WEBVTT - How to Mine an Asteroid 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.040 Forward Thinking either weyone and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:16.919 podcast that looks at the future and says, hey, where 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.439 do you keep your access and guns? I'm Jonathan Strickland 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.239 and I'm Joe McCormick. That's a reference to something that 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.720 happened off Mike Anyway, today, we wanted to talk about 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.360 mining really, you know, the future of mining mining, so 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.120 pick axes and uh I had to bring access back 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:38.800 to axes, shovels and lasers and seven dwarves follow snow 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.000 white around. No, we're actually talking maybe lasers. We're talking 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:47.680 about space mining at mining mining asteroids to be perfectly 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.240 uh specific. And the reason why we were talking about 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:53.559 this as well, I mean we've actually brought it up 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.560 on several episodes of Forward Thinking. Yeah, we referenced it 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.920 in the podcast. In the video about water we talked 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:03.680 we talked about a little bit with colonization as well, 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.160 and some more other space exploration. Yeah, and so it 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:09.959 came up often enough that we were like, well, let's 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.480 just dive in through the whole thing, right, And and 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.839 the reason why we would even look at mining asteroids 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.560 in the first place, with a couple of reasons. Right. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.759 There's one is that if we're going to really focus 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.600 on space exploration beyond just going to the Moon, I 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.080 sualy just going to the Moon, like that's no big deal, 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.640 But beyond beyond our immediate surroundings, Uh, it behooves us 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.360 to look at the potential for using other sources of 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.320 uh thing, everything from fuel to water to two materials 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.280 to actually build stuff, whether it's as space station or 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.840 a space colony or even another spacecraft. Uh. It helps 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.960 if we can get that material somewhere other than just 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.280 from Earth, because moving stuff from Earth to space is 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.160 not easy. It's it's not really economical. I mean it 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.559 costs what ten dollars a pound to to put stuff 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.280 in space. Yeah, that's the old NASA estimate is that 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.360 across the lifespan of the space program, it costs generally 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.360 about ten dollars a pound to take stuff up into 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.920 low or low Earth orbit, which is slightly more expensive 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.320 than the tuna I like to buy the loceral grocery store. Uh, 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:21.400 it's pretty crazy. Now, keep in mind that it's entirely 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:27.200 possible that this uh asteroid mining operation won't turn out 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:29.640 to be economical. We've got to say that all of 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.480 this is tentative, right, Sure, it's just based on estimates 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.959 and ideas of what might work. Nobody has been able 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.400 to do it yet, right. And and the possibility also 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.239 of of saving the environment a little bit of grief 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.920 from from you know, not having to drill into our 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.120 own Earth for these kind of resources is hypothetically groovy. 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.840 And there's also the possibility that certain elements that are 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.280 extremely rare on Earth could be slightly less rare when 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.280 you take the take into account all the asteroids out there. 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.440 So there's there's a chance that we could end up 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.520 getting material that we would actually use back here on 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.000 Earth from asteroids. Yeah, in both of the ways that 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.200 this could be economically feasible, it's based on sort of 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:16.680 the locality of economics that uh so, we could go 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:21.520 out to asteroids to get stuff that's extremely rare on Earth, 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:26.400 so rare that it's incredibly valuable. And these would be, 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:31.520 for example, platinum group metals very useful in lots of 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.839 different applications beyond just that looks shiny and pretty, so 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:40.520 extremely valuable here because of local rarity. But it's of course, 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:45.200 on the scale of the universe, not meaningfully scarce at all. Think, 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.200 I think everything on the scale the universe tends fairly 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.080 plentiful by our standards. And then, of course the other 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.600 half of that is that there are things that might 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:55.680 not be all that valuable here on Earth, but they're 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.520 tremendously valuable in space, but too people who are currently 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.080 in space u in trying to do stuff there. So 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.320 it goes both ways, but in each case the reason 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.840 it would make sense economically is because of local scarcity 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.720 and total scarcity. Right For example, one of the first 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.880 things that a lot of companies that are well, the 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.680 two major companies that have announced that they are seriously 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.440 looking into asteroid mining as an actual business. Um, the 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.839 thing that both of them are really focusing on early 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:32.440 on is water. Which water is not something that we 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.839 would necessarily want to or need to bring back to Earth. 