Commercial asteroid hunters announce plans for new robotic exploration fleet
January 22, 2013
Deep Space Industries (DSI) announced Monday night 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 utilize low-cost cubesat components and get discounted delivery to space by ride-sharing on the launch of larger communications satellites.
Artist’s impression of the CubeSat built by students from Aalborg University in Denmark (credit: Aalborg University)
“This is the first commercial campaign to explore the small asteroids that pass by Earth,” said Deep Space Chairman Rick Tumlinson
Tumlinson signed up the world’s first space tourist, led the team that took over the Mir space station, was a Founding Trustee of the X Prize, and Founded Orbital Outfitters, the world’s first commercial space suit company.
“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.”
FireFlies have a mass about 55 lbs. (25 kg) and will first be launched in 2015 on journeys of two to six months. DSI says it 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, DSI 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 lbs. 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.
“The public will participate in FireFly and DragonFly missions via live feeds from Mission Control, online courses in asteroid mining sponsored by corporate marketers, and other innovative ways to open the doors wide,” said CEO David Gump. (His earlier ventures include producing the first TV commercial shot on the International Space Station for RadioShack, co-founding Transformational Space Corp. (t/Space) and Astrobotic Technology Inc.)
“The Google Lunar X Prize, Unilever, and Red Bull each are spending tens of millions of dollars on space sponsorships, so the opportunity to sponsor a FireFly expedition into deep space will be enticing.”
Laser-based 3D printer
DSI also 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.
“The MicroGravity Foundry is the first 3D printer that creates high-density high-strength metal components even in zero gravity,” said Stephen Covey, a co-Founder of DSI and inventor of the process. “Other metal 3D printers sinter powdered metal, which requires a gravity field and leaves a porous structure, or they use low-melting point metals with less strength.”
Senior leaders at NASA have been briefed on DSI’s technologies, which the company says 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.
DSI resource-harvesting strategies
“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 commsats 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, DSI 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, the company says. As DSI refines asteroids for in-space markets, it also will harvest platinum group metals for terrestrial uses, such as pollution control devices.
“Mining asteroids for rare metals alone isn’t economical, but makes sense if you already are processing them for volatiles and bulk metals for in-space uses,” said Mark Sonter, a member of the DSI Board of Directors. Mr. Sonter combines experience in planning, permitting, and management of large and complex terrestrial mining projects with funded research into the development of asteroid resources.
“Turning asteroids into propellant and building materials damages no ecospheres since they are lifeless rocks left over from the formation of the solar system. Several hundred thousand that cross near Earth are available.”
Asteroids that fall to Earth are meteorites, and the DSI team includes Geoffrey Notkin, star of the international hit television series Meteorite Men, 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.
DSI is looking for customers and sponsors who want to be a part of creating this new space economy. The company believes that taking the long view, while creating value, opportunities and products in the near term will allow it to become one of the economic engines that opens space to humanity. By getting under way and taking calculated risks, while developing basic industrial technologies, DSI will be well positioned over time to supply the basic needs of life in space. Taking the idea of socially minded companies to a new level, DSI is literally reaching for the stars.
“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?”
* The derivation of the “MicroGravity Foundry” concept is apparently from the science fiction novel NEWHUMAN MARS: In the Shadow of Omen by Steven Burgauer. — Editor
Comments (16)
by Paul in Vancouver
There seems to be a lot of these types of announcements lately in regards to space exploration plans. I worry that these are just PR tactics to raise funds and create hype for pie in the sky projects. Are these the penny stocks of the decade? Penny stocks by the way are a vehicle for entrepreneurs to raise money from gullible investors to enrich themselves first, before any viable business is even established.
by ProfessorZ
MIning asteroids with robots and lasers. If you could just throw in a Joss Whedon reference, it would be perfect…
by Gabriel
Well, the spaceships are called “Firefly” aren’ t they?
by Daniel
First ‘Planetary Resources’ now ‘Deep Space Industries’. Both seem to have solid business plans. I predict that soon they will be joined by a host of other companies with very deep pockets. Big firms like G.E. or some of the bigger mining firms will jump in, and probably China will need to get some of their companies involved. This new space race will feature many private companies going after resources. I think Planetary Resources might be ahead of the game because I’ve read how they plan to sell prospecting tools, and to set up refueling stations that will use water found out in space to provide the fuel. Rather than digging for the gold themselves, they will get rich providing tools and services for others to do so. In 10 years this current world recession will be history and we will have launched the greatest human expansion possible.
by Chaos Dynamics
There must be in place guidelines and regulations to prevent the wholesale exportation into space of human pillaging, profiting, and destruction.
Planetary resources should never be held hostage for the financial benefit of the few through models of artificial scarcity and exploitation.
Humans if left unabated will continue leaving garbage, junk, and monuments to excess consumption and self indulgence in every nook and cranny of earth… and now into the cosmos. (The ring of space junk for example and the carcasses of spent space vessels crashed into planets and moons.)
This behavioral tendency cannot be allowed to continue into space without guidance and strategy beyond monetary profits, human greed and self importance.
