Mining in the Asteroid Belt - Is it Plausible?

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Teetotaler, Apr 20, 2007.

  1. Teetotaler Registered Senior Member

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    I would think that the astronauts would get cancer from the cosmic rays. And how would we know where in the belt is saturated with the minerals?
     
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  3. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, robots would probably work better - there is an asteroid that is very heavy in gold and other heavy metals.
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Wouldn't transportation costs exceed the value of the minerals?
     
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  7. nietzschefan Thread Killer Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know that - probably at this time. Maybe Branson will try some day, no one else has the balls.
     
  8. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    No, not at all. Spidergoat gave the proper answer - basic economics. Considering that you might get back with $5 billion worth of gold, platinum or whatever and it cost $10 billion to do it, what has been gained?
     
  9. globenstein Registered Senior Member

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    Basic economics also say that gold's value can change over time. If the demand is high enough (electronics) and the supplies are inexistant on earth (as long as it may take, it will happen), much will be gained.
     
  10. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    Sure - I didn't mean never. But not in the next 50 years or so. There's still plenty of gold available for applications like that (it doesn't really take all that much anyway) and ANY form of activity in space is HUGELY expensive!!
     
  11. Communist Hamster Cricetulus griseus leninus Valued Senior Member

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    Well, once colonisation begins in earnest we can't keep shipping out material from Earth. At first, conventional mines will be built on the colonised planets, just like on Earth, only possibly slightly easier because of the lower gravity. However, Mars's gravity may be too high for orbiting the materials needed for large space station construction, and the lunar base may be too far away, so asteroid belt factories may have a niche.
     
  12. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    asteroids are pretty darn small have no atmosphere and rotate pretty fast. So launching them is proberly going to be verry simple with a rail gun or something simmilar so no obvious launch costs that use a lunar flyby to slow down enough to be captured in earth orbit. So launch costs are going to be pretty small yust as the risk that any cargo end up in our atmosphere due to miscalculations. Besides if their not really picky on witch asteroid they wan't then they can dock with a NEAR earth asteroids that requires less delta v then it takes to reach the moon. And perhaps it can manufactor it's own fuel and fly to more economical targets
     
  13. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    We need transporter technology

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    We need it so we can simply extract the elements we need, and recreate them into anything we want. I would assume once we have transporter technology, virtual replication of individual elements into objects you need would be the next logical step.
     
  14. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    I believe that NASA, ESA and pretty much all space agency's somewhere recognise that sending people into space by non nulcear rocketery is either going to force space vehicles in miniatures or in longer duration in both possibilities humans will get sqeeshed out and besides it expensive. That's proberly the main reason why I'm hoping that it's possible and economical to built a space elevator.
     
  15. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    I think the trick to ftp is not to move places, but to get the places to come to you. In a manner of speaking. There are ways to move faster than light...

    Reminds me of that test they did by taking two protons from the same atom and firing them in opposite directions. When they changed the spin/orbit of the one proton, the other one reacted instantaneously in an equal and opposite manner.

    The funny thing.. the time it took for the protons to communicate was ftl. It was instantaneous... and I remember reading.. no matter how far apart they are, they will communicate instantly.

    Now the place where they communicate... thats where we need to travel to.
     
  16. Vega Banned Banned

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    I know a couple alien friends who would let me borrow their spaceship for this operation

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  17. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    You laugh now. Everything we can think of we can make happen. Remember the day when automatic doors that opened by themselves, satellites and lasers were all just science fiction. Science fiction has a way of becoming non-fiction... faster than a lot of people realize.
     
  18. Vega Banned Banned

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    I'm sure it's all possible, but given the current level space technology it would have to wait a few more decades to achieve these objectives!

    Why go all that way to an asteroid belt when the moon's closer?
     
  19. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    True, since the asteroids would not be easily min-able I allowed my mind to wonder.
     
  20. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    I Don't really see the connection between FTL and asteroid mining as one is a economical busniss while the other envolves rechearge into the fabric of space and time. Annyway mining asteroids will take a lot of energy to build a capable craft. While obviously the grinding of materials under extreme enviromental conditions will also recruire constant repairs. However sucking up dirt heating the stuff inside a machine to extract the volatiles is not such a difficult task so as using magnetis to extract iron and perhaps melt them in a form.. And there are proberly other mineral extraction methods. It stands to reason that a mining station that delivers steel profiles with double steel plates with a silicium (dirt) layer inbetween for isolation. Is going to be a lot simpler then a base star construction site that develops ready ships with a alumium titanium coating, organic circuitry and FTL drives.
    Besides asteroids are only piles of already loose ruble actually mining them with current technology might be inpossible however sucking up anything that lays loose on the surface might be a possibility
     
  21. eburacum45 Valued Senior Member

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    The smallest asteroids (less than 100 metres) cannot be loose rubble piles, because they spin so fast gravity is negative at their equator; this will make mining interesting but not impossible.

    Almost all the products of asteroid mining will be consumed in space, to build spacecraft and habitats. Very few products of mining in space will be valuable enough to merit the expense of landing it from Earth orbit. So that is the limiting condition; if the solar system is extensively explored and settled, the asteroids will be mined; if not, not. Simple economics.
     
  22. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    Things grow differently in space, crystals form differently. Their is a market for space manufactored goods that can be transported to earth but they are not raw minerals.

    Seems likely but there saying the same abouth the milky way either. Cohension and adhesion forces could be at play and offcourse there is some connection. Annyway if it's benneficial that it's proberly possible to brake a small one up by some advanced sonar that uses resonant frequency.
     
  23. Janus58 Valued Senior Member

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    Starting with an asteroid at an average orbit of 3 AU, by the time it it reaches the Earth it will be have a minimum relative speed to the Earth of 6.6 km/sec. Even with an optimum lunar flyby, you would only be able to shed about 800 m/sec, well short of that needed for capture (remember, escape velocity from the Earth is only 1.4 km/sec at lunar orbit distance).
    How do you figure that? Even a NEA that passes closer to the Earth than the moon will be traveling at greater than escape velocity (otherwise it would be captured by the Earth), and you will have to match velocity with it.
    So you would have to achieve escape velocity from the Earth plus the extra velocity difference in order to dock with a NEA, and this extra velocity can be in 10's of km/sec. And the vast majority of NEAs pass at greater than Lunar distance.
     

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