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.440 The the problem with water on Earth, like fresh drinking 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.440 what on Earth is again a locality issue, not a 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.200 quantity issue as of right now. Um, some of it, well, 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.159 not just locality, but also what state it is in, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.359 whether it's solid or not. Yeah, So if you're living 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.839 in say a very parched desert region. The problem is 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.520 getting local clean water. And that's actually the same problem 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:05.159 that astronauts face spaces like a desert. Yeah. Yeah, you 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.000 don't really come by exactly if you look up at 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:13.720 the International Space Station that they have to just meticulously 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.400 recycle every molecule of water, and they still can't do 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:19.560 it perfectly. Right, They've got it. They've got it up 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:23.760 to like success rate or recovery rate I think. But 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:27.280 but even even that, even is over a long haul 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.479 is eventually you run out when it's something that humans need, 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.440 you know, and and this is this is something so 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:38.039 like there they are trained to be super efficient with water. Um, 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.800 imagine if you were trying to start a colony, or 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.080 you know, even worse, like trying to manufacture something in space. 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.440 I mean, in these cases we use tons of water, right, 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.280 We're not even aware of how much water we just 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.200 waste it? Would you know, drive these I S S 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.200 astronauts crazy? Well. And on top of that, water itself 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.320 is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, which are two 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.839 in radiants for rocket fuel. If you want to create 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:08.120 a propellant of some sort, then you could actually manufacture 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.840 propellant gathered from water. That you're getting out of asteroids. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.839 That's great, because the more propellant you need, the heavier 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.760 your rocket's going to be when you're launching it from Earth. 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:19.400 The heavier it's going to be, the more rocket you know, 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.479 it becomes a cycle where you have to start doing 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.400 these complicated calculations to figure out exactly how big your 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.880 your rocket needs to be in order to get everything 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.280 you want to get up into space and to its 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.279 final destination. Right. But if you can come across water 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.960 in space, you can separate water into its constituent elements, 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.200 which are hydrogen and oxygen, which are the ingredients you 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.960 need to make rocket propellant, right, and then you you're 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:49.360 able to to at least change your considerations when you're 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.800 actually at ground level. I mean, also you're talking about 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:57.080 the ability to do manufacturing and and construction out in space. 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.600 These are all things that are going to be invaluable 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.360 in the future. But then there's also the elements that 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.520 are getting increasingly rare on Earth that we are relying 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.840 upon in lots of manufacturing, things like gold and platinum 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.600 that we could in theory run out of a usable 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:18.240 supply within a few decades. So it's it's important stuff. Yeah, 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.480 we're actually um so, I think a lot of people 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:25.520 don't even know, Like what do you really use platinum for. Well, 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.160 one one of the big things I know now is 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:33.160 the auto industry. Sure, it's huge there because of catalytic converters. 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:37.120 It's also very popular in fuel cells. It's used in 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.000 fuel cell membranes. It's part of a catalyst. You when 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.880 you get platinum down to the nanoparticle size, it has 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:48.680 this uh catalyst effect on the the reactions that you 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:50.880 get in fuel cells where you have hydrogen on one 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.240 side oxygen on the other. The membrane allows hydrogen ions 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.960 to pass through, but not the electrons. The electrons go 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.240 and do work through a circuit. Then they recombine with 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.480 the hydrogen and oxygen on the other side. They output 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:05.280 you get as electricity, heat, and water. So the important 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.440 part there is that membrane and the platinum isn't uh 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.600 you know, without the catalyst there, this reaction really doesn't 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.559 take place on an efficient level to make a fuel 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:20.600 cell useful at all. So that's another important use of platinum. Yeah, 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.560 platinum is platinum and platinum group metals are actually generally 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:29.640 really useful as an oxidization catalyst in like the production 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.880 of chemicals on an industrial level. So UM, you can 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:38.839 use like platinum or platinum rhodium alloy catalysts UH to 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.480 catalyze up an oxidation of ammonia and that creates nitric 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:48.280 oxide UM and use nitric oxide to make fertilizer or 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:53.319 explosives or nitric acid that would use in other things. Right, 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.760 and quite a bit of the these materials that we're 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.880 talking about actually the reason why they're on Earth and 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:03.640 the first places because of ancient asteroid collisions. We're talking 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.520 about back when the Earth was cooling, partially because the 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.520 Earth and the asteroids that UH collided with the Earth 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.040 are all pretty much made up of the same stuff, 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.800 and so a lot of the these deposits came from originally, 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.320 if you go back a couple of few billion years, 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.480 came from asteroid impacts. So you know, it's not a 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.760 big leap to say let's go back out there and 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.200 look for more. UM. Well, I don't know. I would 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.960 say it is a big leap, but it's not an 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:38.479 unreasonable I think it's not a big leap, uh intellectually, 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.720 when you're talking about the practicality, Yes, getting getting it 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.640 done is hard. Yes, the idea of this is where 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.840 we should look makes sense. The idea of this is 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:49.680 how we're going to do it. That's a that's a 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.800 different conversation. Yeah. So one of the questions we'd want 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:56.040 to ask is how much is out there? And part 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:58.200 of the problem right now is we don't really know. 