Tag: asteroid prospecting

Reciprocity – The Deets

self-aware-colonyHey again, all. I find myself with some spare time for the first time in awhile. So I thought I might take a moment to share an idea I’ve been working with, in a bit more detail. Last post I made, I talked about the bare bones of a story I am working on known as Reciprocity, the successor to the story known as Apocrypha. But as it turns out, there are a lot of details to that story idea that I still want to share and get people’s opinion on.

You might say this is a story that I am particularly serious about. Should it work out, it would be my break from both space-opera sci-fi and zombie fiction. A foray into the world of hard-hitting social commentary and speculative science fiction.

The Story:
So the year is 2030. The world is reeling from the effects of widespread drought, wildfires, coastal storms, flooding, and population displacement. At the same time, a revolution is taking place in terms of computing, robotics, biomachinery, and artificial intelligence. As a result, the world’s population finds itself being pulled in two different directions – between a future of scarcity and the promise of plenty.

space-solar-headSpace exploration continues as private aerospace and space agencies all race to put boots on Mars, a settlement on the Moon, and lay claim to the resources of the Solar System. India, China, the US, the EU, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, and Iran are all taking part now – using robotic probes and rovers to telexplore the System and prospect asteroids. Humanity’s future as an interplanetary species seems all but guaranteed at this point.

Meanwhile, a new global balance of power is shaping up. While the US and the EU struggle with food and fuel shortages, Russia remains firmly in the grips of quasi-fascist interests, having spurned the idea of globalization and amicable relations with NATO and the EU in favor of its Collective Security Treaty, which in recent years has expanded to include Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

shanghai_towerMeanwhile, China is going through a period of transition. After the fall of Communism in 2023, the Chinese state is lurching between the forces of reform and ultra-nationalism, and no one is sure which side it will fall on. The economy has largely recovered, but the divide between rich and poor is all too apparent. And given the sense of listless frustration and angst, there is fear that a skilled politician could exploit it all too well.

It’s an era of uncertainty, high hopes and renewed Cold War.

The MacGuffin:
The central item of the story is a cybervirus known as Baoying, a quantum-decryption algorithm that was designed by Unit 61398 in the early 2020’s to take down America’s quantum networks in the event of open war. When the Party fell from power, the Unit was dissolved and the virus itself was destroyed. However, rumors persisted that one or more copies still exist…

MatrixBackgroundNotable Characters:
For this ensemble to work, it had to represent a good cross-section of the world that will be, with all its national, social and economic boundaries represented. And so I came up with the following people, individuals who find themselves on different sides of what’s right, and are all their own mix of good, bad, and ambiguous.

William Harding: A privileged high school senior with an big of a drug problem who lives in Port Coquitlam, just outside of the Pacific Northwest megalopolis of Cascadia. Like many people his age, he carries all his personal computing in the form of implants. However, a kidnapping and a close brush with death suddenly expand his worldview. Being at the mercy of others and deprived of his hardware, he realizes that his lifestyle have shielded him from the real world.

Amy Dixon: A young refugee who has moved to Cascadia from the American South. Her socioeconomic status places her and her family at the fringes of society, and she is determined to change their fortunes by plying her talents and being the first in her family to get a comprehensive education.

Climate_ChangeFernie Dixon: Amy’s brother, a twenty-something year-old man who lives away from her and claims to be a software developer. In reality, he is a member of the local Aryan Brotherhood, one of many gangs that run rampant in the outlying districts of the city. Not a true believer like his “brothers”, he seeks money and power so he can give his sister the opportunities he knows she deserves.

Shen Zhou: A former Lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army and member of Unit 61398 during the Cyberwars of the late teens. After the fall of Communism, he did not ingratiate himself to the new government and was accused of spying for foreign interests. As  result, he left the country to pursue his own agenda, which places him in the cross hairs of both the new regime and western governments.

artificial-intelligenceArthur Banks: A major industrialist and part-owner of Harding Enterprises, a high-tech multinational that specializes in quantum computing and the development of artificial intelligence. For years, Banks and his associates have been working on a project known as QuaSI – a Quantum-based Sentient Intelligence that would revolutionize the world and usher in the Technological Singularity.

Rhianna Sanchez: Commander of Joint Task Force 2, an elite unit attached to National Security Agency’s Cyberwarfare Division. For years, she and her task force have been charged with locating terror cells that are engaged in private cyberwarfare with the US and its allies. And Shen Zhou, a suspected terrorist with many troubling connections, gets on their radar after a mysterious kidnapping and high-profile cyberintrusion coincide.

