James Cameron, Sold out to the RDA?

[ScottWashburn]

Interesting article:

Mystery company backed by James Cameron and Google executives may be an asteroid mining project | The Verge (http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/18/2957585/planetary-resources-space-exploration-company-james-cameron-google)

[Mother of the Forest]

Keyword: Asteroid.
However, I found this very interesting...

[Wanderlust]

http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2012/04/1.jpg?1334803317

James Cameron Backed Exploration and Resource Company

More Details to be Announced on April 24th

Billionaire-Backed Space Venture Planetary Resources to be Unveiled April 24 | Commercial Spaceflight | Space.com (http://www.space.com/15336-planetary-resources-space-exploration-announcement.html)

[-Mi'niri-]

http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2012/04/1.jpg?1334803317

James Cameron Backed Exploration and Resource Company

More Details to be Announced on April 24th

Billionaire-Backed Space Venture Planetary Resources to be Unveiled April 24 | Commercial Spaceflight | Space.com (http://www.space.com/15336-planetary-resources-space-exploration-announcement.html)

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, but my god that is a beautiful tiger...

[The Silver Stag]

That tiger is so stunning <3

On topic: I'm of the opinion that asteroids don't hold life and probably arent alive so is it so bad? As long as no planets or biodiversity are being screwed up.

[Porthos1]

^and as long as they don't make a mistake and it crashes into earth!

39867

[Jason 438]

So JC is backing space exploration?

[tm20]

as long as "asteroid" doesn't turn into "inhabited planet" (even if it wasn't inhabited, if it was beautiful i still wouldn't want it to be touched)

[Tsyal Makto]

^ Yeah. A dead asteroid is fair game, just don't dare touch any living worlds.

[Scott]

I think mining barren asteroids sounds far more appealing than the mountain leveling strip mining we do on Earth. Lots of asteroids pass very close to Earth's orbit and so its not hard to imagine space craft intercepting those rogue sojourners and havesting resources from them. The hard part will be safely de-orbiting the payloads. A shuttle is not practical, but maybe wrapping the payloads in heat resistant materials and massive, resuable, parashoots(think Apollo missions) might work.

[Ja'k Dawsiin]

i would much prefer the asteroid mining to strip-mining here on earth,too. i'm sure JC wouldn't be part of this venture if it wasn't viable or have some greater good of purpose.

[Aihwa]

Industry drives innovation.

[RD-701]

Asteroid mining is very difficult to do economically, because getting your mining hardware to the site, accessing the resources, processing them, and returning them to Earth is a very expensive process. Right now, using off-the-shelf technology and traditional government development processes and contracts, it's either impossible physically or economically. Given the right developments, it might be possible... but it's a very, very tall order.

And even then, you're looking only at mining really high value materials- such as platinum, or gold, or rare-Earth elements such as rhodium, iridium, etc. Stuff like iron and nickel (albeit common on asteroids) are simply too worthless to bother with.

And we've been over it before. Multiple times. A hole in the ground is not "defiling" a planet. Earth has plenty of holes in the ground. And it has had far, far more land area affected by things such as destruction of habitat for agriculture and logging than by mining. Nobody is going to go off the planet to mine mundane stuff like aluminium, and certainly not purely for ecological reasons.

[Pandora66]

And we've been over it before. Multiple times. A hole in the ground is not "defiling" a planet. Earth has plenty of holes in the ground. And it has had far, far more land area affected by things such as destruction of habitat for agriculture and logging than by mining. Nobody is going to go off the planet to mine mundane stuff like aluminium, and certainly not purely for ecological reasons.

it's the hazardous waste that's created that causes most of the problems and let's be honest a lot of countries have very poor environmental standards

article:

James Cameron's next venture: mining asteroids - The Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/james-camerons-next-venture-mining-asteroids/article2412215/)

[Porthos1]

RD-701: "And we've been over it before. Multiple times. A hole in the ground is not "defiling" a planet. Earth has plenty of holes in the ground. And it has had far, far more land area affected by things such as destruction of habitat for agriculture and logging than by mining."

Yes we have. Tōmato tomAto. Just because it is customary and nothing special on our planet to extract something from the ground, making an occasional hole, pit, strip mining, Hydraulic mining etc. does not mean we are not defiling our home. Maybe if you do not care for your home, then it doesn't matter to you. To those of us who care and are concerned members of our species, it is defiling.

If they can mine an asteroid instead of raping the Earth, I am all for it! Hell Yeah!

[RD-701]

Yes we have. Tōmato tomAto. Just because it is customary and nothing special on our planet to extract something from the ground, making an occasional hole, pit, strip mining, Hydraulic mining etc. does not mean we are not defiling our home. Maybe if you do not care for your home, then it doesn't matter to you. To those of us who care and are concerned members of our species, it is defiling.

If they can mine an asteroid instead of raping the Earth, I am all for it! Hell Yeah!

Going by your logic of "raping the Earth", the Earth would be defiling itself, constantly, and has been doing so for the last several billion years. The logic of 'touch nothing' is faulty, because it assumes an ecosystem is something sterile, like a human-constructed environment, that is static and unchanging. Earth is always being disrupted; it's always disrupting itself. Life shifts, moves, adapts, is forced out of some areas and repopulates others, etc. If we are to realise our place as a part of Earth, why should we invent such a dichotomy?