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.400 We we sort of have have to guess. And the 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.000 only way we would really end up knowing for sure 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.600 is to follow through with some of these survey missions 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:08.960 to get up close on these asteroids and and do 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:13.559 some more serious analysis. But because there's a there's a 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.439 lot of asteroids out there, both in the Main Belt 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:20.400 and um, the near Near Earth asteroids. Yeah. Yeah, And 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.720 and I think it's the near Earth asteroids that people 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:24.680 are really focused on right now because the Main Belt 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.959 is far pretty um. But so there are some estimates 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.800 out there that people have put forward, like, uh, one 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:33.960 of the people from Deep Space Industries, which is one 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.559 of the companies we're going to talk about, Uh, they 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:40.840 estimated that remember that asteroid that flew by Earth back 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:45.880 in February, that was d A fourteen. Yeah, that was 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:51.000 the one that coincided with the meteorite that struck Russia. Right, Yeah, 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.360 that's right. The two, by the way, totally not connected 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:59.319 to each other. Just want to get completely know as 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.440 far as the government has told us, you can go 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.000 to stuff they don't want you to know and peddle 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.440 that around. Okay, So, but so this thing is very small, 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.200 just about a hundred and fifty feet wide and tiny, tiny, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.080 and the grand scheme of things, yes, yeah, um, but 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.880 what they estimated is that well, I mean, something like 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.280 this could feasibly yield about sixty five billion in recoverable 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:28.600 water and a hundred and thirty billion These are dollars, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.320 hundred thirty sixty five billion dollars and a hundred thirty 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:37.080 billion dollars in recoverable medals. And that's huge, um. They 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.199 So if we want to look a little bit bigger, 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.400 Peter Diamandis, who's one of the people involved in planetary resources, 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:48.040 has said that basically a single five hundred meter platinum 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:52.160 rich asteroid, uh could be more platinum than we have 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:57.000 ever mined in all of human history. Yeah. Now, of 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.280 course that presumes that there is such an asteroid that 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:04.160 is identifiable and reachable by us. But you know, when 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.520 you've got like nine thousand year Earth asteroids and maybe 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.840 a thousand more discovered every single year, and you've got 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.560 some odds of at least finding stuff that will be useful. 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.480 The question is whether you know how expensive is it 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.160 going to be to get there, to then get the material, 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.080 and then to do whatever it is you plan on 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.720 doing with it. Was selling it off to whomever is 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.959 it doesn't make economic sense? Yea. So we know there's 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.640 there's probably good stuff out there and we would probably 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.120 be really useful for us, How would we actually get it? What? 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:38.080 What's the mission outline that these people have proposed, Well, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.920 let me let me talk about Planetary Resources specifically for that, 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.360 because they they've kind of laid out their plan probably 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.880 a little more in depth than uh than the deep 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:50.679 space industries as far as I can tell, and I've 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.760 I've read about deep space industries approach as well, but 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.760 it it's it's a little more vaguely defined at least 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.400 the information I found. So here's what plan Interior Resources say. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.520 First of all, that their mission is to apply commercial 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.839 innovative techniques to explore space, So they're looking at this 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.840 is beyond just asteroid mining. That's part of their mission, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.200 but They also want, according to their mission, to expand 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.480 our scientific knowledge about our solar system and to uh 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:25.040 to really find a profitable way of doing that. Their 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.360 backers include Google's founders or a couple of Google's founders, 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:32.920 um and then they they for the first plan is 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.760 to develop a low cost robotic spacecraft that's designed to 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:40.040 explore asteroids. And the first launchest plan for and the 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.760 name of that is the ARCID one hundred. This is 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.880 technically a space telescope and it's meant to be used 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.520 in low earth orbit. Uh. Do you guys know where 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.120 the name comes from. It's a from it's a Star 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:59.240 Wars reference. It's from Arcade Industries, which is a droid manufacturer. Yes, 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.560 that's correct. I did not know that yet. It's there. