In the ideal world, the United States government wouldn't be in space.

Space has some resources less readily available on earth. The ices on the Moon and Mars have twice the concentration of deuterium of the earth's oceans. (The comets have this same double concentration.) "Tralphium," or helium-3, is abundant on the surface of the Moon and far less abundant here.

Those are the reasons to send men into space. And private industry, not the government, should do this.

The ability of our gov to cut off its own nose to spite its face continues to amaze me... Killour space program because we can rely on Russia, and then piss Russia off, and think we can bullly them to bend to our will...

I want some of the drugs that these "Key Policy Decisionmakers" in DC are taking... then again, I don't, as while it makes one delusional, and allows one to live in a fantasy world, it apparently matches their IQ to their shoe size...

C'mon Dax. Let's get some bunkers, get Eros to Earth, and implement MoonRaker!

Skunk Works did some bad ass stuff. Did a round with them in a previous job. Awesome development process. We need more uninhibited technology development.

Let's cut the Russians and NASA out by using private resources to get there. "Hey Elon and Sir Richard, let's shrug off Putin and Obama all at once."
Forget about the fact than a single manned space launch consumes more fossil fuel than all the hybrids and EVs ever saved.

Hahahaha. We heard you guys.

Exactly. You must be referring to the Santa Susanna Mountains over looking the San Fernando Valley. We used to laugh when we tested the bigger ones late at night. The biggest we ran up there was the J-2 (110,000 #s thrust). The F-1's (1,522,000 #s of thrust) were only tested at Edwards AFB up in the Antelope Valley. I sure miss that job, it was the greatest. My dad worked at Lockheed Skunk Works. We almost weren't allow to talk to each other.

So True! also
Any honest NASA (or NASA contractor) scientist or engineer would tell you the manned anything is a large waste of $$$, compared to what can be done with current and future remote sensing capabilities.
Putting a person on the vehicle adds huge expense and risk with extremely small science payback.
It is all about the perception and sentiment - ie political.

Well, and nothing the feds do is on the cheap or cost-effective. We can only speculate that the former-commies are no better. Ever seen an "honest" Russian businessman (aka Russian Mafia)?

It's a well-known fact... I recently took an advanced astronomy class as an elective to my executive-MBA studies. Things have changed since science class 30 years ago...

What we see at the earth's crust and availability for mining is a tiny fraction of what was formed as the earth accreted pieces & parts during the solar system formation. The heavy / molten iron core strongly attracted heavy metals into the inner-earth. What is here now is what was pelted by asteroids after the planet's initial formation and is generally trapped from sinking lower at the bedrock layer. The rocky nature of earth is just the light stuff that didn't fall into the core.

Asteroids don't have any gravitation to speak of, so the same building blocks of the solar system (and earth) are present on them as well, albeit consistent throughout them in percentages and just requiring extraction & separation through typical lode-mining processes. you are not going to be panning for gold on the surface of one, as the ores will be mixed thoroughly. But its not a problem for separation techniques already in use.

Asteroids come in several types, mainly 2, light rocky stuff like you spoke of and is probably "most" of them, these are the ones that burn-up readily when skipping across our atmosphere, and others are heavy metals that leave impact craters as they usually have something left that hits with some force. The meteor crater in Arizona is a good example, but was only about the size of a VW beetle. The ones we are talking about would have the same heavy composition and are miles across. There's not a mine anywhere on earth that has a vein of miles wide & long of heavy & useful metals. Of course, we're also talking billions or trillions of asteroids.

"In fact, all the gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium, and tungsten mined from Earth's crust, and that are essential for economic and technological progress, came originally from the rain of asteroids that hit Earth after the crust cooled.[8][9][10] This is because although asteroids and Earth accreted from the same starting materials, Earth's relatively stronger gravity pulled all heavy siderophilic (iron-loving) elements into its core during its molten youth more than four billion years ago.[10] This left the crust depleted of such valuable elements[10] until asteroid impacts re-infused the depleted crust with metals (some flow from core to surface does occur, e.g. at the Bushveld Igneous Complex, a famously rich source of platinum-group metals)."