And that about covers the particulars. Naturally, there are a lot of other details, but I haven’t got all day and neither do you fine folks 😉 In any case, the idea is in the queue and its getting updated regularly. But I don’t plan to have it finished until I’ve polished off Oscar Mike, Arrivals, and a bunch of other projects first!

News From Space: 12 Asteroids to Mine

asteroidsLast year, the private space exploration company Planetary Resources announced that they intended to being prospecting and mining asteroids in the near future. And while they are certainly not alone in their intention to make this happen (Deep Space Industries has the same intention), many have asked if humanity is ready to begin extracting resources from the Asteroid Belt, at least as far as our level of technology is concerned.

In response, a group of astronomers at the University of Strathclyde in the UK did their own study and concluded that it is indeed possible with current rocket technology. What’s more, they conducted a survey of the Asteroid Belt and identified 12 near-Earth asteroids that could be easily retrieved and mined, and which are believed to contain high concentrations of precious and industrial metals.

asteroid_mining_robotAlready, it has been estimated that an asteroid as small as one-kilometer in diameter could contain upwards of two billion tons of iron-nickel ore, which is three times the global yield on Earth. Then there is the likely presence of gold, platinum, and other rare substances. Planetary Resources claims a 30-meter object of the right composition could contain $25 to $50 billion in platinum.

These numbers spurred the University of Strathclyde team, led by Garcia Yarnoz, to pour over the astronomical data on near-Earth objects to see if any of them could actually be snared. To their surprise, they found 12 small asteroids that pass close enough to Earth that they could be corralled into the L1 or L2 Lagrangian points for mining operations. The researchers dubbed these asteroids Easily Retrievable Objects (EROs).

NASA_moonLagrange points refer to points where the gravity of Earth an another celestial object balance out. If anything enters one of these areas, it stays put, which is precisely what you want to do if you are looking to study it, mine it, or just keep it where its accessible. The L1 and L2 Lagrangian points are where the gravity of Earth and the sun are at a draw, roughly 1.6 million km (1 million miles) from Earth and about four times the distance to the moon.

The 12 candidate asteroids all have orbits that take them near the L1 or L2 Lagrangian points, so they would need only a small push to get them to the right spot. Yarnoz and his team estimate that changing the velocity of these objects by less than 500 meters per second would be sufficient, and this could be completed as early as 2026.

asteroid_DA14One of the important criteria in selected 12 mineable asteroids from the database of 9,000 near-Earth objects was size. Nudging a larger asteroid safely to a Lagrange point is simply not feasible with the current state of technology. In fact, most of the EROs that were identified in the study range between two to 20 meters, but that’s still large enough to contain substantial resources.

These 12 objects are probably a small fraction of EROs floating around near Earth. We know where many more of the big space rocks are because they’re much easier to see, but there might be a wealth of resource-rich small asteroids near the Lagrangian points ripe for the picking. And with time, and more orbital telescopes to spot them with, we can expect the list of mineable asteroids to grow.

Source: extremetech.com

Preventing the Apocalypse: NASA’s Asteroid Lasso Mission

asteroid_lasso

Shortly after that large meteor hit Russia, President Obama and NASA administrator Charles Bolden both announced that work would begin on a series of asteroid tracking technologies that would ensure that more severe Earth collisions would be prevented. Earlier this month, Bolden spoke at the Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. and said that a robotic spacecraft mission is currently being planned with this goal in mind.

The plan calls to mind such films as Armageddon and Deep Impact, but differs in that it involves lassoing an asteroid instead of detonating a small nuke inside it. The ultimate goal here is to tow an asteroid out of the path of Earth, but then to deposit it in orbit so that it can be visited by astronauts. These astronauts will then collect samples and conduct research that could one day assist in a mission to Mars or save Earth from a catastrophic collision.

Asteroid-Toutatis

This is in keeping with the Obama administrations’ pledge of putting a man on a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 and a manned mission to Mars by 2030. It’s also in the same vein as NASA’s plan to catch and deposit an asteroid around the Moon, an idea that was proposed back in January of this year as part of the agencies plan to establish an outpost at Lagrange Point 2 early in the next decade.

