Posted on 08/25/2011 10:03:57 AM PDT by BobZimmerman
Want to mine an asteroid? Rather than travel to it with all their mining equipment, three Chinese scientists have proposed a better way. In a paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph preprint website, they have calculated the energy required to shift the orbits of the six thousand near-Earth asteroids and place them in Earth orbit for later mining. Of these, they found 46 asteroids that had the potential for such an operation, and two likely candidates for a space mission. One 30-foot-wide asteroid, 2008EA9, will actually be in the right place for this technique in 2049.
(Excerpt) Read more at behindtheblack.com ...
Robert Heinlein covered this decades ago in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
TANSTAAFL!
You wouldn't need the crucibles or any large handling equipment as a benefit of the weightless environment. You need a means of induction or solar heating, mixing and metal forming equipment - all relatively minor in size and weight.
Also, by processing in space and just returning the end product, we could avoid quite a bit of pollution.
If the metal on asteroids is mined and shipped off somewhere, the mass decreases. would not the decrease make it lose altitude and then impact earth?
I am one of Mr. Heinlein’s misguided children.
Actually sat by him at the L-5 Society Banquet one time.
I guess you'd better educate the NASA folks who sent the rovers to mars. Better tell them about Spectrum Analysis and save us the money and them the effort of sampling the planet babyboy.
And you know this from reading what science fiction author? Lack of weight doesn't mean lack of mass.
Wiki has Meteor Crater being caused by an object 50 yards in diameter, but that’s just wiki. The crater is about 4000 feet in diameter.
Freegards
I know this because of many years in heavy industry, a stint in manufacturing and aviation and the capacity for abstract thought.
The beams, angles, bars, and plates being made from nickel steel, an outstanding material, would be very thin (as thin as .050" or so in some cases). Since the smelter is operating in a vacuum, oxidation isn't a problem and the molten metal can be rolled from a semi-liquid state into thin sheets. Maybe even extrusion would be possible.
For beams, angles and etc, equipment based on off the self cutters, shears and formers will do the job. Many only weigh a few tons and some even less than a ton and these are made of steel. Have you ever heard of "Seamless Gutters"? The forming principle is the same.
Why not lighten up on vitriolic rhetoric FRiend? We're just trying to have a friendly discussion here.
You lucky bastard. He's one of the few people I'd like to have been able to have a long conversation with. He was an amazing writer. My workstation at the office is called "tanstaafl". :-)
I was thinking it would be processed in space to build space structures. Really valuable metals found in bulk could always be sent back in some sort of re-entry vehicle.
Sigh.
Spectrum analysis of bulk minerals in an asteroid is a trivial matter. The experiments NASA is running on Mars actually use spectrum analysis, but of small, targeted samples, and typically after heating the sample, in order to detect trace quantities of specific compounds. One does not detect such a level of detail at a distance.
Your ignorance astounds. Seriously. You should consider just being quiet because you are looking quite uneducated and ill-informed. You really are embarrassing yourself.
It just depends on what products are produced. I'm sure most of the aluminum, iron, carbon, and oxygen would be used in orbit. Rare earths and precious metals like gold, platinum, and uranium are quite likely to be sent to earth.
I really enjoy the unintentional irony provided by your posts. You're a sophmore aren't you?
It was even better. My story of that encounter as previously posted on FR:
At the L-5 Society Convention in 1984 (I think that was the year) I was sitting there in my tuxedo waiting for the final banquet to begin. Everybody at our table buzzed with excitement. I asked why. “Don’t you know, this is Heinlein’s table!”
Soon, they seated R.A. Heinlein next to me. I finished off most of the wine on the table, and then turned to him. “Mister Heinlein, I got a bone to pick with you. I read Starship Troopers and was inspired to go to West Point. It wasn’t any fun at all.”
“Well”, he replied, “That’s where you screwed up. You should have gone to Annapolis”. And then he told me a parable.
“When Navy played Army, they took the cadets to Chicago for the game. The good people of Chicago made sure that all of the cadets had blind dates. One cadet got along so famously with his blind date that she wrote him a letter advising him that she was with child.
The cadet went to the Commandant and asked for Compassionate Leave. Then he went to Chicago. He met the girl’s parents and said, “I’m terribly sorry about what happened, but I am ready to resign from West Point and make your daughter an honest woman”.
The parents replied, “Son, that won’t be necessary. We’ve discussed it, and we’d much rather have a bastard in the family than a West Pointer”.
What an honor to be zinged by RAH!
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