WEBVTT - TechStuff Mines Some Asteroids 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:08.960 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.360 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.880 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.320 and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:26.200 Sitting across from me, as always, his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland, Hey, 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:34.800 there to to um So that was that was a hint. 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:40.560 Actually it would be more like rutten coward. We're talking 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:45.239 today about asteroids. We did an episode about, you know, 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.919 figuring out how to deflect an asteroid if it were 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.120 coming towards the Earth in a in a threatening manner. 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.320 Like it said, it's a nice play. You got here, 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:56.560 be a shame of someone I don't know flattened it, 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.720 um So, apart from dealing with asteroids trying to extort 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.640 your planet for for various resources, we wanted to talk 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.319 about extorting asteroids for resources. I'm a little frightened right now. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.039 I'm a little goofy right now. Bonus points if you 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.840 get the reference to the video game in which you 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.759 do mind asteroids. Yes, so we're talking about asteroid mining 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.480 and why would we do it? What how would we 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:24.280 do it, and what's going on with that whole idea. Anyway, now, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.200 before we get started, I should mention we do on 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.920 how stuff words dot com have an article about how 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.839 asteroid mining will work. The will there is important because 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.000 as of this moment, we are not mining asteroids. We 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.880 have um ideas about how we would do this, and 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.360 there is in fact a company that exists right now 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.480 that plans on mining asteroids, but that even that plan 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:53.960 is about a decade out from fruition, assuming everything goes well. Yeah, 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:55.800 just just for the record, I want to say that 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.720 I'm I'm coming up with my own company to pan 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.760 for asteroids. Yeah, I'm not certain exactly how we'll do it, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.880 but I'm gonna make an effort. I claim that there 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.080 are a lot of them on the ground of the 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.160 Georgia Renaissance Festival, which is you know, most people would 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.880 just call it gravel, but I maintain it's actually asteroids, 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.520 and that um they are they're they're intruding upon my property. 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.920 Claim them because well, we'll get into the complications of 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.560 the legal system and mining for asteroids, and a little 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:32.079 bit because well we're treading new ground in space. Well, 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.240 that's that's true. Actually, some of the people involved with 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.800 this company are are very interested in space anyway. I 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:43.080 mean they have been sort of citizens supporters of the 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.200 space effort, you might say, people like Larry Page and 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.959 Eric Schmidt yes, Googlers yes yes. And James Cameron yes, 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:56.400 who has m has made a movie or two involving 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:01.919 space exploration, um documentaries, I should say, right, he's done 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:07.120 some documentaries about ocean stuff as well as space stuff. Yes, 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.960 game over man. So, uh so we're gonna talk a 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.639 bit about let's talk a bit about in general about 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:18.320 mining asteroids and why you would want to Well, here's why. 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.359 If we ever want to get to a point where 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.119 we're getting off this rock to move to some other rock, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.040 one of the big problems that faces us is where 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.840 do we get our raw materials in order to make 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:34.600 the kind of infrastructure we will require in order to say, 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.160 survive somewhere else. It's not like you can go and 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.880 take it all with you, not easily anyway, because well 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.480 and right now there really is no way because the 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.920 last cargo carrying uh ships that we use, the Space Shuttle, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:54.040 are retired. So now we have to build specific vehicles 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.360 to launch stuff out there into space because the vehicles 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.840 we would have used are no longer in service. But um, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.000 and there's no at least in the United States, there's 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:10.640 no plan to replace them anytime soon. So not by 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.560 the government privately could be a different issue. In fact, 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.200 privately is really where all this is is falling upon. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.640 But if we were to try and create a colony, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.440 say upon the Moon's surface or on Mars, we would 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.839 need to be able to get materials to that place 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:31.480 in order to create the right environment for to sustain life. 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.560 Because I don't know if you realize this, but they 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:39.240 are both rather hostile environments when it comes to human survivability. 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.320 Not Yeah, if you've if you've seen the documentary Total Recall, 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:46.359 you know that if you were to take your mask 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.040 off in Mars, your eyes would pop out of your 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.800 head and uh, you would turn in Donald Schwarzenegger. Um 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.840 little and in fact okay, for in reality, we could 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.520 not survive in either place without life support systems. Right, 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:02.960 how do we get the stuff we need to the plants, 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.760 including things like water and oxygen? That's part of it. Actually, 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:12.440 we would we would likely ship stuff in various kinds 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.960 of of of vessels, but when you absolutely positively need 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:17.520 it there in three months, it would be so much 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.719 better if we could get that material either from wherever 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.599 it is we land or nearby asteroids. And as it 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.000 turns out, a lot of asteroids have materials in them 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.400 that would be very useful in either life support features 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:35.239 or in building out an infrastructure itself. And uh. In fact, 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:40.719 in our article we talk about three basic categories of asteroids. 