/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10743064
>>10743068
>>10743070
>>10743071
Bennu looks like it has some pretty sharp rocks, this could make mining difficult. Carbonaceous chrondites like Bennu and Ryugu are a pretty attractive target for mining. Right now the main stuff that's worth mining is water, but there's also carbon and nitrogen that are attractive too. All of these can be used as propellant. Water is nice initially because it's easy to extract and we can ship it back by shooting some of our water out fast as hot steam. Problem is that eventually we need to turn it into H2 and O2, and H2 don't store well. So eventually it may make sense to extract that carbon to make methane. But right now there's a pretty damn good case for water. Like we could get 100 metric tons of water with a single falcon 9 launch to cislunar space. That more than the falcon 9 can even launch to LEO. This could save NASA on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. So right now the current plan for mining asteroid is to wrap them in a bag, shine concentrated sunlight on a bit of rock so intense it causes it to break apart, we then get water out by condensing it in the bag. But bennu looks like it could be pretty sharp. This might make it hard to put in a bag.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_sercel_phase_i_final_report_tagged.pdf