/sci/ - Science & Math

The initial colony should definitely be surface: solar panels provide ready access to energy, or space provides cooling for an RTG/nuke, while the vanguard conducts seismic surveys to determine the composition and stability of the asteroid. If everything is within limits, they can start drilling down and excavating an internal base that can easily remain pressurized and shielded, while the surface outpost becomes a communication relay and spaceport.

Digging into it is just a natural progression to living on the surface. Early in the settlements life cycle people will have to live on the surface as there are no holes (unless there are natural safe ones), as the are able they will eventually dig in.

If you're going to be living on an asteroid, you might as well be mining too. Naturally, mining makes space. So the more material you can pull from the asteroid, the more living space you have. It'd be easy enough to start on the surface and just keep mining until you've hollowed out the thing. It would take a while, though.

I think asteriods belts will always over time involve collisions that break/pit the objects.. anything flying by that's under a certain amount of energy I think or whatnot, can get pulled into the belt. So any surface dwelling would always be a really, really bad idea

solar would be shitty. What you need is some sort of mining operation, that can be gouged safely into a larger asteroid, then ships can harvest that big rock, and the ones around it. The energy to run the mining should be supplemented by the mining somehow.

/my half assed assessment

>>2335345
mining an asteroid for resources is nice and all, but how do you intend to transport the resources with minimal fuel cost?

>>2335363
A mass driver, solar sails, laser propulsion, something along those lines that doesn't require (much) reaction mass.

>>2335363
design a ship specialized in mining which contains multiple pods that can dock into the loading bay to unload resources?

>>2335369
mass driver sounds like a suitable option for this task. fire the containers to dock with a cargo vessel in orbit then fire the unloaded containers back to the asteroid to refill.

>>2335369

I don't know much about solar sails, but given that the asteroid belt is more distant from the sun than the Earth (your market for materials mined from asteroids) is it possible to "tack into the wind" and actually solar sail towards the sun or can you only use it for outbound trips?

>>2335413
It is a common misconception that a solar sail can only move away from the sun. Actually, sunlight is only part of the forces acting on the vessel from our star; the other is the sun's gravity.

Everything in the Solar System is in solar orbit; it is being pulled by the sun's gravity. The same is also true for any solar sail operating in the solar system. Solar sails will almost never move in straight lines away from the sun. Instead, they will move in broad orbital spirals as the sail is "tacked," or angled, for acceleration or deceleration.

When a solar sail tacks away from the sun, the sail's surface is angled in such a way that the sunlight it reflects pushes the sail up and out, away from the sun, so that it slowly spirals outward. Think of a wind sail tacking away from the wind, where most of the sail is angled to catch the wind blowing on it from behind and accelerate the ship. When a solar sail tacks into the sun, the sail is angled so that the sunlight hitting it slows the ship down, forcing it to slowly spiral inward in its orbit. Once again, think of a wind sail tacking into the wind, heading into it at an angle and using the wind hitting the front of the vessel to slow it down.

>http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040315/sails.shtml

A very informative article. This page:

>http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~diedrich/solarsails/intro/tacking.html

Has two graphics that make the whole thing pretty clear.

>or space provides cooling for an RTG/nuke
wat.
Space doesn't cool anything. It's space, there's nothing to transfer heat to, your nuclear plant would have a meltdown in the first week.

>>2335435
The implication being you need fuckmassive radiators to dissipate heat. And those won't do you much good if they're inside the asteroid, now will they? So they must be on the surface.

Asteroids are pretty fucking good heatsinks considering they're giant, ice cold rocks. There will be a threshold where they can take a certain amount of heat pumped out and radiate it indefinitely. Whatever that threshold is, that's the limit. The asteroid colony can't produce more heat than that or it will fry.

Remember that the Earth is a closed system just like an Asteroid, and it too has to radiate heat ultimately to maintain temperatures.

Another pro of staying in -

The chances of a random asteroid collision wrecking your base is diminished.

Guys, do you know any near-Earth asteroids?

>>2336098
1036 Ganymed

>>2335324
Definitely underground. Folks forget just how protected we are on the surface of the Earth by 1) the atmosphere and 2) the magnetosphere. Basically a big blanket against radiation, micrometeoroids, and large thermal changes.

The problem is one of engineering. It is far easier to just drop a prefab habitat on the surface than to excavate a tunnel. A compromise often mentioned is to cover the prefab habitat with a layer of regolith to get some measure of protection. Another option on the Moon is to settle inside the few lava tunnels we have discovered.

I hope that future space missions to the Moon and asteroids include experiments in regolith excavation. It is a tricky problem, because the micrometer sized particles stick to mechanical joints due to static electricity and quickly erode them.

>>2336257
I like the idea of dumping several inches of rock-dust-paste (or something equivalent) on top of the prefab habitat.

>>2336016
wrong

>>2336274
Yeah, you'd have to be deep to not be affected by anything larger than pebble or small rocks.

That said, I don't think large asteroid-asteroid collisions are common enough to make any one asteroid risky.

