Mining Asteroids on Earth

[Anonymous No.4566082]

The development of the commercial space industry is opening up the possibility of commercial space mining.

Instead of spending decades and billions of dollars developing the technology to mine asteroids in space, might it be possible to simply redirect objects to collide with Earth?

An asteroid that is particularly rich with some precious metal like gold or platinum could be pulverized using explosives and the resulting smaller pieces that are particularly rich with the desired ore could then be redirected towards an unpopulated region of Earth.

[Anonymous No.4566104]

Most of the asteroid will disintegrate in the atmosphere and what is left will be destroyed and scattered on impact. Unless we create a method of "gently" bringing the asteroid to the surface then no.

[Anonymous No.4566131]

>Deliberately de-orbiting asteroids to send them plummeting towards earth

What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous No.4566150]

As long as the landing zone is always Best Korea, I don't see a problem with this plan.

[Anonymous No.4566158]

Would it be possible to drop a space elevator from orbit to a distance where stuff could be dropped with parachutes?

[Anonymous No.4566160]

Let's just put a giant magnet into space

[Anonymous No.4566197]

The stuff we mine from asteroids wouldn't come to Earth, it would be used in Space

[Anonymous No.4566220]

>>4566197

By the time this is practical, we're certainly going to have either a space elevator or commercially practical reusable aerospace vehicles.

[Anonymous No.4566259]

>>4566082
The asteroid would be "pulverized" to get create pieces that are big enough to make it to Earth's surface but small enough to not cause too much damage. The piece would then be accelerated towards Earth and then decelerated by the same means so that it wouldn't be going nearly as fast as the elliptical objects that naturally hit Earth.

[Anonymous No.4566315]

>>4566259
And if you had a magic cheap way of moving things like that space mining would be cheaper too.
But it doesn't exist. And you would never be allowed to do it.

[Wintermote No.4566339]

>>4566315
Nuclear bombs, yo

[Anonymous No.4566379]

>>4566339
But nuclear weapons cause asteroids to fragment which is why they are not the preferred solution for asteroid deflection. With this fragmentation they do not make for accurate propulsion.

They are also expensive and illegal to put in space. You will never ever get anyone to let you use nuclear weapons. The debris could fragment and not decelerate causing mass devastation and it would be contaminated with nuclear fallout.

[Anonymous No.4566380]

>>4566339

Because everyone's just going to allow you to put nukes into space. Hell, if they're letting you direct asteroids towards the Earth, why worry about little old nukes?

It doesn't matter how careful you are, and how accurate your system is: Shoot enough apples off people's heads, and eventually you will hit someone square between the eyes. But that'll never happen because nobody will allow you to point your crossbow anywhere in their direction.

[Nawfeg !!6EWS/pnNfUC No.4566402]

>>4566082
Careful, I think CFC are ganking round jita at the moment.

[Anonymous No.4566428]

Fuck asteroids.

[Anonymous No.4566435]

>>4566131
this.

No offence OP, but there's no way in hell this is going to go anywhere. You'd be more likely to get approval for abortion clinics funded by on site oil rigs

[Anonymous No.4566510]

>>4566435
Satellites are de-orbited all the time.

[Anonymous No.4566522]

>>4566315
>magic cheap way of moving things like that
Solar Sails

[Anonymous No.4566541]

>>4566522
would require and enormous sail to move an asteroid. It would not be cheap.

[Anonymous No.4566542]

>>4566379
>But nuclear weapons cause asteroids to fragment
You and I both know asteroids don't fragment under all circumstances. A small nuclear warhead would not fragment a solid ball of iron.

[Anonymous No.4566539]

>>4566380
You'll hit the apple 100% of the time of you measure the angle the first time and use a clamp and measure it every time.

[Anonymous No.4566551]

>>4566539
No you wouldn't:
>>4566379

[Anonymous No.4566556]

>>4566541
>would require and enormous sail to move an asteroid
If it were too big then it would be broken up with explosives. Only the smaller fragments with valuable ore would be transported back to Earth.

