Is there a possibility that Russia can land on Mars before USA?

Big_Gazza wrote:

Vladimir79 wrote:US doesn't invest much in it either.  The most likely candidate is Elon Musk beating everyone.

Musk is just a show-pony who owns a rocket company.  SpaceX doesn't currently have a manned LEO capability, and won't launch such vehicles unless the USGov pays for them (ie shuttle service to/from ISS).  The idea that Musk is going to land humans on Mars is nothing but fan-boi BS.

Isn't he bankrupt because of his ideas ? I heard tesla is loosing something like 5000 $ per minute or hour. His reusable rockets won't help him.

Tesla is not doing well, but even if it went to the wall, SpaceX is a separate company and Musk won't lose his shirt.

Its not his money. Its the money from pension funds and from people that are told by their bank that it would be a good "investment". And, of course, tax payer money.

Vladimir79 wrote:They say the average asteroid is worth $50 billion in mineral elements, most of the value in platinum. If it costs $49 billion to conduct the mining they have already made a profit and they would have the infrastructure to mine many more.  The only question is what company is large and bold enough to take the risk.  The long term problem for that is once everyone starts mining asteroids these minerals will not be as rare or valuable as they are now and would need a growing market to sustain their value.  The barriers to entry are so high only one or two companies would even try it and they would form a monopoly on the industry.

I think you are missing the show-stopper detail about the distribution of minerals in asteroids. On Earth we have the water cycle which extends from the ionosphere down to the base of the upper mantle layer (670 km below the surface). The distribution of minerals is fundamentally shaped by the flux of water and the presence of free oxygen in the atmosphere. One result is aggregation of minerals in the form of various oxides into veins. This aggregation makes commercial extraction of minerals viable. Asteroids originate from the earliest period of the solar system. Long before any water cycle and oxidation would have occurred. There are no veins of minerals and instead they are diffused through the rock or iron at very low concentrations.

No company is going to "mine" asteroids since they cannot be mined. We have no technology of cheaply extracting diffuse trace amounts of elements. In the real world this would require vapourization of the rock and the operation of centrifuges as with enriched uranium production. The clowns who estimate the "value" of an average asteroid completely ignore the cost of extraction. Your logic about the 49/50 in costs vs returns also fails to account for risk. Any screwup will result in tens of billions of losses. Risking tens of billions of losses on a one billion profit is not the casino action that corporations are known for. That is why we have an insurance industry. Even small potential losses are insured. However, no insurance company is going to cover high cost asteroid mining. Only the government can cover such losses and sci-fi reliability statistics may require centuries to achieve.

kvs wrote:I think you are missing the show-stopper detail about the distribution of minerals in asteroids.   On Earth we have the water cycle which extends from the ionosphere down to the base of the upper mantle layer (670 km below the surface).    The distribution of minerals is fundamentally shaped by the flux of water and the presence of free oxygen in the atmosphere.   One result is aggregation of minerals in the form of various oxides into veins.   This aggregation makes commercial extraction of minerals viable.    Asteroids originate from the earliest period of the solar system.   Long before any water cycle and oxidation would have occurred.    There are no veins of minerals and instead they are diffused through the rock or iron at very low concentrations.  

No company is going to "mine" asteroids since they cannot be mined.    We have no technology of cheaply extracting diffuse trace amounts of elements.   In the real world this would require vapourization of the rock and the operation of centrifuges as with enriched uranium production.   The clowns who estimate the "value" of an average asteroid completely ignore the cost of extraction.    Your logic about the 49/50 in costs vs returns also fails to account for risk.   Any screwup will result in tens of billions of losses.    Risking tens of billions of losses on a one billion profit is not the casino action that corporations are known for.    That is why we have an insurance industry.   Even small potential losses are insured.   However, no insurance company is going to cover high cost asteroid mining.    Only the government can cover such losses and sci-fi reliability statistics may require centuries to achieve.  

Asteroids have more than 3X the concentration of minerals as the best deposits on Earth making the actual process of extraction more economical. All they have to do is bring the ore worth processing back to a facility in Earth orbit that has easy access to resupply launches. If they need water they can launch it up there and have scrubbers clean it for reuse. With these reusable rockets it might just be worth it to land the ore on Earth and process it here.