/sci/ - Science & Math

A guy who’s currently working on my country’s space mining plan came to give a talk to my mineral deposits class. His argument was that mining platinum group elements from asteroids sounds cool and may eventually be viable, but the real value is in extracting water and volatiles, which are scarce in space and difficult to transport in bulk. He was envisioning space as a market unto itself and not exclusively as it relates to Earth markets. I think he’s kind of a tool.

>>10886432
>Will asteroid mining ever become viable?
in 100 years.
it will all start with phobos and deimos.

>>10886462
he's right though
platinum group metals will be a very good short term money maker, but they will inevitably deplete in value as you send loads back
Space isn't just for mining though, there are lots of industrial opportunities as well, like construction of space structures/probes/ships, manufacturing gravity sensitive shit (crystals, proteins)
and then you have the almighty tourism industry, which will only increase exponentially as space shit expands
science, while holding far less weight than you average soi creature would insist, still holds some, and will be able to be yet another source of income, universities would very much enjoy sending some of their experiments and personnel into space without breaking the bank doing so
space shouldn't be regarded as a short term thing, it's going to be a permanent and perpetual thing

>>10886432
Asteroid mining could potentially save NASA over $300 billion dollars by mining propellant.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_sercel_phase_i_final_report_tagged.pdf
What makes it compelling is that a single Falcon 9 v 1.1 launch can provide 100 metric tons of water to cislunar space. This is about five times greater than the amount of payload a Falcon 9 can deliver to low earth orbit! Which is why NASA is funding development of a demonstration mission:
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2019_Phase_I_Phase_II/Mini_Bee_Prototype/
What really makes propellant mining compelling is that the rocket equation itself. Mass ratio increases exponentially with the required delta V. Delta V requirements from asteroids/Moon are much less than from Earth, so significant savings are possible if we can extract propellant from them.

>>10886484
Well the main reason I think he’s a tool is that he used to work in finance, but covered up information and cheated clients, resulting in his losing his accreditation, then going back to school for geology. He’s also an asshole.

Anyway, you have to lead off with the sexy stuff. That’s what gets the infrastructure funded, which in turn goes a long way towards establishing the space economy.

>>10886471
More like twenty. Those two need to be cleaned up to clear the way for a space elevator. It would be nice to move them out to L2 and mould them into the first orbital habitat.

>>10886484
>manufacturing gravity sensitive shit (crystals, proteins)
This sounds pretty cool. Can you explain to a noob what you mean by them being gravity sensitive and what the advantage of them being in space would be?

>>10886432
Very unlikely. The huge investmenst make it more feasable to develop alternate technologies to overcome any elemental shortages.

>>10886685
>Those two need to be cleaned up to clear the way for a space elevator.
will it be worth building a space elevator on mars using those 2 moons?
they aren't that metal rich and are rich in carbonates, wouldn't it be better to mine them or make them into space bases?
also the space elevator would only work in mount olympus and nowhere else.
it kinda defeats the purpose of having such a structure only for it to only be viable in the highest place of the solar system.

>>10886731
I wasn't aware current fibers weren't yet suitable for a set of space elevators around the equator.

Ceramics will be a big, big part of the shells of these big habitats when they are built.

Space elevators do not need a tether on both ends.

>>10886432
>Will asteroid mining ever become viable?

not for humanity, no.

all human progress is currently being spent on dumbing humans down so that the psychopaths in charge can maintain control forever.

Science is dead.

>>10886432
Sure. Asteroid mining would make space based power generation a thing.
All the necessary elements for building solar cells and heavy structural components are there.
Without the cost of sending stuff up to orbit, beamed down power would be competitive, especially in countries that lack proper infrastructure, where just building a square kilometer rectenna would be cheaper and easier to secure than kilometers and kilometers of HV powerlines

>>10886484
Platinum and other rare metals that are expected to be found in heaps on Psyche, also have immense industrial value, for instance in use as catalysts.

This will tank the economy of many suppliers, including China, who will oppose this.