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.200 All right, there's the C type asteroid, which is the 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:46.560 vast majority of the types that we would find in 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:50.520 our Solar system. And by the way, we mainly think 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.760 that asteroids are sort of remnants of the formation of 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:59.039 the Solar system. Yeah, so in some cases leftovers. Sometimes 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:05.160 it's from perhaps a collision, an interstellar collision, but mostly 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:10.039 it's just leftovers from the Solar system itself forming. So 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.120 it's sort of like you know when you take apart 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.880 piece of electronic equipment or car's engine and you reassemble it. 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.480 And then there's the there's pieces. I think of it 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:24.160 as any time I buy anything from Ikea, and I think, oh, 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.320 there's some pieces here that should have been used in 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.040 the formation of this cabinet, and yet here they are 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.080 in my hand, and I don't see any place to 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.240 put them in Three years later, all my dishes break. 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.520 The two are the two I maintain are not connected. 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:43.359 No one tell my wife anyway. So the yeah, the asteroids. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.240 You would expect to find many of the same elements 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.719 within asteroids as you would find within the various planets 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.159 and other bodies in our Solar System, and as it 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.720 turns out, that is exactly the case. So in the 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:03.160 C type of asteroid, which comprises about of the asteroids 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:07.360 in our Solar system, they have uh a lot of 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.600 the same elements that you would find in our in 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:16.239 the Sun, apart from hydrogen and helium and other volatile elements, 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:19.360 because they would have boiled off into space, which is 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.960 really too bad because helium mining for helium would be 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.760 great because, as it turns out, we're running out on Earth, 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.080 and you know, the main culprit of why we're running 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.280 out of helium on Earth, that's right, it's crazy to 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.360 think about, but those party balloons that we enjoy oh 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:39.640 so very much, are actually a problem in scientific research 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.160 because helium is very useful for doing things like using 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.600 it as a cooling agent. You know, the large hadron 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.960 collider uses liquid helium to get the super conductors as 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:53.480 cold as possible to reduce electrical resistance. But meanwhile, little 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.720 Timmy who's speaking long the has been brittied than in 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.840 a balloon all day long. Has just set scientific research 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:05.800 back four decades. Thanks Timmy, happy freaking birthday. You can 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.000 switch to hydrogen. I can't see a problem with that. 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.040 And look, of course the balloons get too near the 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.360 birthday can right, So yeah, so hydrogen combustible, don't put 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.440 it near the birthday candles unless you know you don't 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.880 like Timmy anyway. Moving on, so let's see type of asteroid. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.760 Then we've also got the S type of asteroid. This 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.720 is about se of the asteroids we would find in 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:32.559 our Solar system, and they contain magnesium, nickel, and iron. 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:37.440 These are very useful elements. Uh. The M type asteroid 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.199 not an M type planet, as we learned in Star Trek, 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.520 which by the way, no scientific basis there. They just 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.680 decided to call it M type planet to mean any 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.360 sort of earth like planet that human being could survive upon. 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.480 No M is for my planet. So the M type 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:01.760 asteroids have UH, nickel and iron, and so once we 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.040 see these asteroids out there, and we you know, most 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.480 of them exist between Mars and Jubiter and a belt 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:11.800 and asteroid belt. You may remember famous explorations of asteroid belts, 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.600 like in the documentary UH, Empires Strikes Back, which was 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:21.480 had a very expirited exploration of an asteroid belt. What, yes, 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.559 they have giant animals on them? They do not? That 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.720 is that's me being silly again. But no, the asteroid 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.559 belt between Mars and Jubiter, that's where the majority of 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.920 the asteroids in our Solar system reside. But sometimes they 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.360 break free from that belt and they float around in space. 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:39.480 Occasionally they come near the Earth. Near being a relative term. 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.880 We're talking in thousands and thousands and thousands of miles, 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.959 but that's still relatively close when you think space is enormous. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.559 So uh, we would probably be targeting the asteroids that 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.040 break free first because may be the easiest to get to. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.840 Getting to the asteroids beyond Mars would take so much 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.800 time that perhaps by the and they would get back 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.439 with whatever resources you were trying to mind, you might 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:09.080 not have anything to build anymore. So, uh, the asteroids 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:14.080 that break free, we can actually determine what type of asteroid. 