>>2336121
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/AnimatedOrbitOf1036Ganymed.gif

sure is near-Earth

>>2336562
Sure is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_object#Near-Earth_asteroids
>These are objects that have a near-Earth orbit, yet far enough from the Sun so that the surface material never evaporates, having a diameter over 50 metres. As of May 2010, 7,075 near-Earth asteroids are known,[15] ranging in size up to ~32 kilometers (1036 Ganymed).[17]

>>2336576
It has an orbit that passes near Earth, but the asteroid itself isn't near-Earth, as it's orbit is highly elongated, in such a way that this asteroid is closer to the Mars orbit than that of Earth most of the time.

>>2335334
>space provides cooling

Actually heat is incredibly difficult to dissipate in space. Nothing to conduct it toward.

>>2336607
Given that there's nowhere else to dissipate the heat to, space is the only option.

Just means you need large radiators.

You /sci/fags always overlook one key aspect of space colonization. Economics. This is the reason as to why it will never happen, and if it does, won't be sustainable. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it would require an INSANE amount of money to build and upkeep such a thing. And with the tea party and radical republicans around, you can bet that this thing will not get off the drawing board.

>>2336672
Sup nigger.

>>2336672
>This is the reason as to why it will never happen
>never

I'd rethink that. Never is a long goddamn time.

>>2336672
Yeah, because the gold, silver and platinum deposits in one big asteroid is worth only ten years of mining on earth.

>>2336773
We should, without a doubt, inform the biggest corporations around the world about this.

Space colonies are expensive. It's easier to make a colony under the surface of the earth first, or under sea level. If any extraterrestrial object is ever colonized, it will be because there's something there we want. It could be a space observatory that is built on the surface, or a mining base that extracts material from inside.

>>2336779
http://www.spacex.com/

>>2336773
What would you rather have - 10 years of mining on earth or a massive space project and 10 years of mining in outer space?

>>2336779
Just imagine how much more there is to own in in the universe!

>>2336806
Space.

>>2336806
I was talking about the whole mining industry of the world compared to ONE asteroid. As you know, there are many many asteroids. Besides asteroids have other valuable metals too.

>>2336813
Because it's cool, huh?

I can respect that, but also try to understand when no one gives you a loan for it.

>>2336858
We'll do it when it's worth it.

>>2336859
>implying anyone needs a loan if they're a fairly big mining company when Japan gets their space elevator up

>>2336872
Big mining companies don't throw money at things that are "cool". They're in business for profit. They will not invest in asteroid mining until they believe asteroid mining is profitable.

>>2336813
>>2336872
>>2336869
>>2336859
>>2336858

I like to think that once we reach the capcity for real space travel, most problems in the world will have been cleared up and doing things for their own sake will be all there is left.

>>2336896
What part of space elevator didn't you understand

>>2336908
Like I said. When it's profitable, and not before.

You get that space elevator done, and then we'll see about the cost-benefit analysis on asteroid mining.

>>2336906
"For their own sake" is a non-statement.
Do you mean the small satisfaction of having done something novel or cool? That certainly WON'T be the only thing left. What about building interstellar sleeper ships? Interstellar radio arrays?

>>2336934
Not to mention putting a Dyson swarm of orbiting solar panels around the Sun.

>>2336934
that is true, but your question brings another. has anyone really been far as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

>>2336957
are you a wizard

>>2336957

The problem with colonizing the astroid belt, even building any structure on an asteroid, is this: gravity.

Astroids, even large ones like Ceres, have very low gravity (fuck you, Ceres is an asteroid not a Dwarf Planet, when it can ride all the rides at Disney Land I'll consider it a planet)

A structure built in or on an asteroid would literally have to hold on for life else it could easily be tossed by centrifugal forces or gravitational pull from neighboring bodies.
This means strong supports must be built to secure the structure to the surface, however this also poses a problem. Asteroids are notorious for instability. Many are made entirely of gravitationally bound gravel. Others made of brittle rock. Few would be stable enough to withstand the drilling and securing of structural supports without shattering completely.

Building inside the asteroid posses the same problem, risking a structural failure of the astroid.

Captcha: woompity ness

>>2337017
Do the large ones tend to have that much spin?

>>2336957
magnets, how do they work?

>>2337037
see
>>2337021

>>2337027
Any amount of spin (theoretically) could mean catastrophic failure and just because one is not spinning at the time of construction doesn't mean it will stay that way.

Suppose we build on what seems to be a stable asteroid with little or no spin then another faster moving asteroid slams into the side causing the asteroid to break apart, expensive equipment to float off in space, and the deaths of those on board.

There are far to many risky variables at the moment for it to be a reasonable and profitable endeavor.

The weak gravitational force of asteroids would make constructions on their surface very easy and require less energy than on Earth, Mars or any other space objects with a significant gravitational force

>>2337253
... unless centripetal forces on a spinning asteroid are greater than the gravitational force. Then you have to hold on, mechanically.

I foresee another problem different from the rest.

Significant artificial changes in the mass of the asteroid could affect its orbit. Suppose a 10 Kiloton asteroid contains 4 kilotons of iron and precious metals and the rest useless garbage.
Removing those 4 kilotons would significantly reduce the mass of the asteroid. If the asteroid continued it's orbit at the same rate but contained less mass it would eventually be thrown out from orbit.

The corollary is adding a 4 kiloton structure to an astroid causing a significant addition of mass. The asteroid would then slowly fall into the sun.

Too many asteroids with artificially changed masses could (worst case scenario) cause another "shooting gallery" effect like when the solar system was first formed, slamming huge asteroids into every planet.