>>10886432
Once Earth's population hits around 10 billion we will need ice from space to keep going.

>>10887328
And they will oppose it how?

In space whatever you do with other men isnt considered gay.

>>10887359
they also can't hear you scream

>>10887338
they will care more about money than going forwards

>>10886813
>I wasn't aware current fibers weren't yet suitable for a set of space elevators around the equator.
they just can't last long enough until they fall, long terms space elevators aren't possible thanks to martian dust, in mount olympus on mars though...it is actually possible.

>>10886432
Yes, but only for the first 5 or so asteroids. After that the price of materials they give will plummet to almost nothing of value. There will need to be some diamond cartel level rigging of the resources economy to keep it alive in its current form.

>>10887659
at the top of olympus mons it would be actually possible to build it
it is the perfect place to set one up since the top actually stick above martian atmosphere and with the gravity of mars the structure will last forever if they do a proper maintenance
I suggest to use phobos as a space station to monitor the giant megastructure
we also should use deimos to save resources so that in case a emergency happens the colony know where to find food and water

>>10887847
what if we used other planets to create something similar to currencies and then use that to import materials back to earth.
like interplanetary imports? its like national importation but with other planets instead of countries.
that way we should preserve and even boost the economy.

>>10887328
Actually China will be the first nation to do this. They got the best space program and a long term budget.

>>10886432
As people have said, the meme is "making money" off precious metals, the true power is in fueling a massive expansion in space infrastructure.

>>10887947
The market will just adapt although things will be crazy for a while. The important thing is the effect these price crashes have on technological advancement.

Super abundant and cheap rare elements will revolutionise just about everything.

>>10887866
move both moons to areostationary orbit above oly mons, build colony in the crack between them and build elevator down to surface from buttcrack colony

>>10887999
You would also need to build a counterweight above the moonbutt colony so the increasing weight of the elevator doesn't pull you out of synchronous orbit. The finished station might look a little like this.

>>10887999
alright, phobos is 22km in diameter and deimos is 12.6km.
the biggest and heaviest motherfucker we launched was the saturn V, with a mass of roughly 3 million kg.
deimos despite being the smallest and more distant would require nothing less the force of a tsar bomb to be moved.
so...we would need to send a saturn V to deimos with a tsar bomb in order to move it.

>>10888026

>>10887999
>>10888020
>>10888026
I doubt people will care about deimos but phobos seems to be the only moon who the ideal conditions to start a space elevator and become a HUB or space station
ideal size and enough material to be transformed into the biggest martian space station ever
stable orbit and rich enough in minerals in order to implement the space elevator through asteroid mining

Actually we know next to nothing about asteroid composition. Most asteroids seem to be coated in dehydrated rubble which masks the true surface composition.

These are two excellent targets to study. Once interest in mars kicks off these moons will finally see the attention they need.

We don't even know how asteroids were formed for sure yet. I suspect that the most dense materials sank into the center of most asteroids while they were still molten. If true you could bore into the core of most asteroids to find a ball of metals. That would be nice.

>>10888045
In fact Phobos and Deimos are the largest near-Earth asteroids. It will be here, high above Musk City, that first asteroid colonies will be developed.

>>10888083
I hope they do that because phobos may become the colony itself first.
they will rearrange the materials in the moon and transform it into a damn space colony or just a place where they will save resources in case of a emergency.

>>10886432

NOOOO ASTEROIDS ARE A PRECIOUS HERITAGE OF NATUER YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE RESOURCES BEYOND THE EARTH NOOOOOOOO

I was having a bit of fun just now, but I would be very, very wary of depleting significant material from the asteroid belt. Isn't that a major component of our shield system (also including Jupiter and Saturn) that prevents crap from hitting us?

fuck yeah, can't wait

>>10888109
sometimes people have to learn the hard way...but a solution would be making trash our new shield.
space trash may be the salvation and doom of humanity.

I still like the idea of taking all the goodies out of the middle of 16 Psyche, filling that space with water, then heating the whole thing with space mirrors until it bulges and turning the inside into a space habitat.

