{"id":17693,"date":"2020-06-05T00:11:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T16:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/everything-must-boldly-go-defunct-asteroid-mining-companys-hardware-put-up-for-auction\/"},"modified":"2020-06-05T00:11:01","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T16:11:01","slug":"everything-must-boldly-go-defunct-asteroid-mining-companys-hardware-put-up-for-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/everything-must-boldly-go-defunct-asteroid-mining-companys-hardware-put-up-for-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything must boldly go! Defunct asteroid mining company\u2019s hardware put up for auction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thermal
Rich Reynolds, an employee of James G. Murphy Auctioneers, keeps an eye on the thermal vacuum chamber in the machine shop at Planetary Resources\u2019 former HQ in Redmond, Wash. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

REDMOND, Wash. \u2014 Wanna buy a used thermal vacuum chamber?<\/p>\n

If you have a sudden yen to replicate outer-space conditions, it behooves you to check out today\u2019s online-only auction of the hardware left over from Planetary Resources, the Redmond venture that aimed to create a trillion-dollar asteroid mining industry.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t delay: By this evening, everything \u2014 from the 10-foot-tall vacuum chamber in the first-floor machine shop, to the dozens of laptops and chairs spread out in the second-floor workspace, to the satellite dish on top of the office building in Redmond \u2014 will have gone electronically to the highest bidders.<\/p>\n

As of late Wednesday night, the vacuum chamber was going for $730. A CNC vertical machining center drew the priciest bid, in excess of $34,000. But there was nary a bid for the satellite ground station, which will require a crane and proof of $3 million liability coverage for removal.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all likely to change today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a card game,\u201d said Hank Kilmer, auction site supervisor for James G. Murphy Auctioneers. \u201cYou don\u2019t really know until it gets to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Clean
Boxes filled with tools sit on tables in what used to be the clean room at Planetary Resources\u2019 headquarters. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The same might have been said of Planetary Resources. When the startup came out of stealth in 2012, it had the support of such luminaries as Google co-founder Larry Page and film director James Cameron. The company planned to build probes that would seek out near-Earth asteroids and mine them for resources ranging from water to platinum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe that the first trillion is going to be made in space,\u201d co-founder Peter Diamandis said in 2015.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Planetary Resources ran out of financial resources in 2018. That summer, it was on the verge of auctioning off all its assets \u2014 but held back long enough to be acquired by ConsenSys, a New York-based blockchain studio.<\/p>\n

For a while it looked as if the venture, rebranded as ConsenSys Space, would pivot its way to new frontiers. Chris Lewicki, who used to be Planetary Resources\u2019 president, CEO and chief asteroid miner, helped pioneer a blockchain-based, crowdsourced satellite-tracking project called TruSat.<\/p>\n

Then, last month, ConsenSys announced that it would make Planetary Resources\u2019 intellectual property freely available to all comers \u2014 and that the auction would go ahead after all.<\/p>\n

Would-be buyers have been able to register bids for the past week. The sale comes to a head starting at 11 a.m. PT today, when bidding on each of the 1,165 lots closes sequentially at the rate of three lots per minute.  At that rate, it\u2019ll take six and a half hours for all the lots to be going, going, gone. The proceeds will go to ConsenSys.<\/p>\n

\"Flags
Flags of the U.S. and Luxembourg sit on a table at Planetary Resources\u2019 former headquarters. The asteroid-mining venture received millions of dollars in investment capital from Luxembourg, but the money eventually ran out. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wednesday was set aside for an on-site preview. Kilmer said interested parties came through at a steady rate, with 10 to 20 people on the premises throughout the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got the machine-shop group. We\u2019ve got the office group. We\u2019ve got a weird-science group, the regular auction junkies and the electronics guys,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not much truly spacey stuff for sale. The closest thing you\u2019ll find to asteroid-mining equipment is the Asteroids video game that used to sit in the break room. (The high bid as of Wednesday night was $801.)<\/p>\n

The statue of Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett that used to stand next to the reception desk has been returned to the investor who lent it to Planetary Resources. One of the company\u2019s most valuable objects, a spare infrared imaging satellite, is reportedly being held in reserve for a mission yet to be announced.<\/p>\n

But pieces of hardware aren\u2019t the only things of value in the space business. Many of the engineers who used to work at Planetary Resources have gone on to form their own company called First Mode. Lewicki continues to shepherd the TruSat project, and other veterans have landed at space companies including Blue Origin, SpaceX and Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n

It may well be that Planetary Resources\u2019 most prized assets can\u2019t be bought or sold.<\/p>\n