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.520 Which droids do they make? Uh? They only make the 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:10.680 droids that break down in the series. Are not necessarily that. No, 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.200 I'm just kidding. I honestly, I couldn't tell you I 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.480 knew that much. And beyond that, you know, you're getting 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.040 a little too deep into the Star Wars lore for 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:23.120 me to be able to follow along. Uh. The so 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.400 that's the telescope. The purpose of the telescope, of course, 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.520 is to not only explore our solar system, to to 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.720 look into our solar system in greater detail, but also 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:38.960 to identify potential asteroids for us to look into further. 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:43.080 But it's not designed to actually get to the asteroid 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:46.000 and look at it, right, And it's actually not extremely 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.240 well suited to looking for asteroids, according to Phil Plate 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.920 of Bad Astronomy. At any rate, it's it's it's a 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:58.240 twenty or eight inch telescope and um on a pretty 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.600 tiny little body about the size of a human head, 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.720 if that's if that's a good reference for for satellite size. 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.880 It does, however, way more than a human head. I 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.440 mean not that I've you know, done comparisons or anything. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:17.120 Don't look in my bag. Um at any rate, Yeah, 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:19.360 it would be it would be better suited for forgetting 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.440 shots of say, uh bright nebula or galaxies or something 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:25.360 like that, something like that. A little bit further planets 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.760 Earth Earth. There's gonna be a lot of pictures of Earth. 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:30.920 It's going to be difficult to to really hone it 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.960 in on something as as close by and quick moving 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.680 as an asteroid. And yeah, uh it does raise some questions. 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.720 They're their next phase in their plan is to design 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.680 the Archid two hundred, also known as the intercept or. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.320 That's actually what they call it. And uh, in this case, 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.840 what they do is they take that basic ARCID one 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.600 design and they would tweak it a bit and then 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:57.960 including adding propulsion to it and some more instrumentation design 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:03.520 specifically to perform fly by observations of nearby asteroids, so 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.720 these would actually travel out to near Earth asteroids and 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.320 get a closer look. Uh. And maybe that we end 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:14.280 up identifying the asteroids using other instrumentation and then just 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.920 aim the Archid two D so that it's on an 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.880 intercept path, not that you know they detected and then 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.080 moved to it. Um. Yeah, it sounds like along the 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:25.560 and I know we're not done yet, but it sounds 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:27.760 like along the timeline. What's sort of going on is 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.320 that there's a slow narrowing down of candidates. Yes, like 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:35.280 you'd use the first series telescope to to scope out 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.160 a wide range of possible candidates. You'd basically say what's 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.360 coming near here and what's going to be the easiest 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.960 to intercept, and then and then once you be able 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.680 to get closer and look with a more powerful or 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.320 a or a closer view, you would actually start to say, okay, 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.400 which are the ones that have the things we need. 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.840 You might even argue that the first step is not 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.800 even to find candidates at all. It's really to develop 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:04.040 the basic technology for the space telescope in a privatized way, 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.840 and then once we are able to have the propulsion 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:11.000 element added in. Because one of the things that Planetary 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.320 Resources talks about is that while it's working on one 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.320 stage of this, it's in research and development for the 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.520 other stages. So the build out time for the first 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.040 stage gives them more research and development time for stages 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:25.399 two and three and so on, right, and furthermore to 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.040 just drive excitement and uh and sponsorship hopefully for the 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.639 further levels. You know. It's it's the one was a 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.800 kickstarter funded mission. It was a one million dollar kickstarter 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.680 that that ended up earning um uh one point five 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.159 million something a little bit both that and um I 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.040 know a guy who backed that. Yeah, yeah, well it 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.480 seems I remember reading about it. It's pretty cool, the 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.760 crowd funded telescope because they would they had like a 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:55.200 sort of educational initiative where if your group donated, I 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.840 think you could you could get time to aim the 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.840 telescope yourself. Yeah, they had they had two cute things. 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:02.720 They had one which is which is a little video 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.760 screen on the outside of the satellite um with a 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.440 with a camera that would take a picture of any 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.400 image that you gave them. It could be grumpy cat 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:13.280 and with the Earth in the background as like a 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.520 little planetary selfie for for motivation. But then then and 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.400 then also they sold time or would donate time from 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.240 the main telescope cameras to point at whatever your research 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:26.840 or classroom wanted to look at. Right, so you could 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.080 actually if you wanted to, you could uh contributed at 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.880 a certain level and then on your behalf that are 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.720 your time would actually go to a school or scientific 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.600 research facility. It wasn't wasn't necessarily you that got to dictated, 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:43.960 although if you donated at a higher level you could. 