[Anonymous No.4566564]

>>4566158
best idea in the thread right here.

[Anonymous No.4566566]

>>4566542
Asteroids are not balls of iron. They fragment.

[Anonymous No.4566570]

>>4566564
Quit samefagging. It's a terrible idea.

[Anonymous No.4566584]

>>4566566
Asteroids come in all shapes and compositions. You don't know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.4566599]

>>4566158
The benefit of an elevator is the up bit. And if you can make a cable 35,700km long you can make a cable 35,750km long.

[Anonymous No.4566605]

>>4566584
So there are ones made of marshmallows then. if you can't back your argument up with facts don't use unresearched generalisations.

[Anonymous No.4566616]

Asteroids are rocks that do not enter atmosphere.
Meteors enter atmosphere and burn.
Metorites enter atmospeher and crash.

So basically Im raging right now OP. Ok, minig metorites. Good idea though. Where would they land?

[Anonymous No.4566623]

>>4566605
You use an absurd slippery slope argument and you complain about my posts?

You are the one making claims about EVERY asteroid having the same composition and that ANY size of explosion at ANY distance would cause an asteroid to fragment. If you aren't making those claims then congratulations, you agree that there are some instances where some energy from an explosion could be transferred to an asteroid without fragmenting it.

[Anonymous No.4566627]

>>4566616
Wherever nuclear bombs were tested I would think.

[Anonymous No.4566637]

>>4566627
or the ocean. which sounds more logical to me...but thats only based on safety...pretty sure amerifags would let some meteorites land on earth risking missing their destination....

[Anonymous No.4566652]

>>4566637
The fuck are you talking about and why are you bringing nationality into this?

Good luck finding the meteor debris strewn across the bottom of the ocean.

[Anonymous No.4566654]

>>4566623
> slippery slope
No just a direct quotation:
>Asteroids come in all shapes and compositions.
You could use smaller and smaller weapons but it would quickly become too expensive.

And upon reflection yes I made a generalisation so I'm sorry. But there would always be a threat of fragmentation or bad deflection. It would be impossible to know the asteroid would definitely not fragment, there has never been an asteroid observed which was a solid lump of metal.

The fact remains it's illegal, dangerous and no one would let you do it.

[Anonymous No.4566663]

>>4566570
It's a superb idea. In fact, forget space, we need to be doing with with normal elevators. Also, propel them upwards with a big slingshot, and grab it with a claw when it reaches the right floor.

[Anonymous No.4566667]

>>4566627
They aren't any more.

[Anonymous No.4566705]

>>4566654
>And upon reflection yes I made a generalisation so I'm sorry.
Cool, I was beginning to get irked and had half a mind to rage-quit the discussion if you kept on with the generalization.

>It would be impossible to know the asteroid would definitely not fragment, there has never been an asteroid observed which was a solid lump of metal.
You are being difficult again. It doesn't have to be 99.999% pure iron. And keep in mind that nukes don't produce a shockwave in space. All the energy would be radiation. What radiation that hits the asteroid and isn't reflected by the asteroid (all of which would push it) would be absorbed as thermal energy.

Honestly, I wouldn't even be a proponent of this method. I'd much prefer solar sails. I just thought I could be helpful by correcting a mistaken anon.

[Anonymous No.4566706]

>>4566667
That's why I used past tense.

[Anonymous No.4566749]

>You are being difficult again. It doesn't have to be 99.999% pure iron.
But look at all the asteroids we've examined (pic related) they are all piles of rubble and dust.
>So far, every asteroid with moons has turned out to be a rubble pile, a loose conglomeration of rock and metal that may be half empty space by volume.


>And keep in mind that nukes don't produce a shockwave in space. All the energy would be radiation. What radiation that hits the asteroid and isn't reflected by the asteroid (all of which would push it) would be absorbed as thermal energy.
Yes but all that radiation is produced over a very short interval and it all contacts the asteroid over a very short interval. So you have a massive amount of momentum all hitting one side at the same time. It will cause a shock wave inside the asteroid. It could still fragment, the fact that the momentum was carried by radiation instead of a shock wave makes no difference.

