problem. It's an access problem. Right.
Speaker 1: So we've got enough clean water right now to to
Speaker 1: help out everybody, but not everyone has access to it,
Speaker 1: So that's a perfect example of I was talking about
Speaker 1: before about scarcity versus access. But there there's more to
Speaker 1: it than just drinking water for astronauts because they they're
Speaker 1: talking about the possibility of breaking water down into its
Speaker 1: exygen and hydrogen. Oxygen and hydrogen for fuel. You can
Speaker 1: use that in fuel cells. Also oxygen you can use
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but you can
Speaker 1: use it for breathing. But yeah, it's not just helium.
Speaker 1: Are you serious? Yeah, that's I've been doing it for years.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. I have to try. I tried
Speaker 1: cutting it off after a while, but that did not
Speaker 1: go well. Yeah, I heard it. You were kind of
Speaker 1: blue after that? Yeah, no, I was. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was. There's there's just a time in my life
Speaker 1: where I was just feeling a little suffocated, you know.
Speaker 1: So anyway, enough of that. Weird, we're being silly. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's a fun topic to talk about and definitely
Speaker 1: but it has spawned a lot of jokes and references.
Speaker 1: But I'm interested to see how how far they can
Speaker 1: take it to see them actually succeed in it. Just
Speaker 1: yea to watch, and it's going to be expensive though,
Speaker 1: and honestly, we do have to come up with something
Speaker 1: along the lines of asteroid mining if we want to
Speaker 1: really make interplanetary travel a reality, because uh, it's just
Speaker 1: not feasible to to do everything from Earth and and
Speaker 1: rely upon that. Now, granted, we may also get to
Speaker 1: a point where we land on another celestial body that
Speaker 1: has its own natural resources that we can exploit. So planet, yes,
Speaker 1: so Mars may not be that planet. There might not
Speaker 1: be a whole lot on Mars that we could use,
Speaker 1: but there might be a moon, a moon somewhere that
Speaker 1: would be you know, that might have some resources that
Speaker 1: we could exploit. Um, so there's always that possibility as well.
Speaker 1: But that's definitely something that we have to develop in
Speaker 1: order for interplanetary travel to become a reality. So it
Speaker 1: is in the future if we want this to happen.
Speaker 1: And uh, I am really curious to see I would
Speaker 1: love to be able to revisit this in ten years
Speaker 1: and see how planetary resources went. That wraps up another
Speaker 1: classic episode of tech stuff those scamps. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed that episode, and if you have any questions
Speaker 1: or suggestions for future episodes, send me an email. The
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