Do humans really want golden arches on Mars or nike swoosh on Venus and the accompanying trash and consumer driven form of capitalism this springs from exported throughout the universe?
by Daniel
And what guidelines do you suggest? Leave all the asteroids ‘pristine and unspoiled’? It is going into space and using the resources there that will save this planet from the destruction caused by our incessant search for wealth here. Out there, mining and development cannot hurt the environment because there is no life. Of course, if any is found it must be protected, but it is the push by humanity that will BRING life to the far reaches of the Solar system. Life in all its brawling, lusty, chaotic intensity. Yes there will be debris scattered. Probably wars fought as well. But there will also be Buddhist monasteries on Mars and new cultures and philosophies invented. This is what we want – it’s called progress.
by Gorden Russell
Don’t worry about it, Chaos Dynamics. By the time humanity is seriously mining the asteroids, we will be deep into the Singularity and will have the self-assembling photo-voltaic carbon nanocells that I’ve been beating the drum for all this long time. They will grow all the needs of humanity, and do it much faster than plants do now. Photosynthesis is only 4% efficient, yet look at the speed of the growth of dandelions and then look at the size of redwood trees. Just yesterday there was an article posted here about cheap, flexible solar cells with 22% efficiency. Long before we start hauling back asteroids to orbit the Earth at Lagrange Point Five, we will have printable carbon photo-voltaics with 83% efficiency. Food, clothing, shelter, transportation and desalination plants with pipelines to the deserts will be grown faster than mushrooms. These nanocells will send down roots into landfills to harvest all the useful iron oxides of rusted food cans and all the other mouldering heavy metals and plastics. All the toxic compounds will be broken down into useful molecules. It will be an age of abundance for all. Our frequent commenter GatorALLin has said that money will have a totally different meaning then. It will be hard to practice greed when everybody can have anything made by the power of sunlight taking carbon dioxide out of the air and spinning it into nanotubes and graphene and any other useful carbon compound. Joining carbon with other atoms from the air and soil will give you all the other compounds you want.
by Publius
They are talking about asteroids, which are pretty much just debris. I can’t see any harm in fully exploiting asteroids. Planets like Mars are a different story and should be regulated by international treaty.
by Bri
I echo your sentiment. In the California gold rush the only ones to make money were the suppliers of tools and other goods. Mike Bloomberg made all his money the same way. He doesn’t trade stocks, he sell you the tools to try your own hand. He even say’s that you should buy an index fund rather that try and strike it rich. We turn a blind eye toward the fall out from this rampant greed. The big problem is if anything, greed is getting worse and I don’t think that humanity has a grasp on the issues. Some will win big league, while others will used as pawns, and we think it’s just capitalism working the way it should. Instead the system is morally bankrupt from top to bottom. Yes like I said before, we have a new frontier, a new wild west, with all it’s potential for lawlessness , avarice and exploitation.
by Gorden Russell
But this time, Bri, we won’t be exploiting our fellow man, just robots. We won’t drive the Sioux of their land and massacre them at Wounded Knee. Irish immigrants and Chinese coolies won’t be sweating and dying to build the Transcontinental Railroad. Robots will keep on doubling their numbers as they mine the moon and the asteroids to build landing vessels of precious metals and power their retro rockets with hydrogen and oxygen split from water harvested from carbonaceous asteroids or the south pole of the Moon. Even the parachutes can be made of carbon nanotubes grown from the asteroids.
by twm114
If it can be exploited, exploit it.
by Gorden Russell
Thinking of your concerns, Chaos, I found an article at LiveScience.com about glaciers in the Andes that will interest you. Here are some quotes, “researcher Antoine Rabatel, a scientist at the Laboratory for Glaciology and Environmental Geophysics in Grenoble, France…” says, “Lower-altitude glaciers below about 17,700 feet (5400 meters) above sea level are melting twice as fast as those at higher elevations. These low glaciers, which make up the majority of Andes glaciers, are expected to vanish within years or decades…” “The looming loss of the glaciers is a major problem for the people living in arid regions west of the Andes, Rabatel said.”
Even before we reach the Singularity, solar cells will become much more efficient and help to move us into the hydrogen economy, which will slow down global climate change a bit. After the year 2046, when Ray Kurzweil predicts that all the lines on all the graphs of technological progress go up off the charts to the right, we will have the self-assembling photo-voltaic carbon nanocells that will take CO2 out of the air and whip it up into carbon nanotubes, graphene, buckyballs, and every other useful carbon compound. These nanocells will also be able to take any other atom out of the air and soil, even toxic wastes, and reassemble them into anything you want. So after the Sing, all manufacturing will be powered by sunlight. Buildings will be grown out of carbon nanotubes, so limestone won’t be burned for cement any more. (That alone puts about as much carbon into the air as power produced by fossil fuels.) Also, graphene has been seen to be useful for reverse osmosis, so desalination plants can be grown out on the continental shelf and pipelines grown to take water to the people who depended on the glaciers.
There are a couple of other articles there that I know will interest you, Chaos Dynamics. Check out the ones about vultures dying out in India, and humans being called a plague on the planet.
by Logic
@Chaos, your concerns ignore the reality of scale. On Earth, we have limited resources, so greed and “pillaging” are part of a self-preservation strategy (however shortsighted). In space, however, the scale of what we’re talking about is beyond human imagination. There are literally biliions of asteroids — more than could be reasonably exploited by humans for our current consumption needs, even if we were purely motivated by greed. There is literally no possible way we could turn our universe (or even our solar system) into the over-commercialized over-exploited wasteland you imagine. We are simply not that big or far reaching as a species. And when we become that capable, we will have evolved past this phase.
What you are witnessing/lamenting is a fleeting moment in our evolution, where we are outgrowing our home planet, but not yet capable of reaching beyond. It’s known as “growing pains” and it’s nothing to worry about. We’re on a perfectly acceptable trajectory, where our technology will enable us to solve the problems we face. Our advances have always outpaced the problems we create, because that’s what humanity does. And it shows no sign of stopping soon. No need to worry. Everything’s going to be just fine.
by melajara
I’m confident this one will make Gorden Russell drool ;-)
I’m quite excited too, this is the dawn of a new era.
IMHO, this should be the top story of the day!
by Gorden Russell
You’re right, melejara, thanks for thinking about me. I was talking about sending cubes to asteroids months ago. Amara, do you remember that you said you liked that idea back then?
by Editor
Yes, makes sense.