[Anonymous No.4566764]

>>4566749
forgot pic

[Wintermote No.4566940]

>And keep in mind that nukes don't produce a shockwave in space. All the energy would be radiation. What radiation that hits the asteroid and isn't reflected by the asteroid (all of which would push it) would be absorbed as thermal energy.

Of course, the thermal energy (and there would be tons of it) causes flash vaporization of the surface of the asteroid. Superheated gaseous rock blasts off the asteroid and the entire surface of the asteroid facing the nuke turns into a giant rocket engine with the asteroid's mass itself being fuel.

The principle is very similar to how the Orion project was meant to function.

[Anonymous No.4567030]

>>4566940
>humanity, turning dwarf planets into giant rockets since 2061

[Anonymous No.4567045]

>>4566749
>But look at all the asteroids we've examined (pic related) they are all piles of rubble and dust.
I'll yield on that point. I failed to bring up any examples of solid, significantly metallic asteroids. However, nuclear bombs could still be used as a means of propulsion albeit carefully.

[Anonymous No.4567054]

>>4567030
H,FY!

[Anonymous No.4567078]

>>4567045
This is true. The unfortunate reality is nukes aren't cheap though but I suppose it would depend on how much material you could get down safely.

[Anonymous No.4567098]

1) Build space elevator on moon that points to Earth
2) Build space elevator on Earth that points to moon
3) Exchange payloads when they come close to one another

[Anonymous No.4567107]

>>4567078
Like I said, I'd prefer using solar sails. Their simple and relatively cheap. Nukes are always that fall back technology for when humanity does not give one single fuck about R&D.

[Anonymous No.4567124]

>>4567098
That makes zero sense.

Simply letting an elevator slide down the cable past geostationary orbit would rocket the payload off to wherever we wanted.

[Anonymous No.4567167]

>>4567107
I really don't think anyone would do it for the intrinsic, risk of global catastrophe.

On a side note a little calculation shows that if you stopped it dead at the top of the magnetosphere 4 earth radii up 100 tons of material would impact the ground with the force equivalent to the nuclear weapon at Nagasaki. Below this height the fallout would almost all be directed back to earth. The good thing about asteroid mining is they are large. Large asteroids would not be safe to impact.

I don't think this dropping things back to earth can work.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567178]

Well at 1000 ppb gold/platinum concentration you'd be delta-Ving a pretty big chunk of asteroid to get a small amount of gold. It'd be much better to do the seperation in space.

After all, you've got solar energy ALL THE TIME.

What makes you think it would take decades to start mining asteroids? There are some simple processes that could be done, that use very little in the way of heavy machinery:

http://www.space-mining.com/beneficiation.html

[Anonymous No.4567218]

>>4567167
The edge of the magnetosphere? Why would you stop there? Controlled deceleration would only have to stop at the edge of the atmosphere. That isn't to say it would be completely without kinetic energy at that point, but surely basing the energy estimation off the potential energy the object would have at the "edge" of the magnetosphere is going overboard.

I'd say the biggest allowable energy release from the collision would be 50 megatons as that is equivalent to the largest nuclear bomb ever tested. Governments wouldn't like the idea of private companies producing that big of a light show, but they won't be complaining once they see their the tens of billions of dollars of precious metals being extracted from the impact site.

[Anonymous No.4567255]

>>4567178
There are a lot of asteroids out there that are immediately accessible compared to the the materials held up within the Earth. I would imagine it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume some of those asteroids have precious metals in concentrations we have never witnessed on Earth (but this is just my guesswork).

This is all just attempt to simplify space mining to a stupid extent in order to prove it can be done. Sure, there are more efficient ways to mine asteroids than dropping them onto the Earth, but those methods would require unproven technologies and therefore can't be as easily argued for.

[Anonymous No.4567296]

Just a quick reminder why people like OP are fucking retarded:
>Earth: 6x10^24 kg
>Entire asteroid belt: 3x10^21 kg (0.04% of Earth)
>Percentage of those asteroids (by mass) that are NEOs: Well, it's fucking tiny.
Have fun blowing trillions on a insignificant drop in the bucket, faggots.