Economics[edit]
Currently, the quality of the ore and the consequent cost and mass of equipment required to extract it are unknown and can only be speculated. Some economic analyses indicate that the cost of returning asteroidal materials to Earth far outweighs their market value, and that asteroid mining will not attract private investment at current commodity prices and space transportation costs.[32][33] Other studies suggest large profit by using solar power.[34][35] Potential markets for materials can be identified and profit generated if extraction cost is brought down. For example, the delivery of multiple tonnes of water to low Earth orbit for rocket fuel preparation for space tourism could generate a significant profit.[36]

In 1997 it was speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (0.99 mi) contains more than $20 trillion USD worth of industrial and precious metals.[6][37] A comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron–nickel ore,[38] or two to three times the annual production of 2004.[39] The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×1019 kg of nickel–iron, which could supply the world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also be precious metals.

Although Planetary Resources says that platinum from a 30-meter long asteroid is worth 25–50 billion USD,[40] an economist remarked that any outside source of precious metals could lower prices sufficiently to possibly doom the venture by rapidly increasing the available supply of such metals.[41]

Development of an asteroid-orbit manipulation infrastructure could offer an irresistible return on investment.[42] However, astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Steven J. Ostro raised the concern that altering the trajectories of asteroids in nearby interplanetary space could cause a catastrophic collision with Earth. These scientists conclude that stringent controls on the misuse of orbit-engineering technology be instituted.[42][43][44]

I agree. Let the commercial sector continue to move into this sector if it has more future value.

Keeping the Feds involved only gives them power and $$$ they can't effectively use - as the results of their current policy with Russia shows (if you really needed another example - they are endless.)

So you were one of those guys making all that nose and lighting up the sky on the other side of the mountain, huh.

This time he's throwing the whole country over the fence.

Have you a source to show how much gold Eros is laden with? I had the impression that the composition of the asteroids would be similar to that of ordinary rocks on Earth.

That aside, I fully agree: we ought to restrict the government to the Three Functions Rand named: policing, military defense, and adjudication. The only question of a government role in space is when a mining colony gets big enough that an independent police presence becomes necessary to the security of the individual rights of the workers/residents/etc. I recall a novel, later a motion picture, titled "Outland," essentially a futuristic retelling of the "High Noon" story. (Sean Connery appears as a space-borne Federal marshal facing down a corrupt mining boss who has been giving dangerous Ephedrine-like stimulants to his miners, often with disastrous results.)

What else has it done? Perhaps because I worked for Rocketdyne in the early 60’s on the space program before answering the call from my country to visit some distant land, meet strange and diverse people, and kill them; or perhaps more likely because of the things we have today that we might not have if we hadn’t made the an attempt to explore the unknown. The short list of technologies developed as a result to space exploration and NASA includes some of the following: Artificial limbs, Baby formula Cell-phone cameras, Computer mouse, Cordless tools, Ear Thermometer, Firefighter gear, Freeze-dried food, Golf clubs (new materials), Long-distance communication, Invisible braces, MRI and CAT scans, Memory foam, Safer highways, solar panels, Shoe insoles, Ski boots, Adjustable smoke detector, Water filters, UV-blocking sunglasses, to name a few, and even LED’s. Both getting into space and going to war have necessitated the creation of many new materials and technologies that have and will continue to improve things for all of mankind. Tang, Velcro, and Teflon are not attributed to NASA. I’m all for exploring the unknown and developing the technologies needed to get there wherever it might lead. What else would we do with the money anyway?

I have to disagree with your asseessment of Russia as a third world country... Having been to actual 3rd World countries, and also having been to Russia, there is no comparison. It's like calling Canada a 3rd world country. Serious beans.

Scary Kerry.

Precious metals actually trump all of that.. Eros (near asteroid) has a million-trillion worth of gold on it at today's prices. NASA doesn't have to figure out where the money comes from, so it has no interest, we just need to get government out of the way of the private sector and let things take care of themselves. The barrier to real expansion and exploration of space is financial, not technical, the private sector will harvest resources that pay for that expansion and we'll see it in decades, not centuries if left to government funding.

This is moderately good news. Perhaps the US Gov will now redirect its attentions toward 'locally outsourcing' their 'travel funds'. Our commercial US space industries are quite capable of stepping up to the plate. Let's do it!

Jan

Agreed.

And then there's kerry.

Didn't think that one all the way through, did ya',Barry.

Whats scary is that he did.