Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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The Astronomy Thread
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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Yes. It's a massive issue. And I don't trust any of the asteroid mining ops or regulatory bodies to get it right before some area of the world gets cratered.
Still worth it though.
Abefroman
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I don't see this shit happening any time soon. Not just because of tech reasons but more importantly political reasons. I don't believe that China and Russia would be cool with us mining an asteroid possibly worth trillions of dollars. We also wouldn't be cool with China and Russia doing it either. It is an economic nuke that would let one side dominate the other. I could see wars breaking out over this very easily.
Tuco
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Politically it's already happening though. Hell even Luxembourg is getting in on it.
Luxembourg to support space mining - BBC News
Maybe China/Russia would start to take action as we progress, but will they do so with war? I doubt it. If anything it'll be another space race. Getting an asteroid in orbit around the earth/moon would be bigger than sputnik and may be as motivating. Who wins in that scenario? Humanity.
Luxembourg to support space mining - BBC News
Maybe China/Russia would start to take action as we progress, but will they do so with war? I doubt it. If anything it'll be another space race. Getting an asteroid in orbit around the earth/moon would be bigger than sputnik and may be as motivating. Who wins in that scenario? Humanity.
Ukerric
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It's probably cheaper to mine the asteroid in place and ship the refined products to earth. Less mass to move around = cheaper rocketry, and you get less risk of splashing your target by error as a bonus.
Tripamang
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Why would they care? it's like saying countries go to war because their economies are better. Plus when they value those asteroid's are being worth trillions that's based on their current value, once you started mining that thing and those rare metals start flowing the prices will start dropping. Some of those asteroids contain more of certain precious metals than we've mined in our entire history, so their value wouldn't hold if you had an easy to tap source.
Most the people trying to mine these things are private corporations anyways, so I don't see how it would be different than any other kind of commerce.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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Yes if only there was a precedent for countries that have trillions of dollars worth of natural resources that Russia/China/the US could easily take from them, but instead we allow them to mine and sell on the open market, then we would know what would happen.
Abefroman
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Kirun
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Not necessarily. See: diamonds. Scarcity has got nothing to do with it as long as only one or a few companies are capable of extracting them.
Burnem Wizfyre
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Dandain
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I think you're right in this respect Tuco, asteroid mining will be the catalyst than enables human expansion, but I disagree with your comment that it enables human exploration. Asteroids and their value come from the infrastructure you can build with it, repair with it. And harvest large enough amounts of water to continue growing/sustaining populations at expansion points.
Asteroid mining - as an endeavor is basically just proxy for the task of "gathering resources in space". Clearly being able to harvest and secure resources safely and reliably that can be used to maintain and expand human populations is paramount to even populating anywhere away from Earth. We can't ship shit from Earth to help off Earth populations, just will never effectively work that way. We can send robots, and some few explorers from Earth, but to explore distant stars with more than a machine or a limited crew exploration ship, resource harvesting is key.
Either building shipyards in the asteroid belt, or bringing asteroids to our shipyards in space will certainly be a step in the expansion of humanity.
Asteroid mining - as an endeavor is basically just proxy for the task of "gathering resources in space". Clearly being able to harvest and secure resources safely and reliably that can be used to maintain and expand human populations is paramount to even populating anywhere away from Earth. We can't ship shit from Earth to help off Earth populations, just will never effectively work that way. We can send robots, and some few explorers from Earth, but to explore distant stars with more than a machine or a limited crew exploration ship, resource harvesting is key.
Either building shipyards in the asteroid belt, or bringing asteroids to our shipyards in space will certainly be a step in the expansion of humanity.
Ablative re-entry shells made from dross and slag left over from the refining process.
Dandain
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You've also got to assume that between now and the time we can mine an asteroid a host of other technologies will be expanding as well. We could have Magnetic/Tractor Beam type things, as well as learning to build in space. Outside of the most precious metals, we probably won't be sending iron and nickle to the surface of Earth unless we have managed an extremely energy efficient and reliable method for hoisting large payloads that are constructed on Earth first. We'll probably have plans to craft shit in space. 3D printing is just step one in having more manufacturing capability away from Earth. We probably won't be building all the replacement parts for this mining operation solely on Earth. Before humans inhabit Space, the places we inhabit must become prohibitively safe. The risk to an explorer and the risk to a worker/colonist are very different. Asteroid mining at scale will definitely be a worker/colonist experience more than an exploratory one. Proof of concept will be handled by the explorers.
hodj
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Controversial "Warp Drive" To Finally Undergo Peer Review | IFLScience
Em Drive is getting its day in the peer review sunlight.
Em Drive is getting its day in the peer review sunlight.
Dandain
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Not yet peer reviewed, but I found this compelling. New KBO which appears to orbit where planet 9 says it should orbit.
Mike Brown on Twitter:
Mike Brown on Twitter:
Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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