By Andy Pasztor
Two years ago, a group of Silicon Valley luminaries and space
entrepreneurs introduced a startup whose goal seemed straight out
of science fiction: extracting precious minerals from
asteroids.
With much fanfare, Planetary Resources Inc., the closely held
company financed partly by Google Inc. Chief Executive Larry Page
and Chairman Eric Schmidt, and supported by British billionaire
Richard Branson and space tourist Charles Simonyi, outlined plans
to mine platinum or other rare metals with robotic spacecraft and
return the metals to Earth.
Backers described the project, with its potential to reach tens
of millions of miles into space and generate billions of dollars in
profits, as "the future of entrepreneurial space."
Now, largely without publicity, the team of former National
Aeronautics and Space Administration officials that runs Planetary
Resources has shifted the company's focus to a more mundane space
resource: water.
Water found on or near asteroids, their theory goes, could be
processed into fuel to extend the useful lives of aging commercial
satellites.
"I still consider that mining," Planetary Resources co-founder
Eric Anderson said in a recent interview disclosing the new game
plan. "We're going to take the resources of space and turn them
into a usable material."
The company's new course underscores the huge challenges facing
commercial space projects, even those with the stablest funding and
most impressive scientific pedigrees. Space experts and
entrepreneurs have been buzzing for months about the change.
Planetary Resources originally envisioned using orbiting swarms
of small telescopes--some weighing as little as 30 pounds--to
survey some of the thousands of sizable asteroids that come closest
to the Earth or the moon, looking for evidence of mineral deposits.
A second wave of unmanned spacecraft many times larger would have
been dispatched to do the mining.
In mapping out the new trajectory, however, Mr. Anderson
acknowledged that technical hurdles and cost considerations have
turned the initial vision into a distant dream.
Instead, he said, the company's immediate focus is on
establishing orbiting fuel depots, essentially gas stations for
many hundreds of decaying satellites, which otherwise would burn up
as they plummeted back to Earth. The plan calls for robotic
spacecraft designed to retrieve water from asteroids or their vapor
trails--without ever landing on them--and break it down into
hydrogen and oxygen for use as propellants. Solar power would be
used to heat up asteroids to create water vapor, and the intense
cold of space would freeze it for later use.
Commercial communication satellites running low on fuel after a
decade or more in service would adjust their orbits to reach the
depots and refuel, potentially gaining more years of life.
Planetary Resources also envisions scientific, military and even
spy satellites, along with deep-space scientific probes, benefiting
from such fill-ups.
"Quite honestly, it's more sexy to talk about...bringing
something back to the Earth," Mr. Anderson said. But that goal, he
said, is much more difficult and requires first establishing the
same kind of fuel depots the company is emphasizing now. "That
certainly will be the emphasis in the early years."
By some measures, selling fuel at orbiting depots could be as
lucrative as digging up minerals. The company, though, continues to
talk about eventually setting up remote-controlled mining
operations for metals.
But at least for now, even Planetary Resources' scaled-back
proposal faces major hurdles, including the fact that at least two
established space companies already have devised competing
satellite-rejuvenation projects that don't depend on such elaborate
techniques.
Alliant Techsystems Inc. is marketing a simpler solution. Its
plan calls for launching a family of vehicles that would rendezvous
with larger, aging satellites and latch onto them. The vehicles
would remain attached to the satellites, serving as a propulsion
system and replacement fuel tank to keep both spacecraft in
orbit.
Alliant's approach avoids the complex business of tapping into
the host spacecraft's existing fuel lines, an operation that can
cause dangerous collisions or venting of chemicals.
Mr. Anderson, however, says his company's strategy would be
substantially less expensive in the long run, because it would
avoid the significant cost of launching fuel from the ground. So
far commercial satellite operators generally have been ambivalent
about signing on to any proposals to extend the lives of their
satellites. Alliant has indicated it has at least two firm
customers, but it hasn't identified them.
A spokeswoman said Alliant's strategy is less risky and more
versatile, because it also can be used "to take over for a
satellite with a damaged or inoperable propulsion or
attitude-control system."
Despite the risks, Mr. Anderson remains upbeat. He said test
launches are slated for the end of this year and 2015, followed by
plans for "sending our first swarm [of telescopes] to an asteroid
target" in 2016. He compares Planetary Resources' proposed depots
to building a highway for deep-space exploration. "If it works,
it's a total game-changer."
The company isn't seeking any federal financing, unlike a
previously announced, high-profile effort to send the first manned
spaceship to circumnavigate Mars around the end of the decade.
Championed by Dennis Tito, who became the world's first space
tourist with his visit to the international space station, that
project is belatedly seeking government help to cover launch
costs.
"We don't need money" from federal sources, said Mr. Anderson,
who has been reluctant to break our specific projected costs. But
he added that Planetary Resources would be looking for Washington's
support when it came to international rules and treaties dealing
with resources discovered on asteroids.
Chris Lewicki, the company's president and chief engineer, said
water is one of the easiest and most valuable resources "to
remotely prospect" and use. It could cost about $50 million to
transport a single ton of water from the Earth into orbit,
according to Planetary Resources. Mr. Anderson has suggested it is
likely to cost substantially less to carry out the entire 2016
mission to start identifying virtually unlimited sources of water
on asteroids.
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