It isn't about not caring about the Earth. I care about the Earth very much, and I'm rather offended by your insinuation that I think otherwise. It's a matter of priority. A hole in the ground may not be pretty (I certainly don't think it is- I see satellite pictures of mines in New Caledonia and cringe), and locally it's physically destructive... but if you plan things properly, and enforce regulations to prevent carelessness, you can access those resources with minimal disruption, and after the resources of that mine are depleted, you can move on- and flora will regrow, fauna will repopulate.

Meanwhile you've got slash-and-burn, clearcutting, fertiliser runoff, waste dumping, air pollution, etc. The previously natural area occupied by agricultural facilities for example is far in excess of land that has been pit-or-strip mined.


it's the hazardous waste that's created that causes most of the problems and let's be honest a lot of countries have very poor environmental standards


I would imagine that in that case it would help more to ensure that environmental standards are improved, rather than demanding that people source metals from uneconomic sites.

[Porthos1]

My comment was not on the natural movement of the Earth; storms, plates shifting, droughts, flooding and anything that is destructive are natural and I don't consider this rape or defiling. What is, though, is destruction that is not natural. This destruction may be things that our current sociaty thinks is important and we could not function well without it, but it is still "defiling." That really includes those items in the second paragraph.

I am also not saying you do not care about earth; I am sure we "see" eye to eye on concerns of earth. I'm less tolerant and usually fueled with multiple shots of espresso when I sit down and read AF. I view this as man unable to grow up and remaining a child, destroying instead of creating. You seem to be more realistic. It is going to happen and maybe we can limit the impact so our needs will not eventually kill us as a species.

If JC and the group can start the process of mining outside our home to maintain the livability standards we need, I say go for it.

[_Omaticaya_]

Industry drives innovation.

Industry drives Pollution. Innovation drives Loss of Costumes & Traditions and Common Sense.

[-Mi'niri-]

'Industry drives innovation'
I think I'm getting sick.

[Tsyal Makto]

Industry doesn't drive innovation, it's the other way around. Everything around us had to originate in someone's mind, actually building it comes second. In fact, innovation usually has to clean up the messes industry causes.

[allrock123]

Mining asteroids and bringing usable materal back would be so expensive as to likely offset the cost of the materal mined, how are you going to bring tons of materal back to earth, I am willing to bet an asteroid mining company is a ruse for another space based project posably involving advanced robotics it "may" be posable he is testing a theory for using asteroid materal for spacecraft fuel (like mining ice for water) The Space Review: Planetary Resources believes asteroid mining has come of age (http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2074/1)

[RD-701]

Industry doesn't drive innovation, it's the other way around. Everything around us had to originate in someone's mind, actually building it comes second. In fact, innovation usually has to clean up the messes industry causes.

I don't know. I think industry is a neutral force; it isn't evil, but it isn't necessarily positive, either. It may not be a driver of innovation, but it doesn't always stifle it. The solution to the damages of industry isn't't 'anti-industry', it's 'pro-industry'- in the sense that we must be pro-active in developing industrial processes that are efficient and thoughtful in terms of what they use, how they work, and what they produce.



Mining asteroids and bringing usable materal back would be so expensive as to likely offset the cost of the materal mined, how are you going to bring tons of materal back to earth, I am willing to bet an asteroid mining company is a ruse for another space based project posably involving advanced robotics it "may" be posable he is testing a theory for using asteroid materal for spacecraft fuel (like mining ice for water)

Planetary Resources seems to be going for a very incremental approach to what they're doing, which is a very intelligent plan- it's far less likely to badly flop than an organisation planning a gigantic monolithic set of expensive, advanced pieces of technology. Even if they don't make a buck off of mining an asteroid, there'll probably be quite a bit of good that will come of the technology they develop.

[_Omaticaya_]

I don't know. I think industry is a neutral force; it isn't evil, but it isn't necessarily positive, either. It may not be a driver of innovation, but it doesn't always stifle it. The solution to the damages of industry isn't't 'anti-industry', it's 'pro-industry'- in the sense that we must be pro-active in developing industrial processes that are efficient and thoughtful in terms of what they use, how they work, and what they produce.



Planetary Resources seems to be going for a very incremental approach to what they're doing, which is a very intelligent plan- it's far less likely to badly flop than an organisation planning a gigantic monolithic set of expensive, advanced pieces of technology. Even if they don't make a buck off of mining an asteroid, there'll probably be quite a bit of good that will come of the technology they develop.

...Just Read Marx's books... Industry and the middle class ****ed it all up. Money-Investement-MoreMoney, that's all they bloody cared about. And machines became more important than humans themselves, simply because, they didn't have to pay them. Humans started working in factories as machines aswell. Industry killed manual work, left people with no job, nor passion anymore.

[exostrike]

Hey, found a Dilbert cartoon about this.

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[Enkrptic-Navi]

I don't see a problem with asteroid mining. Many of the valuable mineral resources we take for granted on this planet came from asteroids. Scientists believe most of the heavy metals we mine originally came from the sky billions of years ago. So I think it's a good thing. Also, by definition asteroids have no atmosphere and are too small to hold conventional life. However, that doesn't mean that some very simple life could exist in ice deposits if present, but that's all speculation for now. Perhaps we'll know more once we've sent more probes and maybe even a "Human Exploration" to the asteroids. Personally, I'd rather go to Mars. :-)