>>10888121
would ceres fit the bill?

>>10888113
dude...those demons will unleash something worse than hell after they kill certain rabbit pet.

>>10888126
Ceres still has its outer layers of ice and clay and rock; 16 Psyche's draw is that it's mostly metal. Once we had the tech to core out and puff up one big object I'd imagine it could be tweaked to work with different materials, although a spheroid of melted lava would need a thicker shell so it would be smaller inside. It would also make a much bigger mess while cooking, I'd think.

>>10888117
Just face it. Everybody who chooses to live on a target the size of a planet is going to be hit by asteroids or they are going to learn to move asteroids.

How much would an absolutely cheapskate, harebrained mission to down and mine one of these asteroids into the pacific cost?

>>10886432
Yes but not before we one government on Earth OR no government at all but WorldCorporation running our lives.

>>10888149
the project could cost 4.4 billions to 10.2 billions.
so in a nutshell 4.4 billions in the project and roughly 185 million dollars to launch.
this is like launching a rocket from india with india quality in regulations.
if it doesn't explode in the air then they could only go there and barely make it back if NOTHING goes wrong.
it will go wrong, it would be like the cosmonauts getting out of orbit all over again.

>>10888151
or interplanetary commerce and trading.

>>10888180
We need colonies before. Like The Expanse (series).

>>10887947
go away chang

>>10888149
you'd lose pretty much all of your loot to re-entry, cause massive damage to where ever it lands, and then not be able to mine it because the fucking ocean is in fact quite deep

>>10888191
they could create an artificial martian trading system in order to not crash the whole thing.
to get down the asteroid mining and not crash at the same time they could actually create an artificial coin in the form of cryptocurrencies.

>>10888234
...and if we let the loot just float in a stable orbit?
just let the minerals extracted just remain inside the ship and receive the miners in the international station?
if they want the loot and riches inside there then they could just fuck themselves and go and get them if they want them since there is no money to get those down without fucking up
I bet if they knew there is a spacial chest orbiting the earth like a satelite would call the atention of many countries who would want some of that
it may even start a war but hey...at least we mined a damn asteroid with good results except it still up there with no way to get it down easily

>>10888083
>>In fact Phobos and Deimos are the largest near-Earth asteroids.
that's a flat out lie. The two largest NEOs are 433 Eros and 1036 Ganymed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_object#Observational_biases
Large asteroids are not necessarily the best ones for making a colony because they might not be made of very desirable materials. Carbonaceous chrondrites with a fair bit of metal might be pretty nice. All that organic material is helpful for making a biosphere, plastics, and most importantly refining all the metal bits.

>>10887999
>move both moons to areostationary orbit above oly mons
how the fuck do you move those humongous pieces of rock without nukes and fucking those moons up? this isn't universe sandbox
how the hell do we even move a damn small country in space? I don't know about phobos since its orbit and position pass nearby oly mons but how the fuck do we move deimos without sending a damn monster torwards the planet?

>>10888109
>NOOOO ASTEROIDS ARE A PRECIOUS HERITAGE OF NATUER YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE RESOURCES BEYOND THE EARTH NOOOOOOOO
I know fear the rise of fucking space hippies, I hope they make laws against these fuckers so that when they start their bullshit we can exile them to a prison in the moon.

Mars is to be our forge world where we export all of our environmentally unfriendly industrial processes. Bonus, we can just crash asteroids into it and scoop up all the good bits for refining and shipment back to earth.

Mars will never be green.