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.200 Um there were one thousand, nine eight backers who uh 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.480 who put in at the amount for the five minutes 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.080 of time for students or for science, which I calculated 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.200 at being nine thousand, eight hundred nine minutes or a 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.840 hundred sixty five hours or about seven days worth of 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.600 holeoscope time total. I mean that's added up. You wouldn't 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:05.440 actually go for seven They wouldn't say all right for 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.760 the first seven days just doing this, it would actually 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.440 be spaced out over it's it's initial days, I would imagine. 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:14.960 But anyway, that that's the ar Kid one hundred, the 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:16.960 two hundred very similar to it's got the propulsion and 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.760 allows it to fly to an asteroid and get a 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.479 closer look. Then you have the arc at three hundred, 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.160 which you know, the two was the interceptor, the three 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:31.000 was the Rendezvous Prospector, so it just really just kind 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.879 of combines two Western tropes into one. Anyway, so you 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:40.640 got the Rendezvous Prospector, which was an augmented interceptor, so 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.800 it would also have deep space laser communication software and 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.920 hardware on it to allow it to communicate back on Earth, 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.720 and was designed to travel to asteroids that are further 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.760 away from Earth. Because the interceptors mainly focusing at asteroids 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:58.040 that are passing between Earth and the Moon, the Rendezvous 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.640 Prospector can go further out and it would actually enter 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.360 the orbit of an asteroid to collect that on them, 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:10.240 including the asteroids density, shape, composition, size, rotation, that kind 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:12.879 of thing, and you would actually have multiple devices focus 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.640 on the same asteroid in order to distribute mission risk, 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.919 so if one failed, you'd still have others that we're 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.879 looking at this asteroid because if you're talking about a 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:25.720 potential mining opportunity, you want to have as you know, 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:28.040 you want to try and guarantee success as much as 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.639 you can. And then finally, the last phase is to 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:35.000 develop means of harvesting and delivering the resources on asteroids 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.800 to space based and terrestrial customers. Now, this is the 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.440 most vaguely defined of their steps because we frankly don't 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:46.040 know how we would do it yet, right, And and 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.640 the their point is that during the time where they're 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.600 developing these other phases that they've already laid out, they 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.320 will be working on what would be the best approach 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.960 at doing this, how would we do it? And again 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.880 they would initially focus on water rich asteroids to get 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.479 both water and its component elements for propulsion, but there 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:06.520 will be no firm plans on how recovery would take 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.440 place other than the teams are researching it right now. 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:12.960 Part of it seems like kind of a smart business 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:17.359 model to start with water, because as you mind water, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.640 you'd also be I would imagine sort of developing your 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:25.000 customer base because the more water you can produce in space, 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:30.440 the easier it is for people to sustain activity in space. Um, 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.040 so you can get more people up there who need 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.560 more of what you're creating. It's also a great I mean, 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.560 I would imagine I don't know, I honestly don't know 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:42.640 what would be the quote unquote easiest resource to mine 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:44.679 on an asteroid, but I would imagine water would be 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:49.879 way up there in terms of processing, right, I would think. Yeah. So, 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:52.639 I mean that's one of the big questions is Okay, 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:56.239 So imagine you get to an asteroid and we can 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.480 talk more in a minute about where this would happen 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:01.640 and stuff like that, because that's a big question too. 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.280 But what wherever the asteroid is. Imagine you're there and 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:07.520 you want to mind it. So you dig up some 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:13.040 rocks and these rocks have some significant platinum content. How 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.600 do you get it out? Yeah? You might have to 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.000 use some sort of either a chemical approach to try 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.760 and leach it out, or you know, there's some discussion 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:25.000 about using lasers to to vaporize any material that is 0:22:25.040 --> 0:22:27.920 not whatever it is you're going for that kind of stuff. Yeah, 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:30.600 whatever it is you're talking about what sounds like a 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:36.919 fairly hardware intensive kind of process where you need lots 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:41.199 of stuff. They're doing its job, um and all of 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.280 our experience, but I'm not saying it can't be done. 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:45.560 Of course, all of our experience with the so far 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:47.480 is on Earth, where you can you know, you can 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:50.960 just like burn or and smelt it off and doing 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:54.359 this in microgravity, um, and without without an air supply 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.840 to make combustion happen. I definitely never mind I was 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:00.600 gonna make an air supply joke. I'm going to just 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:05.359 walk away from that. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Okay, 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:07.840