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Space Mining

william said:
Wonder if there's any copper on any of those rocks floating around up there? :unsure:
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Or maybe its like oil - as copper gets more expensive, companies look harder. They get it from different methods - you know, the sludge from desalinating water should contain both copper and uranium. Its one of the theories for getting enough Uranium for nuclear energy.
 
william said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1549200288489394176
everydayastronaut.com

How much do rockets pollute?

Some might find it ironic that an organization like NASA, who studies our atmosphere, is ok with rockets polluting it so much. Or isn’t it weird that Elon Musk, the same person who is pushing sustainable energy with Tesla also has a rocket company that runs on fossil fuels? So today we are going...
everydayastronaut.com everydayastronaut.com
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Yeah some rockets pollute more than others, but dammit Jim, We've got to go to space!
It's our only hope. Genuinely.
 
Yeah some rockets pollute more than others, but dammit Jim, We've got to go to space!
It's our only hope. Genuinely.
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The Earth is our only hope.
There is no planet B and even with the speed of light you will not reach it in time.
The cosmic rays will destroy all forms of life and electronics during the trip.
And if a Planet B exists, then humans are probably not welcome there either. :cautious:
 
DNC said:
The Earth is our only hope.
There is no planet B and even with the speed of light you will not reach it in time.
The cosmic rays will destroy all forms of life and electronics during the trip.
And if a Planet B exists, then humans are probably not welcome there either. :cautious:
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I'm not talking about planet B, I'm talking about asteroid mining and off-world industry, it will be a while before we get there (and I hope we do get there), but moving heavy industry off-world and mining into space would allow a re-greening of sorts of the planet.
As lovely as the Earth is, it has limited resources. We HAVE to go into space and start mining as there are ludicrous amounts of resources out there, waiting to be mined.
 
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Eventually global populations will level out according to UN predictions, and we can slowly but surely move some of the population to habitats on other worlds in our solar system (Most likely candidates are: The Moon, Mars, Moons of gas giants, Venus (really far down the line as a lot of terraforming work needs to be done). Perhaps even space habitats, or habitats strapped onto large asteroids.
I'm not naive I know this will take a long, long time but my point is we can't hope to survive as a species without strapping in and blasting off.
 
Friendly Engineer said:
аnd we can slowly but surely move some of the population to habitats on other worlds in our solar system
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I think this is impossible in the current world order. Because the main thing in it is profit. And what's the profit of spending an awful lot of money and resources to establish a colony on another planet? The next 50 years will be a time of decline and a time of rethinking humanity's goals. Because right now humanity has no common goal except to eat, f*ck and fight. You can't create interplanetary expansion on such a base.
 
Garniv said:
I think this is impossible in the current world order. Because the main thing in it is profit. And what's the profit of spending an awful lot of money and resources to establish a colony on another planet? The next 50 years will be a time of decline and a time of rethinking humanity's goals. Because right now humanity has no common goal except to eat, f*ck and fight. You can't create interplanetary expansion on such a base.
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Space mining will happen, and when it does companies will go there, and bring their employees. Employees bring family, family brings children, children brings schools, families & schools brings shops, shops brings jobs, jobs bring people, and before you know it you've got a small civilisation starting.
A good example is He-3. Helium-3 may in the future be used as a fusion fuel, so you may have companies strip mining lunar regolith for not only He-3 but other resources.
en.wikipedia.org

Lunar resources - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
@Friendly Egnineer
Space mining isn't possible, the astronauts there can't survive the cosmic radaition outside of Earth's magnetic field long enough to generate profits.
And life on moons near gas giants is not possible because of their extremely lethal electromagnetic radiation and it's strong gravital forces
that reach far into space.
 
DNC said:
@Friendly Egnineer
Space mining isn't possible, the astronauts there can't survive the cosmic radaition outside of Earth's magnetic field long enough to generate profits.
And life on moons near gas giants is not possible because of their extremely lethal electromagnetic radiation and it's strong gravital forces
that reach far into space.
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I respectfully disagree. Many studies have been undertaken to determine the feasibility of space mining. Now whilst it's expensive the general consensus is that it is possible.
According to the Milken Institute "In the near term, what’s found in space will stay in space. The support of crewed and robotic exploration with on-site resource utilization — plausibly, on the Moon in the 2020s and Mars in the 2030s — has the greatest promise to jumpstart space mining" If you wish to read more from the Milken Institute on this see: https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/mining-in-space-is-coming
According to Dr Philip Metzger it is in fact possible: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265964616300625?via=ihub
Anyway I'm moving this to another thread as it has gotten off topic.
 
Friendly Engineer said:
Space mining will happen, and when it does companies will go there, and bring their employees.
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:D You are confusing cause and effect. Space mining will only happen after the companies go there and bring their employees. But this will not happen in the foreseeable future because it is unprofitable with current jet-entry technology. If there were a resource that was vital to all civilization, then they (the leaders of the most powerful nations) could think together, calculate the profits, and maybe... But everything we need is here. Аnd what's more, by historical standards we've barely learned how to mine and use it.
Friendly Engineer said:
The support of crewed and robotic exploration with on-site resource utilization — plausibly, on the Moon in the 2020s
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This seems like old science fiction. Because the reality is that it is now the 2020s, and there is still no ongoing project to resource utilization on the Moon. For some reason it does not go beyond beautiful presentations.
Friendly Engineer said:
Employees bring family, family brings children, children brings schools, families & schools brings shops, shops brings jobs, jobs bring people, and before you know it you've got a small civilisation starting.
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One solar flare - and they all die of radiation sickness in a few hours. Because we do not have the technology to shield solar emissions and hard radiation from outer space.
Robots are more likely "settlers" of such colonies. But they have to be designed, made, debug bugs and flaws, make a new version, fix newly noticed problems, and so many cycles, as in the development of any complex automaton.
 
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Absolutely, this won't happen soon, but it will happen. Likely within this half of the century.
The matter of the fact is that as resources become more and more depleted and space technology becomes more mature (and more importantly, gets cheaper, a trend we are already witnessing) then it will be economically viable to mine in space.
 
I think that the real situation will change as soon as a powerful engine that does not eject matter is developed.

Friendly Engineer said:
is that as resources become more and more depleted
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Resources are not being depleted. It's not like they leave this planet :) It's just economically unprofitable to recycle them all over again. As long as what is originally mined is cheap, everything will stay that way. As soon as mining becomes expensive, more effort will be put into reprocessing. And it will become both more efficient and many times cheaper.
 
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Garniv said:
I think that the real situation will change as soon as a powerful engine that does not eject matter is developed.


Resources are not being depleted. It's not like they leave this planet :) It's just economically unprofitable to recycle them all over again. As long as what is originally mined is cheap, everything will stay that way. As soon as mining becomes expensive, more effort will be put into reprocessing. And it will become both more efficient and many times cheaper.
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I recommend the Royal Society of Chemistry's interactive periodic table, if you click on specific elements you can see information about supply risk.
E.g. for lithium
1658264526098.pngAnd the legend:
1658264558348.png
 
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