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from the hard-to-swing-a-pick-in-zero-G dept.
So, you want to be an asteroid miner?
So [Williams] started talking to Christopher Dreyer, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines' Center for Space Resources, a research and technology development center that's existed within the school for more than a decade.
It was good timing. Because this summer, Mines announced its intention to found the world's first graduate program in Space Resources—the science, technology, policy, and politics of prospecting, mining, and using those resources. The multidisciplinary program would offer Post-Baccalaureate certificates and Masters of Science degrees. Although it's still pending approval for a 2018 start date, the school is running its pilot course, taught by Dreyer, this semester.
The focus seems to be on space colonies mining what they need in place, more than bringing material back to Earth.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday December 06 2017, @12:22AM (14 children)
Building the required commons in space is absurdly expensive.
Sure, launching stuff out of our gravity well is really really hard. But since the objects that we launch require over half of the Periodic Table in their manufacturing, in various extra-pure molecular forms and in a variety of matter states, thinking you are going to find all the required pieces in a timely manner on asteroids with convenient orbits is ... optimistic bordering on delusional. "Future" is a great word, isn't it?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JNCF on Wednesday December 06 2017, @12:38AM (7 children)
As an ignoramus on the matter of spacecraft manufacturing I ask, in what proportion? Are there are some big bulky pieces we could build in space, and launch the remainder from Earth at first? I see no need for an all-or-nothing approach, but again, I'm an ignoramus.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 06 2017, @01:15AM (6 children)
It's a good point that it's not all-or-nothing. But because the conditions are so extreme, pretty much everything used in spacecrafts is some exotic materials blend or alloy, or structure that didn't exist 50 years ago.
Removing the takeoff Gs, and some of the weight constraints (hard because any weight has to be pushed), some of those high-tech materials could be substituted for simpler forms (Fe doesn't rust easily in space), but that's gonna require case-by-case analysis of tradeoffs, and most elements will still be insanely hard to locate/reach/mine/purify, compared to getting a DHL from outer Uzbekistan or Atacama.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday December 06 2017, @03:31AM (5 children)
There's plenty of aluminum on the moon...
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 06 2017, @07:59AM (2 children)
Al is pretty weak, on top of requiring massive amount of energy to extract (at least here). Also reacts in funny ways with mundane things.
Al alloys are as strong as steel, but much lighter. That's what you want. But that means you need those other pure minerals, and a proper alloy manufacturing plant.
The number of people, all around the Earth, who have to do their job right so that assorted raw dirt becomes a working phone, a car, or even a Furby, is absolutely mind-boggling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 06 2017, @01:36PM (1 child)
So how much strength in the construction do we still need after we've already gotten out of our gravitational well? Most of the structural strength is there for surviving launch, not for simply being in space...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 06 2017, @05:10PM
In general, probably less, but it depends on where you're going and how fast you want to accelerate to go there.
Shielding people and electronics is one thing that doesn't change based on your starting point (unless that starting point is close to Jupiter or Saturn). Attaching that shielding to propulsion still requires a decent amount of mechanical parts.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday December 06 2017, @04:55PM (1 child)
...alumoonum?
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday December 06 2017, @06:13PM
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday December 06 2017, @01:24AM
Every bootstrap is expensive. It doesn't mean that it will continue to stay so.
It's only a matter of available energy and the capability to manipulate that energy**. I reckon both of them are a matter of engineering.
---
** it doesn't matter if you have petajoules available if the only way you can use them is within a time period of some milliseconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday December 06 2017, @05:48AM
So, we should just give up at least trying to become a space-faring race because it's too expensive? Or is it only worth it if there are military applications?
Assuming we don't kill ourselves first, there's a big rock, that won't be launched by annoyed asteroid miners, with our name on it that will kill us all one day.
I, for one, would prefer it if at enough people to repopulate (or at least to thrive elsewhere) survive because they were off-planet.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday December 06 2017, @06:40PM (3 children)
I see no reason to believe that the heavy elements we have on Earth are harder to come by off-planet. They were all made in space anyway. As for manufacturing, it should be relatively easy to get everything hot enough for modern refining since vacuum makes an excellent insulator.
It's all a matter of how expensive it is to bootstrap the process. But since most of the cost of bootstrapping anything in space is in getting it to leave Earth orbit, bootstrapping a Moon or Mars colony would be way, way cheaper if we could do it from an industrial base in space.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 06 2017, @07:18PM (2 children)
> I see no reason to believe that the heavy elements we have on Earth are harder to come by off-planet.
"space is huge. Mind-bogglingly huge"
The far side of the moon probably offers the same benefits as the Earth when it comes to gathering a random assortment of asteroid-delivered minerals within reasonable distance, plus whatever is in the crust.
The smaller the planetary body, the less chance you have of finding what you need, and the greater the distance to the next place where you will. The asteroid belt likely has everything you need, but each needed mineral will feel like sending a rowboat to India for extra spices. The modern kind of rowboat, with one worker and twelve layers of management in it.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday December 06 2017, @07:51PM (1 child)
Given that space travel, and technology in general, involves putting more and more raw power in the hands of machine operators to do even comparatively mundane things, this is probably a good thing. It's bad enough that everyone already drives around a kinetic weapon capable of mass homicide even before you start considering the destructive potential of its fuel source. Every such vehicle in space will also double as a nuclear weapon if allowed to fall to the Earth's surface.
If you have a way to keep everyone safe from such things without taking away individual liberty, I would really love to hear it. It's the hard problem of decentralized technology, today, and it is only going to keep getting worse.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 06 2017, @07:57PM
I just meant "really really slow".