What will Director James Cameron do in outer space?

[Neil]

http://io9.com/5903306/what-will-dir...pace?tag=space A mysterious planetary project backed by a high-profile group of individuals—director James Cameron, Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, and politician Ross Perot's son, among others—will be revealed on April 24th, in a conference-call unveiling of space exploration company Planetary Resources. Technology Review speculates that he project, which promises to "create a new industry and a new definition of 'natural resources'," will be something along the lines of asteroid mining. The project itself is being headed by X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, who in a 2005 Ted talk lauded the possibilities of asteroid mining in particular and extraterrestrial environments in general.

[bassman]

There's been a lot of positive and negative talk about Cameron on HPotD lately, but you've got to give it to the guy.....even if you dislike his films, he doesn't just waste his wealth away on trivial things. The man has great ambitions outside of filmmaking and I certainly applaud him for it. When he's lying on his death bed, he's going to be able to say he accomplished some truly great and ground-breaking things in his time. Pretty amazing for a truck driver that quit his job after seeing Star Wars and was determined to make his dreams a reality.

[Danny]

Makes perfect sense, i've said before that the next 'wild west frontier gold rush' is going to be mining the asteroids in the system. untapped riches with no legal ownerhip by any nation ripe for the taking. Though im sure countries like the u.s and china are working on some way to claim mining rights fast Which i joke about, but i've always wondered, whats to stop like the first man on mars being from italy or something and claiming the planet for italy yknow?

[JDFP]

What will James Cameron do in space? If "Avatar" is any indication - he'll do a a lot of shitty CGI. No thanks for me in watching it. j.p.

[Christopher Jon]

There's been a lot of positive and negative talk about Cameron on HPotD lately, but you've got to give it to the guy.....even if you dislike his films, he doesn't just waste his wealth away on trivial things. The man has great ambitions outside of filmmaking and I certainly applaud him for it. When he's lying on his death bed, he's going to be able to say he accomplished some truly great and ground-breaking things in his time. Pretty amazing for a truck driver that quit his job after seeing Star Wars and was determined to make his dreams a reality. Yep. Cameron stepping into the space exploration field is a good thing. The dude gets shit done.

[Sammich]

Well, The Uranus Experiment: Part 2, made in 1999, already beat Cameron to what most people wanted to see in zero-g.

[Mike70]

being a science, space and astronomy geek, i would really love to know how in the hell these folks are going to deliver mined elements to the surface of the earth. granted, the atmosphere of the earth helps slow things down but landing the space shuttle is one thing, landing enough mined material from space to make a difference on earth is quite another matter. one thing goes wrong and you have hundreds of tons of material impacting on the earth with the force of many, many nuclear explosions combined. not a good thing. i think time should be spent on spacecraft that solve the problems of living in zero G by having rotating sections on them. it is very possible to create gravity by rotating an object. that solves many of the barriers to long term human spaceflight. spacecraft able to generate their own magnetic fields would be another leap forward and would help solve another of the problems of long term human spaceflight: the incredible amounts of radiation you would be exposed to once you leave the earth's magnetosphere. this is why i feel that mars, which has no magnetic field, should be bypassed. nor should we try to send humans to europa, which lies inside of the most deadly part of jupiter's radiation belts. Titan is the place to send people. it is protected by saturn's magnetosphere, it has an atmosphere 1.5 times as thick as earth's and it has seas, lakes, and rivers of liquid methane. in fact, Titan has an entire weather system just like earth's but instead of being based on water, it is based on methane, which on Titan can exist as a gas, a liquid and a solid - just like water can on earth. a bonus for going to Titan would be the chance to explore Enceladus, which is has subsurface liquid water, which is salty and full of organic chemicals. the two most interesting places in the solar system are in orbit around Saturn. that's the place to shoot for.

[Christopher Jon]

being a science, space and astronomy geek, i would really love to know how in the hell these folks are going to deliver mined elements to the surface of the earth. granted, the atmosphere of the earth helps slow things down but landing the space shuttle is one thing, landing enough mined material from space to make a difference on earth is quite another matter. one thing goes wrong and you have hundreds of tons of material impacting on the earth with the force of many, many nuclear explosions combined. not a good thing. i think time should be spent on spacecraft that solve the problems of living in zero G by having rotating sections on them. it is very possible to create gravity by rotating an object. that solves many of the barriers to long term human spaceflight. spacecraft able to generate their own magnetic fields would be another leap forward and would help solve another of the problems of long term human spaceflight: the incredible amounts of radiation you would be exposed to once you leave the earth's magnetosphere. this is why i feel that mars, which has no magnetic field, should be bypassed. nor should we try to send humans to europa, which lies inside of the most deadly part of jupiter's radiation belts. Titan is the place to send people. it is protected by saturn's magnetosphere, it has an atmosphere 1.5 times as thick as earth's and it has seas, lakes, and rivers of liquid methane. in fact, Titan has an entire weather system just like earth's but instead of being based on water, it is based on methane, which on Titan can exist as a gas, a liquid and a solid - just like water can on earth. a bonus for going to Titan would be the chance to explore Enceladus, which is has subsurface liquid water, which is salty and full of organic chemicals. the two most interesting places in the solar system are in orbit around Saturn. that's the place to shoot for. They do seem to be putting the cart before the horse. I'm assuming the plan is to figure that stuff out first. And slightly off topic: I can't believe they haven't developed a successor to the Space Shuttle. That thing was developed in the 70's.

[Mike70]

And slightly off topic: I can't believe they haven't developed a successor to the Space Shuttle. That thing was developed in the 70's. there are successors but they are being developed by private space companies. Space X's Dragon has already flown once successfully and on the 30th of apr it will be launched again. this time it is going to dock with the space station. There are two types of Dragon: one that carries cargo and one that can carry up to 7 astronauts. once the cargo version proves its chops, the manned version will fly. the Dragon was also built with the capability in mind to take humans to both the Moon and to Mars. the Dragon is also using a heat shield that is far superior to the one that was used in NASA missions. Lockheed-Martin are developing a space transport system, which i believe they are going to call Orion. Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace are also throwing their hat in the ring with the CST-100. there's lots going on right now in the field of commerical spaceflight. in fact, Boeing and Bigelow are seriously planning to build a privately owned space station and hire their own astronauts. Space X just beat the other companies to the first punch, so they have the edge right now. this is fine with me. it leaves NASA to concentrate on science missions (think Kepler, Cassini, Dawn and New Horizons) using automated spacecraft and develop new engine technologies.

[Neil]

Asteroid mining it is! - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17827347 And knowing Cameron, be flying the damn ships there