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:17.800 They are based upon the way they reflect light. And 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.120 that's because different materials reflect light in different ways, and 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.480 you will get a different spectrum if you were to, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:30.040 uh to measure that light, and based upon the the 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.720 composition of the light that you are looking at. Based 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:36.040 upon that, you can determine what kind of elements are 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:38.679 in that asteroid, and you could figure out, oh, well, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.320 this is a perfect candidate for us to go and mind. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:45.000 And there are other elements that could also be on 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:49.080 on an asteroid, including oxygen, uh, platinum, gold, both of 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.400 both gold and platinum are very useful in electronics, and uh, 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.720 perhaps even water, so you might be able to find 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:01.720 frozen water on an asteroid, which could be obviously very 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.600 important to human survival. So if you find a few 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.240 asteroids with frozen water on it and you mind them, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:09.200 you get the water off of that, you bring it 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.480 to whatever space colony you have, then you can have 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:16.360 not just water, but also oxygen. And I understand too 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.760 that it's possible that rare earth metals might be on 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.080 some of these asters and gold and platinum kind of 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.200 fall into that category, but but others as well, others, 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.200 and and these are very important like I said, in electronics. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.160 You know, platinum, as it turns out, is very useful 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.640 in electronics, but is also very rare on Earth. So again, 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:37.520 one of those things where we would be able to 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.440 to exploit a an asteroid without having to do the 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:45.079 same thing on the surface of the planet. You know, 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.880 clearly mining on Earth can be a very disruptive process. 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:54.199 It can be ecologically disastrous depending on how you're mining 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.160 and what it is you're mining. Um, So if we 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:01.199 were able to offload that literally lee to an asteroid, 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.920 then that would be beneficial, not just from a resources standpoint, 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.240 but an ecological standpoint, because I mean, really, who cares 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.040 if your asteroid is falling apart, right, I mean there's 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:17.160 there's no one there. Um. So using telescopes we look 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:20.320 at these asteroids, we determine what is what those asteroids 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.720 are made of based on the light that's coming back, 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.120 and then that would allow us to say which ones 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.400 are good candidates for mining. Now, how would we actually 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:36.120 mind the asteroids? Okay, Um, that's a good question, I'll admit. Uh. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.480 Turns out, um, no one has the answer right now 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.040 because because we're just not there yet. Even the company 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:45.960 that we were talking about, which is called planetary resources. 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.560 Planetary resources, they come out and admit, like, um, we 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.080 don't know how we're going to mind these asteroids because 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.600 that's a decade out at best. What we're gonna do 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:00.520 is we're gonna build the machines that can identify asteroids, 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.080 detect asteroids, travel to asteroids, and by the time we 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.400 get to that point, hopefully we figured out what the 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.040 best way of mining these asteroids would be. Now, from 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.400 what I've understood so far in my study of this 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.840 comprehensive study of asteroid mining, Uh, they're hoping that they 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:22.000 can do a lot of work with robots, which makes 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.520 perfect sense. You want to have and you want to 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:30.160 have these robotic devices to mine and asteroid because, uh, 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.079 mining mining on its own is dangerous, right, and then 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.480 you add in the dangers of space travel, which are 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:44.680 numerous and certainly deadly. You do not want to put 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.320 human lives at risk if you don't have to. So 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:52.440 a robotic force makes a lot of sense. I mean it. 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:57.280 It certainly takes away from great documentaries like Armageddon, where 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:00.240 you know, because I doubt that the robots would all 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.200 get together and sing leaving on a jet plane but 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:05.600 on the other hand, it means that those lives would 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:10.640 be relatively safe. Yeah, you think about this and and 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.360 in the way that you might actually tackle the problem yourself, 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.880 and you realize that there are several significant challenges. Let's 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:21.160 say money is no object. Even getting there challenge is 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.640 a challenge. Landing on the asteroids safely is going to 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.720 be a challenge. Mining the asteroids resources another challenge, and 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.640 then getting back right loading them into your vehicle, which 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.200 would have to be designed so that not only could 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.040 it travel to the asteroid, but it could bring a 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.120 payload back from the asteroid to Earth. Now, granted, when 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.200 you're not dealing with gravity out in space, that is 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.200 a little easier to do in the sense that you 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.600 don't have to worry about escaping gravity in order to uh, 