[Anonymous No.4567301]

>>4567178
>After all, you've got solar energy ALL THE TIME.

>Implying asteroids don't spin

[Anonymous No.4567306]

>>4567296
>implying the entire mass of the Earth is accessible
>implying NEO's are the only objects in the solar system that can be reached
>calling other people stuid

[Anonymous No.4567314]

>>4567218
Because any lower and you would be releasing large amounts of fallout into the earth's atmosphere. Inside the magnetosphere it will all come back to earth.

And this guy is right:
>>4567255
The value in asteroid mining isn't that they are rich in these metals it is that they are huge. The asteroid they always quote as being worth 20 trillion weighs a billion tons.

Moving that would be almost impossible, impacting it safely would be something else.

[Anonymous No.4567315]

>>4567301
Science above, I hope you are a troll.

[Anonymous No.4567335]

>>4567314
>Because any lower and you would be releasing large amounts of fallout into the earth's atmosphere. Inside the magnetosphere it will all come back to earth.
I'm not talking about nukes anymore.

[Anonymous No.4567344]

>>4567314
Dude, dude... dude.

What if we rammed something like that into the Moon? o_O

It'd be easier to mine in low gravity than micro gravity.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567358]

>>4567255
At max, asteroids contain gold/platinum at 1000 parts per billion. This means in order to get 1 ton of gold, you need to reenter 1 million tons of useless material.

For platinum with a concentration of around 15 parts per million, you need to reenter 67,000 tons of useless material.

http://chapters.marssociety.org/winnipeg/asteroid.html


>>but those methods would require unproven technologies
and moving asteroids is a much more proven technology than a straightforward chemical process that is carried out on earth?

[Anonymous No.4567363]

>>4567335
SO if you stop it dead right above the atmospheric which is unreasonable it will have about 50 times the energy of the tsar nuclear weapon.

[Anonymous No.4567373]

>>4567358
>At max, asteroids contain gold/platinum at 1000 parts per billion
A) Sauce
B) Unless the asteroid is the exact size needed to make sure it doesn't burn up in Earth's atmosphere nor produces an explosion greater than 50 megatons it will have to be pulverized with explosives, in which case the only portions of the asteroid sent back to Earth would be the portions with the highest ore content.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567384]

>>4567301
>>implying you couldn't despin them using thrusters, solar sails, or yo-yo despin

>>implying that most asteroids don't have rotation rates of 1 rotation per hour

[Anonymous No.4567385]

>>4567363
>SO if you stop it dead right above the atmospheric which is unreasonable it will have about 50 times the energy of the tsar nuclear weapon.
The FUCK are you talking about?! I never stated a mass.

[Anonymous No.4567388]

>>4567373
But they are just piles of debris it will be, more or less, uniformly distributed.

[Anonymous No.4567394]

>>4567385
Don't be such an asshole it was obviously a continuation of the discussion of the asteroid before.

[Anonymous No.4567403]

>>4567384
>implying you wouldn't want to say "fuck the interplanetary economy", increase the spin of the asteroid, and turn the interior of the asteroid into a paradise

The rest of the world would be like
>we so jelly
and you'd be like
>I know you jelly, I know

[Anonymous No.4567424]

>>4567394
>Don't be such an asshole
I didn't mean to be an asshole. Is it because I swore? The exclamation mark was in response to the ridiculous energy you claimed would be released.

>it was obviously a continuation of the discussion of the asteroid before.
What asteroid before? The one you were you mentioned in passing after linking to ANOTHER poster?

Asteroids that are so massive that they can't be impacted with the Earth without an energy release less than 50 megatons would be pulverized to create smaller pieces.

[Mad Scientist !!Q11PG81nz2n No.4567428]

>>4567403

How would that meaningfully differ from living on Earth?

