Harvesting Asteroids

ScumLord · 27-05-2017 05:17PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I suspect that asteroid dust , like moon dust is very sharp and unfriendly to mechanical stuff. So might need to make gear out of something with a harder surface than aluminium.

I was watching a video on a guy who's been tasked with making concrete out of moondust, I think he's worked out a way of making it but it was surprising just how unfriendly that moon dust is to just about anything.

Capt'n Midnight · 27-05-2017 06:52PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I was watching a video on a guy who's been tasked with making concrete out of moondust, I think he's worked out a way of making it but it was surprising just how unfriendly that moon dust is to just about anything.

The secret of concrete is to keep it wet until it fully cures.

http://www.cement.org/learn/concrete-technology/concrete-construction/curing-in-construction

Fathom · 29-05-2017 07:37PM

C-type asteroids. Dark. Carbon-rich. High abundances of water. Not relevant mining for water-rich Earth. Relevant to distant space travel. Ref: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/new-nasa-mission-to-help-us-learn-how-to-mine-asteroids

ScumLord · 30-05-2017 02:29PM

I wonder how many asteroids you'd need to survive in space? Would one asteroid have a lot of different materials in them? Or would they be somewhat specialised? IE: One asteroid has a range of metals, another one would carbon and silica and so on? So you'd need to either travel between them or toe them together.

Fathom · 30-05-2017 05:09PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I wonder how many asteroids you'd need to survive in space?

Hundreds of thousands of asteroids exist. Sizes ranging from a few yards to hundreds of miles across. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx. Stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security and Regolith Explorer. Planned asteroid sample return mission. Many asteroid types. Dark color C-type contain water. Also organic carbon and phosphorous for fertilizer. Help grow food in space stations or flight. Ref: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/new-nasa-mission-to-help-us-learn-how-to-mine-asteroids

ScumLord · 30-05-2017 05:19PM

Fathom wrote: »

Dark color C-type contain water. Also organic carbon and phosphorous for fertilizer. Help grow food in space stations or flight.

I think I heard at one point that we've also hit peak phosphorus.

I don't think that would mean we should import it, it would be a better plan to just move a few billion people into space.

Fathom · 30-05-2017 05:23PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I think I heard at one point that we've also hit peak phosphorus. I don't think that would mean we should import it, it would be a better plan to just move a few billion people into space.

A surplus Earth has: People. 7 billions. Is SpaceX the beginning? Spread of private sector space flight? Look back 40 years from now. Yawn. Wonder why others did anticipate harvesting asteroids to aid space living and flight?

ScumLord · 30-05-2017 05:43PM

I'm still unsure on how private companies are going to get people into space. They'll solve some problems when it comes to the cost of getting into orbit but outside of that we're going to run into some real hurdles. If you pay a wage to someone living in space that money is pretty much worthless in space, your food will likely have to be provided, it's not like if you run out of money on a ship with 100 people that they'll just let you starve to death, or that they'd allow a handful of people to have most the food because they're richer.

The social structure will be more like a stone age groups of people, groups of 150 people or less that are entirely dependant on eachother maintaining the group. Individuality will go out the window and the group will take precedence. Something humans don't have to do that often in the modern world. At what stage does that group of people decide they're not doing something like mining and handing off all the profits to an earth based parent company when all the parent company does is provide for their survival?

Black Swan · 30-05-2017 06:39PM

"Harvesting asteroids" to supplement space flight resources may have some merit someday, but today there are concerns about humans living for prolonged time in space, as opposed to living on Earth. Especially if such lengths of time in space lack artificial gravity (e.g., Mars mission), where human anatomy may suffer degenerative affects. I can envision a space gym with exercise equipment, but will that be sufficient to sustain all the physiological needs for prolonged periods of space flight if artificial gravity was not present?

Capt'n Midnight · 30-05-2017 06:40PM

ScumLord wrote: »

I think I heard at one point that we've also hit peak phosphorus.

I don't think that would mean we should import it, it would be a better plan to just move a few billion people into space.

Like many peaks it just means we are running out of low hanging fruit.

At present usage of present sources we may run low in a century.
Or we could reduce usage and increase recycling of it. Or target lower quality ores.

The earth's crust is a tenth of a percent phosphorus so not exactly rare if you dedicate energy to recover it.

TBH I'd be more worried about trace elements. Like Selenium
https://www.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2017/02/selenium-deficiency-promoted-by-climate-change.html

Selenium (Se) is essential for human health and has to be obtained from dietary sources. As an antioxidant, it scavenges free radicals, thus supporting the immune system. It is also required for the synthesis of numerous proteins. Up to 1 billion people are thought to be affected by low dietary selenium intake, which can cause cardiomyopathy. However, excessive intake of selenium can also be harmful, leading to vomiting, diarrhoea and liver damage.

Too much selenium might be a problem if you are producing food off world.

Fathom · 30-05-2017 07:39PM

ScumLord wrote: »

If you pay a wage to someone living in space that money is pretty much worthless in space

Bitcoin economy?