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.440 you know, the payload is not gonna affect you in 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.720 that sense. But there are other issues as well, like 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:58.080 how will the mining activity change the behavior of the asteroid? So, 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.600 if the asteroid, for example, is an orbit of round Earth, 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.120 if you start mining the asteroid, is that going to 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.440 alter the orbit of the asteroid? Is it going to 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.640 possibly either push it to a point where it's going 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.720 away from Earth? Which means that you're going to have 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.080 to take the end to consideration. When you're flying back, 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:15.800 you're gonna have to make sure you have enough fuel 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.800 to make it back to Earth um or that you 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.880 know you've got enough whatever you need, you know, enough 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.680 power there to get back, or if it brings it 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.440 closer to Earth, then you have the consideration of could 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.200 this potentially create an impact arc where the asteroid could 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:34.360 hit Earth? And in some cases, you know, maybe the 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:40.000 asteroids of a size that it wouldn't necessarily hold together 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.000 and perhaps it wouldn't be as big an impact. But 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.240 anytime you're talking about impact at that speed, I mean 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.880 forces mass times acceleration, right, so even if your mass 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.440 isn't very big, if your acceleration is really high, that's 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:58.000 that's a lot of force. So even a relatively small asteroid, 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.000 if it's not going to burn up, would be pretty 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.080 the disastrous thing if it hit the Earth, especially depending 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.240 on where I mean, even in the ocean. Then you're 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:10.320 talking about tsunamis things like that. So yeah, there there's 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.240 that element as well. And when you're mining it, how 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.440 do you collect what you're mining? That's that's an interesting 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.400 problem too, because if you're if you're talking about an 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.920 area where there's no gravity, and let's say you're breaking 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.360 apart the surface of the asteroid in order to get 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:28.080 at some resources underneath, then you have to have some 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.240 way of catching that stuff as it's floating away. So 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.080 there's talk about perhaps there'd be some sort of canopy 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.880 system so that you would have essentially like a net 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:39.920 that would catch stuff as it flew off the asteroid, 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:44.440 so that you didn't lose the resources you're trying to mind, uh, 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:50.360 Frankie Avalon. And then there's also the case of you know, 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.160 what is the specific method of mining? Are you using 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.760 lasers to try and weaken and break apart material, are 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.840 you using other forms of heat? Are you using chemicals? Um? 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.040 Are you using physical force? You know that there are 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.600 a lot of considerations to make, and frankly, no one 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.439 has come up with the right approach yet because we 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.920 still haven't tried it. You know, it may very well 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.280 be that the first dozen times we try to mine 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.480 asteroids we realize there's got to be a better way 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:24.120 because this method is not efficient enough. If the process 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:29.520 takes more money, time and effort, then you would uh, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.560 then you would have if you tried to get those 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.719 resources some other way, then clearly that's not the right 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.680 answer because all you're doing is storing money away. So 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.320 there are a lot of questions to answer at this point. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.520 But let's let's talk a little bit about Planetary Resources. Now. 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.520 We've mentioned it a couple of times, and we talked 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.040 about how people like James Cameron and Eric Schmidt and 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.560 Larry Page are interested in supporting this company. And you 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:56.320 might think, well, why why would we worry about why 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.760 would we want to support a company that has admitted 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.040 that the earliest they expect to be able to actually 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.840 mine an asteroid would be ten years from now. And 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:09.520 part of it is that actually what I've al right, well, uh, 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.760 I was reading an article from Forbes and and in 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.239 the article they did an interview with some executives from 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:21.680 Planetary Resources, and they talked about why company this company 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.480 is an interesting company and why it may be viable 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.000 and it's already making money now right now, it's making 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.720 money through investment, but it's also going to it's got 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:36.919 revenue generation plans for each step in the journey to 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:44.160 having a mining asteroid operation or ask remining operation. I'm 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.200 having some issues with some word order anyway, order word. 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:55.280 The first stage is talking about creating a space faring 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:59.920 telescope called the OAR Kid one hundred and they're expecting 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.600 to be able to do this within the next two years. 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:07.480 And this is UH telescopes with remote sensing technology. And 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:11.000 the idea is to launch around six or so of 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.400 these telescopes into low Earth orbit and each one would 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.560 be part of a second It would be a secondary payload. 