Billionaires want to mine asteroids

[Livyatan]

 

http://now.msn.com/l...oid-mining.aspx

 

A group of prominent investors, including James Cameron, Google leaders Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, and Ross Perot, Jr., will be holding a press conference this week to announce the world's first asteroid mining company, boasting in a statement that it will "add trillions of dollars to the global GDP," "help ensure humanity's prosperity," and "create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources.'" Details on how this will be done are being kept quiet -- presumably until the event -- but the fact that so many big names are involved suggests asteroid mining may soon no longer be science fiction.

 

What do you think?

[Zire]

First it asteroid then you want even more so then you move onto moons and planets. Next thing you know BOOM! necromorphs are taking over.

[12eh1yg3dqehbcaj]

People are so greedy these days... all they think about is money. In my opinion they can do whatever they like, but just like Zire said, they won't stop being greedy and one day they will want more. So here I come up with a saying: what happens in cosmos, stays in cosmos.

[ajnl]

Well no duh people are greedy. Everyone is. The awesome thing about this is that we won't only have to rely on Earth's resources anymore. Which is better for both the Earth and the people on it.

[uncasid]

I volunteer to help.. PUT ME INTO SPACE!!!

[Rabidraccoon]

Yes, it would be nice stop using up the resources we have. However, if they mine off planet and then bring the stuff here, where will they put all of it? Maybe we will become a planet like Coruscant in Star wars. Just a big planet-wide city. I think mining the asteroid aside, it will be good to have a system in place to travel off our planet and live there.

[CaulkLiquor]

WOW

 

WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE THE JOY I FEEL RIGHT NOW

[Zombie Waffles]

Since oil is around its peak, or maybe even past its peak, it might be a good thing that we are mining an asteroid, or finding alternatives.

 

But I just can't help but think of that movie Apollo 18 for some reason , and hopefully we can start to build Gundams

[MoAZeR]

If they have nothing else to do with the money they should give it to me or to the charities, poor people and to the poor country's. because other wise they will destroy the whole world.

Edited April 23, 2012 by MoAZeR

[ajnl]

If they have nothing else to do with the money they should give it to me or to the charities, poor people and to the poor country's. because other wise they will destroy the whole world.

 

I agree that if you have that much money, you should at least be giving some of it to charity. But remember that money doesn't solve the world's problems. It rlly doesn't.

 

Secondly, if we don't get resources from somewhere else besides our planet, then what happens when all the resources run out? Also there may be new resources that aren't on our planet, which will better suit our needs. For example, looking at aircraft, materials are the main limit. The design of the aircraft is almost as efficient as we will get it (in its current form), so the only thing left to optimize is the material. So some new types of resources may be helpful in doing that.

[darkfang77]

Imo, asteroid mining with space technology is too far behind atm, there is a lot of work to do on terrestrial technologies before you start dumping equipment on asteroids and start mining minerals. Yes, there are lots of "potential" resource problems that can be corrected with this input, but a lot of humanity's waste is being generated by the inefficient, uneducated, and the rich (to some extent). Cracking open fresh sources when current efficiency is so low would only magnify the long scale loss of things.

 

Personally, I'd have thought billionaires would have something more worthy/viable to spend their money on than this.

 

PS: Just noticed source is MSN News (has some tendency to exaggerate in previous experience, so nvm)

[Panini*Hobbit@mp3]

Am I the only one who was thinking of Finding Nemo when they saw the title with the mine?

Edited April 23, 2012 by Panini*Hobbit@mp3

[matt.]

if there is money to be made, it will be done.

[Ken]

Great, now the rich have something else to waste money on...