[Anonymous No.4567443]

>>4567388
>But they are just piles of debris it will be, more or less, uniformly distributed.
The story of most asteroids is more complex than grains of sand accreting. The fact that all asteroids are a conglomeration of smaller objects does not mean every substance is uniformly distributed. Those constituent objects could be from across the solar system or formed at different times in the evolution of the solar system and would thus have different compositions.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567465]

>>4567373
sauce? It's in the post, this link right here: http://chapters.marssociety.org/winnipeg/asteroid.html

On an m-type asteroid, the gold and platinum is likely to be alloyed with the iron and nickel, so concentrations probably won't deviate much.

If you're pulverizing an asteroid and separating out bits of rock with more platinum than other bits of rock, why not do the refining in space?

Besides, how are you going to seperate out chunks of asteroid with higher than usually platinum concentrations?

[Anonymous No.4567478]

>>4567428
>How would that meaningfully differ from living on Earth?
A) You'd be in space, which is awesome.
B) You'd be you're own ruler, not governed by laws engineered solely to allow millions of people to live together without killing one another.
C) Every task that occupies your time would be directly and obviously linked to either keeping yourself alive or improving your own life instead of creating spreadsheets all day and rationalizing your mundane life as a drop in the bucket labeled "greater good".
D) You'd be in space, which is awesome.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567483]

>>4567403
That'd work too, might take a lot less time to take the mined materials and make them into a space colony. It'd be a lot cheaper than shipping up materials from earth!

[Anonymous No.4567485]

>>4567443
The composition may be different but there is no reason to believe that some parts would contain the expensive bits.

[Anonymous No.4567497]

>>4567424
Yes it's because you swore and if you followed my posts back you would see i was talking about the asteroid always quoted as worth 20 trillion.

[Anonymous No.4567513]

>>4567465
>sauce? It's in the post
Sorry, I guess it's getting late.

>If you're pulverizing an asteroid and separating out bits of rock with more platinum than other bits of rock, why not do the refining in space?
Refining requires big heavy machines that have been engineered to work in micro-gravity. Pulverizing requires explosives.

As stated earlier in the thread, the concept of impacting asteroids with the Earth to mine them is a stupidly simplified solution as a means of proving the concept of space mining. All it would take to accomplish all this is the upcoming Orion spacecraft and a solar sail. Unlike all alternative plans, one cannot argue that this plan wouldn't work.

[Anonymous No.4567531]

>>4567485
>The composition may be different but there is no reason to believe that some parts would contain the expensive bits.
You are in a desert. You find a single black grain of sand. Is it reasonable to claim that that grain of sand is the only black grain of sand in the entire desert?

"Expensive bits" exist on Earth and it is unreasonable to assume Earth is the only place "expensive bits" reside.

[Anonymous No.4567535]

>>4567513
>a solar sail
A solar sail unimaginably large.
And yes it might work but it might drop on top of a city. Once you did drop it you'd find that the extraction methods are the same and the abundances are not much higher. only it cost many many billions of dollars to get the mine here.

[Anonymous No.4567540]

>>4567497
Didn't you read my post? You mentioned that asteroid once and it was in response to another post, i.e. not my post.

[Anonymous No.4567549]

>>4567531
No what i was saying is you have no reason to believe the gold and platinum will be in one lump of the asteroid and not the other. The solar system was different from time to time but that doesn't mean the heavy element abundances changed. There is no reason to believe you can break it into parts and get a piece with significantly higher concentrations of the expensive stuff.

[Anonymous No.4567560]

>>4567540
Didn't you read the bit that said "if you followed my posts back" how the hell am I supposed to know who I'm talking to. You however could read the whole conversation.

[Anonymous No.4567563]

>>4567428
Says the man who wants to live under the sea. Honestly at first it would be better because the economy would initially be rich from selling out the hollowed out remains of the roid. Anything else would depend of culture Id guess.

[Anonymous No.4567567]

>>4567535
>A solar sail unimaginably large
>implying the asteroid is just big enough to make the operation impossible
Obviously asteroid fragments too big to be sent back to Earth wouldn't be sent back to Earth. This isn't rocket science, at least not the simple logic behind the operation.