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:21.280 So in other words, you would not send a spacecraft 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.199 up loaded down with these telescopes, and that's it. Um. Instead, 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:29.440 what would happen is, let's say some communications company wants 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.480 to launch a new communication satellite and enters into a 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.000 contract with a private company that is going to launch 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:39.280 the satellite. Then Planetary Resources could say, hey, you've got 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.200 this much cargo space left over in the vehicle. Can 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.760 we put one of our telescopes in there with your 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.200 communication satellite and have it deployed in that same mission. 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.439 And thus it will save money in that it's not 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:56.080 having a dedicated flight just for the telescopes. That's the 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.760 idea anyway, So these telescopes would be able to UH 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.040 look out into space. With the idea that they're they're 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:08.720 looking for asteroids, so it's asteroid location identification, uh, that 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.359 sort of thing. This could be useful for lots of 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:17.199 other purposes though, and so the thought behind Planetary Resources 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.040 is that they could even rent out time on these 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:25.320 telescopes for other facilities so that they could do research on, 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:29.639 you know whatever, some astronomical approach. And so these telescopes, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.720 which are you know, when you're floating in space, you've 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.080 got some you can get some really nice pictures of 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.880 stuff because you don't have to worry about atmospheric interference 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.159 and um. And so you might be able to make 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.560 quite a bit of money essentially leasing out these telescopes. Also, 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.040 I like the idea that one of the other benefits 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:50.240 to this approach is the possibility of being able to 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:56.880 identify potentially problematic asteroids much earlier than otherwise we might 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.040 be able to, because I mean, that is that's a 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:01.520 legitimate concern as well. There are there are plenty of 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.719 astronomers out there who say we need to be able 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:09.000 to identify asteroids that could potentially become a problem um 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.240 and then be able to come up with a solution 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:13.840 to that problem. And we talked about that in our 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.640 our podcast about as could an asteroid destroy the Earth 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.159 and what could we do to stop that? As it 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:21.919 turns out, blowing it up is the wrong answer, by 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.920 the way, spoiler alert. UM, that's a great episode. You 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.800 should listen to it. There's lots of other points we 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.200 make in it besides don't blow it up. Um. One 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.360 of the interesting things too about these telescopes is we're 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:36.720 not talking about something the size of say that the 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.879 Hubble telescope. These are actually very small and could be 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:44.080 held in your hand, um, and the company expects to 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.640 that it could cost less than uh ten million dollars, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.680 which you know, that's pretty small amount really when you 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.359 start talking about space exploration. So it is an easy 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.240 way for them to, if you'll pardon the pun, get 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:01.200 off the ground with the effort and then their next 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.719 phase so that our Kid one Phase one, Phase two 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.560 is ARCID two hundred series. Now this is of course 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:10.080 something you know, even though our Kid one is in 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.920 the prototype stage or or the research and planning stage, 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.920 our KID two hundred would be the next the next generation, 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:24.280 and uh these would be equipped with additional stuff on 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:28.920 it to help the telescope maintain a higher orbit. So 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.320 the one series would be in a low Earth orbit, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.840 so essentially falling towards the Earth all the time. The 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:37.240 two hundred would be in a higher orbit and would 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:41.399 be equipped to track asteroids and also have propostional propulsion 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:45.520 system is built into the telescope itself so that, uh, 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:50.399 you could change their orientation and orbit path from the ground. 0:22:51.000 --> 0:22:54.840 So you might think, um, I we spotted this one asteroid, 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:56.919 but we're not in an ideal position in order to 0:22:57.000 --> 0:22:58.879 really hone in on it. So we're going to move 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:02.399 the telescope, uh, so that we can get a better look. 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.159 That kind of thing. And then again they would be 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:08.200 leasing this out as well. Then you have the three 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.520 hundred series. That's that's the that's the final phase of 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.879 the plan, and the three hundred series is the super 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.879 Cool series. In my opinion, this would be a design then, 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:24.120 not officially, I mean maybe internally. They have not communicated 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:29.000 that to the press, but the super Cool phase involves 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:34.280 the ARCID three hundreds, which would be robotic, so they 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:37.080 are no longer being controlled from the ground necessarily. They 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:42.400 would It would be a swarm of robotic devices that 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:47.560 could work together in a network and communicate with each other. 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:51.160 So let's say one spots and asteroid. Suddenly other ones 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:53.840 can all hone in on that same asteroid, and all 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:57.600 three could be gathering data simultaneously. One might be using 0:23:57.920 --> 0:24:01.680 spectography to figure out what is that asteroid made of. 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:05.119 Others might be taking pictures are plotting the course of 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:08.639