>>10888375
could phobos and deimos be enough?
we only need to set up powerful enough nukes and time it out well

>>10888245
considering most of the asteroid is shit you can't make money off of bringing back to earth, there's no reason to not just mine and refine it where the asteroid is, and just bring the processed goods back to earth
You'd save loads of fuel costs doing that

>>10888375
why have those processes on a planet though
you'd have to haul your finished goods out of a gravity well, which is shit
might as well have them in space where you don't have to pay for that

>>10888358

They hashed this out some time ago in the basic existing law, the Outer Space treaty. Officially, military bases and stationing of WMDs is right out, but commercial exploitation is wide open. Of course, between Russia, China and the USA, the former will not even be respected if and when things advance far enough along. The Soviet Salyut space stations (the very first space station(s)) were partially test beds for military applications. But commercial use is a-OK, both de facto and de jure. But hippies gonna hippie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law#Ethics

I still think my later thing is a sensible hypothesis.

>>10888431
Because building out square footage in orbit is complicated and more expensive and there is a limit to how big you can get due to shitty heat rejection.More importantly Mars has all the base materials you need to get an industrial outpost started. It’s also more stable vibrationally which is important in modern manufacturing.

>>10888149
why would you want to down it into the pacific? most of the material would get fucked by the atmosphere and if you decided to bring a bigger one to account for the losses you'd end up killing mil-
oh

>>10888451
Mostly this. It is simply cheaper to expand industry upon a pre-existing structure. Mars in this case. Space manufacturing requires centrifuges for material refinement. On mars your gravity is provided.

Both will end up having their niches.

Also for moving asteroids it might be easiest to hollow out a rocket chamber in the center and just turn the whole thing into a rocket.

What interests me about harvesting asteroids is the potential of using chemical solvents to seperate and refine minerals.

>>10888126
Ceres is important because of the salts it has. There seems to be a fair bit of ammonium ices with magnesium salts.

I'm very interested to learn more about the structure and makeup of ceres. It is said to have vast subterranean lakes of liquid water. The water is likely too salty to support life though.

It will be an amazing source of some minerals.

>>10886432
It's a CONSUUUUUMER's masturbatory fantasy!!!

>>10887334
Despite elite economics doctrine, what you "need" and what you can realistically "get" are two completely different things.

>>10888676
this makes me wonder if it is possible to carve and transform deimos into a giant ship.
if we could, it would literally be able to fly over ceres and become its moon.
phobos becomes a giant space station and space elevator.
deimos becomes a giant supercarrier ship.

>>10888045
how do you slow down such asteroid?
because even though olympus mons can see phobos, its way too fast.

>>10888739
It's an option but the mass is inconvenient. A much smaller and more stylish habitat will be the first to show ceres to human eyes.

Maybe even the same one which ferries breeding couples from earth to the martian habitats.

Shotgun captain.

>>10888702
>tfw there is not enough corn on earth to meet america's sugar demand, and we have to literally go to space to get more

>>10888840
...jesus christ for real?
HOW?
what the fuck?
do americans realize the fucking size of their country? shouldn't they have more than enough land to feed themselves forever? they could feed the entire world
how can they lack sugar?

>>10886432
like anon said here >>10886471
it will all begin with the martian moons

>>10889052

Yes for real, yeah.

>>10887328
>This will tank the economy of many suppliers, including China, who will oppose this.
>implying China won't do it first to keep and manipulate the market

I should learn Chinese to pay respect to the future rulers of mankind.

>>10889551
this is akin to accept that india will be a superpower by 2020

>>10886432
Neva eva

>>10886432
>Will asteroid mining ever become viable?
No

>>10886685
It's not plausible to move a 1e16 kg or a 1.5e15 kg mass. A Phobos anchored elevator is far more doable than a Mars elevator. http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2015/06/phobos-panama-canal-of-inner-solar.html

>>10891868
>plausible
feasible

>>10891872
A madman could do it. Mars is going to have to do something with all those perchlorates.

>>10891868
wouldn't it be better to just transform the whole thing into a space base?
>>10891928
we will need a martian dust storm and giant solar sail like reflective glasses
then we warm up the planet.

>>10889951
The IQ of india is subhuman-tier, the chinese's is human-tier.
Do you think the fact that China always economically dominated the world except for the last two century was a fluke, fuckboi ?

>>10892957
There is no magnetosphere. If you don't encase the surface in a glass and steel lid then you are going to lose your precious atmosphere.

