Singularity’s Children, Sci-Fact Behind the Sci-Fiction, Part 9 — Asteroid Capture

With Singularity’s Children, scientific accuracy and technical consistency are the ingredients I rely on most to bake a plausible SciFi world. To ‘keep it real’ and the story grounded in an authentic universe, the Science and Tech—at least in the first two books—is based on established fact, any developments are mostly incremental upgrades to our current capabilities.

Fiction: 
Excerpt from Book Two:
Fact:
“While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower.”
Noah Poponak, Goldman Sachs.
“Caltech has suggested an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft could cost $2.6bn… 
… [this] is only about one-third the amount that has been invested in Uber.”
NASA is taking the idea seriously, fast tracking their mission to a 10,000 Quadrillion USD lump of platinum and gold—perhaps they want to stake a claim before other prospectors turn up?

http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-just-fast-tracked-their-mission-to-explore-a-10-000-quadrillion-metal-asteroid

A Four Planet System, Directly Imaged and Remarkable

This is truly remarkable! A four planet system, directly imaged with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

“This evocative movie of four planets more massive than Jupiter
orbiting the young star HR 8799 is a composite of sorts, including
images taken over seven years at the W.M. Keck observatory in Hawaii.”

“The movie clearly doesn’t show full orbits, which will take many
more years to collect. The closest-in planet circles the star in around
40 years; the furthest takes more than 400 years.”

Link to full NASA Paper:
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/a-four-planet-system-in-orbit-directly-imaged-and-remarkable/

Link to video of a Four Planet System:
http://i.imgur.com/BVXrHQM.gifv