[hi]

I've met this team, been to their office and done a deep dive on what they are doing. They will 100% sell high value space mined materials into earth markets at a profit and be a multi-billion dollar company.

I do wonder why they chose Stoke Space as their launch provider given the founders come from SpaceX and Falcon rockets have a track record.

My first though is that investors are playing some game with investment going to revenues of another portfolio company. How common is this?

Overlapping Investors:

- 776

- Y Combinator

- Initialized Capital

- Caladan Ventures

[imglorp]

Is asteroid mining profitable? I'm assuming you would smelt in space and then use the metal in space, although reentry could be cheap if you form it into a lifting body for re-entry and are willing to lose some from ablation as it glides in.

So you have to get your miner and smelter and power plant into stable orbit at like $1m/ton, and then what? Does the money work out?

[spenczar5]

I have directly worked with one of these companies on asteroid discovery. Even they would say it does not cash out for decades. But the premise is that as costs improve it becomes fabulously lucrative.

These companies are very, very risky. If they weren’t, you would see more competition!

[heelix]

I assume the point of mining in space is to have raw resources that are already outside the gravity well. Not so much for bringing it to earth, but space based construction.

[sebzim4500]

They are going after platinum group metals, which are valuable enough that the cost of reentry is irrelevant assuming they can get a somewhat pure sample in space.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

There is no ablation at 400°C to 800°C, which can be achieved by forming the 'lifting body' more into the direction of larger wingspans, instead of making it falling fast like a brick. Which hasn't been done so far, because larger wingspans are impractical for rocket lift from earth, but that doesn't apply here.

[MattExSci]

We refine it (or better yet, enrich it) in space and bring it back to Earth. I wish someone would buy it in space, but currently, that market is worth... 0.

So, we ship that shit back to Earth and sell it into the commodities market.

[fsckboy]

>Is asteroid mining profitable? I'm assuming you would smelt in space and then use the metal in space

are there middlemen in this market, or is it a vertically integrated "smelt it/dealt it" situation?

[tsimionescu]

> They will 100% sell high value space mined materials into earth markets at a profit and be a multi-billion dollar company.

To whom? Who is interested in buying the minuscule amounts of material you could realistically bring back to earth from an asteroid? What raw material would be expensive enough to warrant the gigantic amounts of fuel needed to transport even a few tens of kilos of back?

[spenczar5]

The usually cited mineral is iridium. It is exceptionally rare on earth (ninth rarest stable element!) but abundant in asteroids and very useful in alloys and many applications.

[notfish]

The target market is the same as normal mining, you probably mine platinum. The cost probably only closes with either starship or mining fuel in space.

[MattExSci]

I have over 8.5B in binding contracts.

[primax]

Bringing it back is a lot more energy efficient than getting up there in the first place.

[Alex-Programs]

As far as I know, launching on new, unproven rockets tends to be a lot cheaper. E.g. the Escapade mission launching on New Glenn.

[foobarbecue]

Do they have a plan for reentry?

Or is the idea to sell the ore or processed material in space?

(Because when it comes to asteroid mining, I think that's the hard part. If they have believable plans here I might consider applying to work for them, but I haven't seen anything that passes the smell test on this.)

[grey-area]

Couldn’t you make an ablative heat shield possibly from waste materials on the same asteroid? Then lob your metal toward a shallow sea on earth?

Or take it back to some stable earth orbit then pick it up there?

Do we know what their reentry plan is?

[aaronblohowiak]

I don’t know if that is what is happening here, but it is a common occurrence — both to juice numbers but also for special pricing (as mentioned in article) or mutual flexibility (dedicated launch), because the founders know each other, etc.

[MattExSci]

Honestly, this had nothing to do with mutual investors. While that's great, the space community is small, and we all talk to each other. Andy and Stoke Space are an amazing team, and in this case, we shared a lot of benefits with each other. It's a rare win/win.

[financetechbro]

Portfolio company synergies is totally normal and a practice that Elon himself leans on

[numbsafari]

verY Common…