And even though NASA has expressed that the massive 22 million ton asteroid Apophis will not impact planet Earth in 2036, it didn’t rule out that other, smaller rocks could possibly reach us in that time. Capturing them and towing them to where they could be safely deposited in orbit would present many opportunities, not the least of which could be commercial.

asteroid_foundry

For example, asteroid prospecting is slated to begin in 2015, with companies like SpaceX and Deep Space Industries leading the charge. Once property rights are assigned to various celestial bodies, these and other companies hope to send missions out to mine them and establish automated 3D manufacturing facilities, places that use “sintering” to process ore into metal and other materials that can then be shipped back.

NASA’s science mission directorate associate administrator John Grunsfeld also spoke about the importance of the lasso mission at the Human to Mars Summit on Monday. Above all else, he emphasized the importance of using the knowledge and skills gained from the research to achieve the long-term goal of survival:

We have a pretty good theory that single-planet species don’t survive. We don’t want to test it, but we have some evidence of that happening 65 million years ago [when an asteroid killed much of Earth’s life]. That will happen again someday … we want to have the capability [to leave the planet] in case of the threat of large scale destruction on Earth.

Yeah, its a rocky universe. And if we intend to survive in it, we had best learn how to deflect, capture and destroy any that come our way and get too close. And of course, we need to learn how to harness their endless supply of minerals and trace elements.

asteroid_belt1Source: news.cnet.com

Asteriod Prospecting by 2015

asteroid_beltDeep Space Industries, a private aerospace company, has been making a big splash in the news lately. Alongside SpaceX, they have been pioneering a new age in space exploration, where costs are reduced and private companies are picking up the slack. And in their latest bid to claim a share of space, the company announced plans late in January to begin asteroid prospecting operations by 2015.

For some time, the concept of sending spaceships to mine asteroids and haul ore has been explored as a serious option. Within the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter, countless tons of precious metals, carbon, silicates, and basaltic minerals. If humanity could tap a fraction of a fraction of that mineral wealth, it would be able to supply Earth’s manufacturing needs indefinitely, without all the harmful pollutants or run off caused by mining.

asteroid_miningSo to tap this potential goldmine (literally!) known as the Asteroid Belt, DSI plans to launch a fleet of mini spacecraft into solar orbit to identify potential targets near to Earth that would be suitable to mine. Lacking the resources of some of the bigger players in the space rush, DSI’s probes will ride-share on the launch of larger communications satellites and get a discounted delivery to space.

Initially, a group of 25kg (55 pounds) cubesats with the awesome designation “Firefly” will be launched on a journey lasting from two to six months in 2015. Then, in 2016, the 32 kilograms (70 pound) DragonFly spacecraft will begin their two-to-four-year expeditions and return with up to 68 kilograms (150 pounds) of bounty each. Beyond this, DSI has some truly ambitious plans to establish a foundry amongst the asteroids.

asteroid_foundryThat’s another thing about the Belt. Not only is it an incredibly rich source of minerals, its asteroids would make an ideal place for relocating much of Earth’s heavy industry. Automated facilities, anchored to the surface and processing metals and other materials on site would also reduce the burden on Earth’s environment. Not only would there be no air to befoul with emissions, but the processes used would generate no harmful pollutants.

In DSI’s plan, the foundry would use a patent-pending nickel gas process developed by one of DSI’s co-founders, Stephen Covey, known as “sintering”. This is the same process that is being considered by NASA to build a Moon Base in the Shackleton Crater near the Moon’s south pole. Relying on this same technology, automated foundries could turn ore into finished products with little more than microwave radiation and a 3D printer, which could then be shipped back to Earth.

deepspaceindustries-640x353Naturally, DSI will have plenty of competition down the road. The biggest comes from Google-backed Planetary Resources which staked it claim to an asteroid last April. Much like DSI, they hope to be able to mine everything from water to fuel as well as minerals and rare earths. And of course, SpaceX, which has the most impressive track record thus far, is likely to be looking to the Asteroid Belt before long.

And Golden Spike, the company that is promising commercial flight to the Moon by 2020 is sure to not be left behind. And as for Virgin Galactic, well… Richard Branson didn’t get crazy, stinking rich by letting opportunities pass him by. And given the size and scope of the Belt itself, there’s likely to be no shortage of companies trying to stake a claim, and more than enough for everyone.

So get on board ye capitalist prospectors! A new frontier awaits beyond the rim of Mars…

Source: Extremetech.com