You are also going to die from radiation exposure.

Not to mention that geodesic glass domes are current technology. Solar reflectors are undeveloped. We need to move quickly.

I used to strive for an ideal mars which is like earth. Now I have learned that the reality is something perhaps even more remarkable and filled with beauty.

>>10886497
Columbus We will find the short way to China! Then it became; We will get gold and slaves and not stay there! [a few more steps] Now look at us.

>>10887947
Communist countries have the best space programs.

>>10892963
>Do you think the fact that China always economically dominated the world except for the last two century was a fluke, fuckboi ?
It didn't.

>>10893561
indeed, thats a excellent idea you have there but how should we trigger a temporal magnetosphere?
if we used nukes on the moons of mars make them crash into it, would it be enough for the planet to develop one upon impact?
also what would be the correct distance to start building a dome around mars? phobos is too close and deimos is too far.

>>10886432

At the rate that we're going at, yes.

These domes will burst from the surface of mars. Initially they will be quite small, providing natural light to subterranean areas.

This is just the natural way of adapting to the environment there.

>>10893829
From these portals ever more domes will spill out across the landscape.

I don't have photoshop yet or I would have colour adjusted these pics.

>>10893812
all you economics fuckwits ever do is linear extrapolations to rationalize consumerism

Short term. Move small rocks into earth orbit. Then mine them for platinum group metals and refine ore in space and drop to earth in reusable systems like the F9 and Dragon.

This operation will create more space demand. Further operations will set up to support it. Creating new demands and new space ventures.

It is much like how new world colonialism was founded on cash crops and exotic trade goods for europe. Then eventually the colonies grew simply because the opportunity was there and trade to Europe as secondary.

>>10893846
Expansion Into space is the only way to sustain the human species. New resources and land must be acquired to support a growing population. that has ever growing per person demands.

Anything else is stagnation and collapse.

>>10886432
not any time in the near and not to distant future.

>>10893829
>>10893841
radiation would make those domes unsafe.
>>10893868
NASA could save >$300 billion dollars by mining asteroids for propellant see: >>10886487
This is possible in the near term. This does require propellant depots though, and a certain member of congress hates that word.

>>10893873
>This does require propellant depots though, and a certain member of congress hates that word.
That's why you call them Space Fuel Centers(TM). Then you tell the congressmen that Space Fuel(TM) is a Fuel You Can Trust that Will Not Compete With Oil.

>>10893860
here's another one for you economics fuckwits.
what we "need" and what we can "obtain" are two completely different things.

This necessity drives innovation mindset has its limits.

So maybe you ought to slow down your consumption, hmmm?

>>10893846

I said that it will be viable, I never said that we should do it. You seem to have incorrectly inferred that from what I wrote.

>>10893894
That spacing... You have to go back.

Earth won't be cutting back on consumption, Asteroid mining is a certainty in the next 15 years.

>>10893873
Radiation can be substantially reduced by materials choices and by sandwiching a layer of gas between two layers of glass. I forget which gas to use.

>>10893918
This. Now that it has been awoken the beast of consumption will never slumber again. You cannot outrun it. Consumption has consumed us all.

We need more. More of everything.

>>10893956
Hydrogen or any dense gas with lots of hydrogen

>>10893917
it will not be viable
>>10893918
>Earth won't be cutting back on consumption
well thats a shame because the faster we consume what we have the faster we run out of what we need.

>>10893972
Well who is going to tell people they can't have kids and must lower their standard of living?

>>10893971
>>10893956
That won't work worth a damn. What provides radiation shielding is nuclei. A thin layer of hydrogen gas ain't gonna have enough nuclei in the path of radiation to make much much of a difference

>>10894018
>>10893971
Hydrogen is impractical. There is too little of it and it leaks out of every container.

I thought it might have been sulphur hexafluoride but all the references I am seeing now are too vague.

You can use a transparent plastics instead of glass. Plastics provide decent shielding because they are made of hydrocarbons.

>>10893972

Why won't it be viable?