Capt'n Midnight · 30-05-2017 09:25PM

Fathom wrote: »

Bitcoin economy?

Speed of light means Bitcoins can only extend so far before you loose synch.

Fathom · 30-05-2017 09:33PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Speed of light means Bitcoins can only extend so far before you loose synch.

You captured my imagination Capt'n. Prompted daydream. Humor too. Will play with this in my mind. Thanks! :cool:

Black Swan · 03-06-2017 02:57PM

NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) plans to redirect asteroids to orbit Moon, and perhaps Mars someday, and to harvest water and minerals needed to host space flights and space stations. Once in space about Moon or Mars, it may be less expensive to harvest asteroids than to resupply missions by launching resources from Earth.

Fathom · 07-06-2017 01:01AM

Asteroid belt. Doughnut-shaped ring. Orbiting between Mars & Jupiter. Tens of thousands. Useful for spaceflight & Mars resupply?

ScumLord · 07-06-2017 01:00PM

The asteroid belt is a bit out of the way for anything to do with Mars. I suppose the other problem with the asteroid belt is there are no big gravity wells to fling us back towards the inner solar system. We're probably going to need some fairly reliable ships to get out there and back. They will almost need to be some sort of brute force ships that can just power their way around the solar system without any kind of slingshots.

Fathom · 07-06-2017 05:36PM

ScumLord wrote: »

The asteroid belt is a bit out of the way for anything to do with Mars.

Found this rendering.

ScumLord · 07-06-2017 07:13PM

Mars would make a good base to work from if we are serious about mining asteroids. We'd probably need to find an asteroid that stays relatively close to mars kind of following its orbit.

Black Swan · 07-06-2017 07:49PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Mars would make a good base to work from if we are serious about mining asteroids. We'd probably need to find an asteroid that stays relatively close to mars kind of following its orbit.

Or redirect several asteroids into Mars orbit so that they can be more easily mined from Mars perhaps?

Fathom · 07-06-2017 09:14PM

Long shots? Space robots. Travel to asteroid belt. Pick promising asteroids using mineral wave lengths, etc. diagnostics. Redirect asteroids to Mars. Sling asteroids using Mars gravity to Earth orbit.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-06-2017 09:19PM

ScumLord wrote: »

Mars would make a good base to work from if we are serious about mining asteroids. We'd probably need to find an asteroid that stays relatively close to mars kind of following its orbit.

The bottom of a gravity well is not a good base for space exploration.

ScumLord · 08-06-2017 01:34PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The bottom of a gravity well is not a good base for space exploration.

It depends, if the other base is further away at the bottom of a bigger gravity well, it might not be so bad.

I'm kind of assuming that we'll need to use gravity wells as jump off points. Being in orbit around mars means you can use mars to fling you towards something, is space travel even possible without a gravity well slingshot.

Capt'n Midnight · 08-06-2017 09:53PM

ScumLord wrote: »

, is space travel even possible without a gravity well slingshot.

A gravity well can be handy if you are using chemical rockets see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect
Aerobraking is also handy if you want to slow down.

But chemical rockets are very inefficient compared to Ion drive in the long run. Even to get from Low Earth Orbit to Geo synch where all the TV satellites you can double your payload by using ion drives.

The Japanese have used a solar sail to get to Venus.

Fathom · 09-06-2017 03:40PM

Asteroid mining. Only decade away? Claims Washington Post.

Black Swan · 21-08-2017 05:48PM

Start-up for-profit companies are being formed to someday mine asteroids like Deep Space Industries, which may or may not survive a competitive marketplace.

Fathom · 21-08-2017 07:36PM

Note several space mining companies. Practical today?

Rubecula · 30-08-2017 03:04PM

Fathom wrote: »

Remember Earth-skimming DA14 asteroid? L-type asteroid. 50 meters wide. Could proposed Fire Fly or equivalent spacecraft catch such asteroids? Drag them into Earth orbit. Harvest them using robotics. Estimated $195 billion of minerals. DA14 passed at distance of 17,200 miles in 2013.

Practical with today's technology? Your thoughts?

Good idea but why travel the distance to it, then drag it back to mine it, why not travel to it, mine it and ship the valuable stuff back? to me it would make more sense

Black Swan · 05-09-2017 05:16PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

But chemical rockets are very inefficient compared to Ion drive in the long run. Even to get from Low Earth Orbit to Geo synch where all the TV satellites you can double your payload by using ion drives.

3 NSTAR ion thrusters on the Dawn spacecraft launched 2007 allowed it to orbit the protoplanets Vesta and Ceres in asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Fathom · 06-09-2017 11:20PM

Black Swan wrote: »

3 NSTAR ion thrusters on the Dawn spacecraft launched 2007 allowed it to orbit the protoplanets Vesta and Ceres in asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Rubecula · 07-09-2017 04:25PM

Harvesting Asteroids

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