Deep Space Industries
A graphic showing a space station under construction, in proximity to an asteroid-mining operation, touts Deep Space Industries' coming-out party.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
A new venture dubbed Deep Space Industries is jumping into the marketplace for asteroid mining ??joining a billionaire-backed company called Planetary Resources in what they hope will eventually turn into a trillion-dollar business.
In a press advisory, Deep Space Industries says it will create "the world?s first fleet of commercial asteroid-prospecting spacecraft." The venture also promises to develop a "breakthrough process for manufacturing in space."
"Deep Space is pursuing an aggressive schedule and plans on prospecting, harvesting and processing asteroids for use in space and to benefit Earth," the company said in a press advisory.?Details are to be announced during a news briefing at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) Tuesday at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, with webcast coverage via Spacevidcast?and YouTube.
Although the press advisory was scant on specifics, some of the venture's founding members have surfaced already: Deep Space's CEO is David Gump, who has been involved in other space-themed companies including LunaCorp, which aimed to send rovers to the moon and also helped arrange one of the first TV commercials in orbit; Transformational Space, one of the early players in NASA's commercialization effort; and Astrobotic, one of the teams going after the Google Lunar X Prize.
Another leader of the company is Rick Tumlinson, who was involved in founding the Space Frontier Foundation as well as private space ventures such as Space Diving and Orbital Outfitters. Tumlinson's involvement in Deep Space Industries was mentioned in an announcement from Geoff Notkin, host of the Science Channel's "Meteorite Men" TV series, saying that he'd join the venture as well.?
Financial questions
One of the key questions relates to the venture's financial backing: Theoretically, mining the right kind of asteroid could produce precious metals worth sending back to Earth, such as platinum, gold and rare-earth minerals. Some asteroids also contain water ice that can be converted into fuel and supplies for space travel and settlement. Under the right conditions, such resources could be worth trillions of dollars a year. But it would cost billions of dollars to identify and exploit those resources.
To cover such costs, Planetary Resources recruited a big-name investment group that includes Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, software executive and spaceflier Charles Simonyi, Texan billionaire Ross Perot Jr. and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Ram Shriram. Planetary Resources also has a business plan that involves selling its Arkyd space telescopes as the first step toward profitability.
Planetary Resources President and Chief Asteroid Miner gives an update on the developments with the Arkyd-100 Space Telescope and prospecting technology demonstrator.
When Planetary Resources had its coming-out party last year, that company's executives said they planned to launch their first hardware in the 2013-2014 time frame. In a technical update?released on Monday, the company's president, Chris Lewicki, didn't provide details about the launch schedule. But he did say there were "a number of exciting upcoming events," and indicated that the venture was currently concentrating on the development of low-cost prototype telescopes.
"With each new prototype build, we?re?learning a lot about how to strip cost out of the assembly, integration and test process, and that will be?incredibly valuable?when we start mass production of the units destined for space," Lewicki said.
It's not yet clear whether Deep Space Industries will end up being a competitor for Planetary Resources ??or a customer. But as with most outer-space ventures, the venture's financial underpinnings will be as much a key to success as its technological vision.
More about asteroid ventures:
Stay tuned for updates after Tuesday's news briefing.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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