>but it might drop on top of a city.
Satellites are de-orbited all the time with reasonable accuracy.

>abundances are not much higher
Compared to what? Gold is gold. Platinum is platinum. There is a finite supply of the two and the more we mine Earth's surface the more expensive it is to find and mine more... Do I really need to go any further into the reasoning behind space mining?

[Anonymous No.4567587]

>>4567560
I'm the poster you have been talking to all along, but you linked to TWO posts (>>4567314). You mentioned the asteroid under the link of another post, not mine.

Frankly, which tangent my post (4567335) was part of should have been obvious to you because I quoted the part of your post that was meant for me.

[Anonymous No.4567599]

>>4567567
There is still gold and platinum on earth it doesn't justify sending billions to get more mines when there are plenty left. I was saying the abundances are the same as on earth.

Satellites weigh tons this does not.

And solar sails are really bad. i said unimaginably large because it would take a larger solar sail than has ever been made to safely impact an asteroid. For any asteroid larger than a few tons. To get a large one it would take an enormous one.

[Anonymous No.4567603]

>>4567549
>you have no reason to believe the gold and platinum will be in one lump of the asteroid and not the other
And you have no reason to believe gold and platinum would be in one lump of Earth and not the other. That never stopped terrestrial mining because we don't mine random patches of land. We LOOK for the lumps that have the gold and platinum, and that's where we mine.

[Anonymous No.4567613]

>>4567603
The earth had active geology ores were deposited in certain locations, asteroids did not.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567612]

>>4567513
And how do you separate out the platinum rich rock or collect large amounts in microgravity? The process for refining in space is fairly straight forward, you pass carbon monoxide over pulverized regolith, end up with noble metal enriched powder and iron, nickel, and cobalt carbonyl gas which you decompose into a metal coating and carbon monoxide gas, beginning the process anew. This process works. We do it on earth.

This process is described here:
http://www.space-mining.com/beneficiation.html

[Anonymous No.4567617]

>>4567603
However, we don't know of any sedimentation type processes that could separate out useful metals on asteroids. Asteroids aren't geologically active. Neither does weathering occur on asteroids.

[Anonymous No.4567621]

>>4567599
I guess I DO have to explain the importance of space mining to you.

If it were economical to mine space last century than people would be mining space, but it wasn't economical. It's not currently economical now either. However, the abundance of precious metals is dwindling and the cost of finding and mining more is increasing. Eventually space mining will become economical and a universe of unlimited resources will be opened up to us.

The argument that space mining is not currently economical and thus will never be economical is stupid, and yet that is what you seem to be arguing.

>it would take a larger solar sail than has ever been made...
>implying solar sails have been deployed as anything more than tiny prototypes
Please don't reply to this post. As I read your posts I am increasingly convinced I have nothing to gain from your knowledge or lack there of. This isn't meant to be mean or rude or anything like that, just stern. Everybody was ignorant on any given topic once in their lives.

Sorry if I could have handled this post with more tact, but I'm tired.

[Anonymous No.4567627]

>>4567621
>implying solar sails have been deployed as anything more than tiny prototypes
That's why I started at tons.
Solar sails are awful they have to be huge. You can't claim it's a certainly when nothing of that size can be launched.

[Anonymous No.4567632]

>>4567617
The early solar system was a violent place. Proto-planets were blasted apart again and again. Such collisions would create debris consisting of chunks from those proto-planets' distinct layers and those chunks would therefore have very different compositions.

You didn't think of that? That is just off the top of a "science fan's" head. Should I be impressed with myself or is it just getting late for you?

[Anonymous No.4567639]

>>4567632
Could probably does happen. You do have to find it though. One like that has never been observed.

[Anonymous No.4567644]

>>4567627
I can claim that because it's just a matter of simple algebra. I've done the math before but it's too late for me to look up everything again. You just have to have to use the surface density of aluminized mylar and make some estimations about how tightly packed such sails could be within the volume of upcoming launch platforms. Suffice it to say the upper limits on sail size are BIG.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567645]

>>4567621
Another reason for mining asteroids is space construction materials. It cost a lot in terms of energy and money to move stuff out of Earth's gravity well.

