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New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks

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New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks
by Jonathan O'Callaghan, 22 January 2013
Deep Space Industries has unveiled plans for a new robotic exploration 
fleet.


Deep Space Industries announced today that it will send a fleet of 
asteroid-prospecting spacecraft out into the solar system to hunt for 
resources to accelerate space development to benefit Earth. These 
“FireFly” spacecraft will utilize low-cost CubeSat components and get 
discounted delivery to space by ride-sharing on the launch of larger 
communications satellites.

Deep Space Industries is the second company, after Planetary Resources 
in 2012, to announce such a mission. “Using low cost technologies, and 
combining the legacy of our space program with the innovation of today’s 
young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been 
impossible just a few years ago,” said Deep Space Chairman Rick Tumlinson

The FireFlies have a mass of about 55 lb (25 kg) and the first will be 
launched in 2015 on journeys of two to six months. Deep Space will be 
building a small fleet of the spacecraft using innovative miniature 
technologies, and working with NASA and other companies and groups to 
identify targets of opportunity.

“My smartphone has more computing power than they had on the Apollo Moon 
missions,” said Tumlinson. “We can make amazing machines smaller, 
cheaper, and faster than ever before. Imagine a production line of 
FireFlies, cocked and loaded and ready to fly out to examine any object 
that gets near the Earth.”

Starting in 2016, Deep Space will begin launching 70-lb DragonFlies for 
round-trip visits that bring back samples. The DragonFly expeditions 
will take two to four years, depending on the target, and will return 60 
to 150 lb. Deep Space believes that combining science, prospecting and 
sponsorship will be a win/win for everyone, both lowering costs for 
exploration and enabling the public to join the adventure.

Bringing back asteroid materials is only a step on the way to much 
bigger things for DSI. The company has a patent-pending technology 
called the MicroGravity Foundry to transform raw asteroid material into 
complex metal parts. The MicroGravity Foundry is a 3D printer that uses 
lasers to draw patterns in a nickel-charged gas medium, causing the 
nickel to be deposited in precise patterns.

Senior leaders at NASA have been briefed on DSI’s technologies, which 
would make eventual crewed Mars expeditions less expensive through the 
use of asteroid-derived propellant. Missions would require fewer 
launches if the fuel to reach Mars were added in space from the 
volatiles in asteroids. Mars missions also would be safer with a 
MicroGravity Foundry on board to print replacements for broken parts, or 
to create brand new parts invented after the expedition was on its way 
to the Red Planet.

“Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent 
space development,” said Gump. “More than 900 new asteroids that pass 
near Earth are discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of 
Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century — a key resource 
located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from 
asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is 
our strategy.”

For example, a large market for DSI is producing fuel for communications 
satellites. Low-cost asteroid propellant delivered in orbit to comsats 
will extend their working lifetimes, with each extra month worth $5 
million to $8 million per satellite. DSI has executed a non-disclosure 
agreement with an aerospace company to discuss collaboration on this 
opportunity.

In a decade, Deep Space will be harvesting asteroids for metals and 
other building materials, to construct large communications platforms to 
replace communications satellites, and later solar power stations to 
beam carbon-free energy to consumers on Earth. As DSI refines asteroids 
for in-space markets, it also will harvest platinum group metals for 
terrestrial uses, such as pollution control devices.

Asteroids that fall to Earth are meteorites, and the Deep Space team 
includes Geoffrey Notkin, star of the international hit television 
series Meteorite Men (and who contributed to All About Space issue 1) 
about hunting for them. Notkin has unparalleled expertise in the 
diversity and market value of these elusive rocks, which are transformed 
by intense heat during their plunge to the surface. By contrast, the 
initial asteroid samples to be brought back by Deep Space will have 
their original in-space composition and structure preserved, creating 
exceedingly rare specimens for sale to the research and collectors markets.

“We will only be visitors in space until we learn how to live off the 
land there,” concluded Tumlinson. “This is the Deep Space mission — to 
find, harvest and process the resources of space to help save our 
civilization and support the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth — 
and doing so in a step by step manner that leverages off our space 
legacy to create an amazing and hopeful future for humanity. We are 
squarely focused on giving new generations the opportunity to change not 
only this world, but all the worlds of tomorrow. Sounds like fun, 
doesn’t it?”

Tags: asteroid hunters, Asteroid Mining, deep space industries, 
Planetary Resources

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New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks a425couple <a425couple@hotmail.com> - 2018-10-27 07:58 -0700
  Re: New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks Arc Michael <abookoflife@yahoo.com> - 2018-10-27 08:32 -0700
    Re: New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks a425couple <a425couple@hotmail.com> - 2018-10-28 06:09 -0700
    Re: New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks Sylvain <sylvain.brans@free.invalide> - 2018-10-28 18:53 +0100
  Re: New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2018-10-27 09:16 -0700
  Re: New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks Daniel60 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2018-10-28 20:49 +1100
    Re: New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks a425couple <a425couple@hotmail.com> - 2018-10-28 06:14 -0700
  Re: New asteroid mining company announces plans to conquer space rocks casagiannoni@optonline.net - 2018-10-28 10:25 -0400

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