In May, I told you about a team of experts that has launched a new company to mine precious metals from asteroids near Earth. Planetary Resources plans to extract ore and other resources from orbiting space rocks.
Not long ago, of course, this was the stuff of sci-fi.
It smacks of the 1998 movie Armageddon, in which a team of roughnecks lands on an asteroid on a collision course with Earth in order to blow it out of the sky.
As it turns out, there is a real-life asteroid hunter doing something even more exciting.
Dr. Ed Lu is a former NASA astronaut and veteran of three space flights, and he has just announced a new mission - to find the asteroids that pose a threat to our planet and eradicate them. His work is more vital than you might think.
You see, near-Earth asteroids are a double-edged sword.
No doubt, thousands of them contain valuable metals and other physical assets that will open up a whole new paradigm of resource discovery and make some savvy investors rich.
On the other hand...
We're surrounded by a belt of them that could strike Earth. Under the worst-case scenario, a large rock traveling at high speeds could wipe out most of the life on our planet. That remains a remote chance. But this fact is clear: Even a small space rock could cause widespread damage. It could kill thousands, or perhaps millions, if it were to strike a heavily populated urban area.
This is not the stuff of theory.
Earth has been hit by asteroids before - big ones.
Back in 1908, a space rock descended on a Siberian forest. More than 1,000 times stronger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the Tunguska event leveled roughly 80 million trees. Just think of the havoc it would have caused had it struck New York City...
We need some way to track the asteroids that could pose a threat to us. And we need some way to prevent a potential collision with one from happening.
Enter Lu. He serves as the chairman and CEO of the nonprofit B612 Foundation. The group made waves last week when it announced plans to launch an asteroid-tracking telescope in the near future that can identify any killer space rocks on course to threaten us... decades before they could hit us.
The idea behind the Sentinel Space Telescope is simple. Place the infrared (IR) device into orbit around the Sun near Venus. Once there, Sentinel will map the swarms of large asteroids that ring the inner solar system.
Lu's group says it plans to launch the instrument before the end of the decade. To do so, they will rely on another firm I told you about: Sentinel will blast off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Once there, the telescope will catalog 90% of the asteroids in Earth's region of the solar system and that are larger than 425 feet (140 meters). The IR device also can find asteroids as small as 150 feet in diameter. It will orbit in a region of between 30 million and 170 million miles from Earth.
"During its 5.5-year mission survey time, Sentinel will discover and track half a million near-Earth asteroids," Lu said in making the announcement in San Francisco. He added that Sentinel will be "creating a dynamic map that will provide the blueprint for future exploration of our Solar System, while protecting the future of humanity on Earth."
For its part, B612 doesn't plan to zap asteroids. Instead, it will transmit data back to earth using NASA's Deep Space Network.
But just in case...
In addition to being an asteroid hunter, Lu has invented a device that could save the earth from a killer space rock. Unlike in the movie Armageddon, Lu sees no need to blow the asteroid into smithereens. He suggests a gentler, more cutting-edge way to save humanity, if need be.
His Gravity Tractor is a spacecraft that can alter an asteroid's orbit. And it sounds like something straight out of Star Trek...
Under a plan he describes on his website, Lu says the spacecraft would hover above the asteroid. It would then slowly pull the rock off course using nothing more than the gravitational attraction between the two bodies.
"If an asteroid is found to be at an impact trajectory with Earth," Lu says, "you will have many decades of notice. And it turns out that you only need to change its velocity by a very small amount in order to prevent a collision."
While working on this report for you, I was able to get asteroid hunter Ed Lu on the phone.
I thought we would speak only briefly - I just needed to check a couple of facts. But our phone call turned into a wide-ranging chat that spanned nearly 30 minutes. Lu had some absolutely intriguing things to say.
What he revealed to me during our call warranted a follow up, which you can read now by signing up for my free newsletter, Era of Radical Change. Click here to learn more.
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About the Author
Michael A. Robinson is a 36-year Silicon Valley veteran and one of the top tech and biotech financial analysts working today. That's because, as a consultant, senior adviser, and board member for Silicon Valley venture capital firms, Michael enjoys privileged access to pioneering CEOs, scientists, and high-profile players. And he brings this entire world of Silicon Valley "insiders" right to you...
- He was one of five people involved in early meetings for the $160 billion "cloud" computing phenomenon.
- He was there as Lee Iacocca and Roger Smith, the CEOs of Chrysler and GM, led the robotics revolution that saved the U.S. automotive industry.
- As cyber-security was becoming a focus of national security, Michael was with Dave DeWalt, the CEO of McAfee, right before Intel acquired his company for $7.8 billion.
This all means the entire world is constantly seeking Michael's insight.
In addition to being a regular guest and panelist on CNBC and Fox Business, he is also a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and reporter. His first book Overdrawn: The Bailout of American Savings warned people about the coming financial collapse - years before the word "bailout" became a household word.
Silicon Valley defense publications vie for his analysis. He's worked for Defense Media Network and Signal Magazine, as well as The New York Times, American Enterprise, and The Wall Street Journal.
And even with decades of experience, Michael believes there has never been a moment in time quite like this.
Right now, medical breakthroughs that once took years to develop are moving at a record speed. And that means we are going to see highly lucrative biotech investment opportunities come in fast and furious.
To help you navigate the historic opportunity in biotech, Michael launched the Bio-Tech Profit Alliance.
His other publications include: Strategic Tech Investor, The Nova-X Report, Bio-Technology Profit Alliance and Nexus-9 Network.