It doesn't make sense to launch tonnages of construction materials from Earth, when you can just as easily obtain them from an asteroid.

If we ever wanted to build space colonies or space solar power satellites(pic related), it'd make sense to mine asteroids.

[Anonymous No.4567652]

>>4567617
This.
You need fluids do dissolve, concentrate, and precipitate, most commonly water. Why is gold found in veins? because it was transported in solution.

[Anonymous No.4567653]

>>4567639
I said I was done with you, but despite my best judgement I kept on posting. I guess I shouldn't blame you for your bad posts. I should blame myself for replying.

[Anonymous No.4567657]

>>4567644
>I've done the math before
That's not an argument.

We can leave that as a point and yes I never said that this wouldn't be possible some day. Just not today.
>All it would take to accomplish all this is the upcoming Orion spacecraft and a solar sail.
This is what i was arguing against.

[Anonymous No.4567663]

>>4567653
>Thinly veiling an insult because you don't have a rebuke.

[Anonymous No.4567666]

>>4567645
>Another reason for mining asteroids is space construction materials. It cost a lot in terms of energy and money to move stuff out of Earth's gravity well.
The point at which vehicles and habitats are built and fueled from space based resources will be the beginning of a very exciting phase in human history. It's the moment our species becomes immortal.

But no one will start the industrialization of space solely for the future of humanity. There must be a profit to be made. The first space mining operations (other than for fuel) will be sent back to Earth.

[Spacer !!cX+kk1U+qKv No.4567667]

>>4567644
>>4567627
The problem with solar sails isn't size, it's deploying them that's the problem. It's really difficult to deploy a flimsy lightweight film in microgravity.

However, as long as sun shines, you've got fuel.

[Anonymous No.4567689]

>>4567657
>>All it would take to accomplish all this is the upcoming Orion spacecraft and a solar sail.
And that is still true. Perhaps you are simply exaggerating the scale of such an operation.

The Orion spacecraft would rendezvous with a small asteroid. Astronauts would plant explosives to blow off chunks of the weakly held together asteroid. The more valuable chunks would then be tethered to a solar sail and sent back to Earth and then impacted in a sparsely populated region.

[Anonymous No.4567700]

>>4567667
That "problem" has been overcome (you're image shows one solution). There shouldn't be any problem scaling the those solutions. It's still "rocket science" and the folding and unfolding of the sail is still the hardest part, but I wouldn't use that as an argument against the against the practical application of a solar sails.

[Anonymous No.4567707]

>>4567689
The operation has to be profitable. If you take a 20 trillion dollar asteroid weighing 3 billion tons and take 3 thousand tons back which is still a huge task. It's worth 20 million. Not enough to mount a mission but it is still a larger task than has ever been accomplished in space.
And how do you diagnose which thousand ton chunk is worth more? I really don't think you can increase the abundances by selection.

[Anonymous No.4567732]

>>4567707
I wasn't arguing that doing it on that scale would be economical. I was arguing that it is doable. If some magical element zero stuff was found on an asteroid we could be mining in less than twenty years.

And as has been stated several times itt, space mining may not be currently economical but it will undoubtedly become economical eventually. Until then I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for the government propping up a yet but soon to be economical space mining industry.

[Anonymous No.4568432]

>>4567732
Before industry, research is required. What are the current research projects for space mining? The term they use is ISRU (in-situ resource utilization).

[Anonymous No.4568442]

This is what I want to see as the end product of space mining research.

Also it is retarded to mine in space to bring raw material back to the Earth. There will NEVER come a point where mining becomes that expensive. We would start recycling landfills or mining the ocean floor. That is far cheaper than dragging any sort of mining equipment all the way to an asteroid. Space mining is for space industry.

[Anonymous No.4568469]

>>4568442
When we have teleporters we can just beam back the raw materials we collect from space and they would be cheaper than dirt.

[Anonymous No.4568480]

>>4568469
>teleporters
>cheap