Space Ping! If you want on or off this list please Freepmail me.
Posted on 11/16/2005 2:55:16 PM PST by tricky_k_1972
Not to mention Kofi Annan that would have something to say about mining the moon or Mars..............
BTW if the steel is manufactured in orbit it's crystalline structure can be maintained in such a fashion that a steel beam 1 foot wide might only be one half foot wide. Bridge girders in space for earth applications.
If we prepare to contact and divert the 2029 asteroid into an earth centric orbit we've got our next Mesabi Range!
As it has been explained to me, by several more knowledgeable on the topic of Space law than I am, mined products are the property of those whom mine them, hence when we brought back the moon rocks they were ours.
"You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who's in ruttin' command here."
If you didn't rent or buy the series on DVD, then you might not have seen enough episodes to recognize the next quote: "Jayne, my days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle." That was one of my favorite quotes by Mal.
Can this possibly be right? Concerning platinum, if the amount on the asteroid is significant, I could see that this would be right. But iron? We haven't mined enough iron in the history of the world to make one thirtieth of a ball one mile in diameter? I think there is that much steel on Manhattan alone.
I predict you'll never, ever, see any asteroid mined.
Economics are simply not there. We've never really truly run out of a mineral on earth (I think the one you could realistically make a case for is Silver in the future) and it's ALWAYS going to be cheaper to simply dig deeper or go through the tailings again and recover what you can on earth, for a given mineral, than to mine an asteroid.
Actually, I'm glad that I never watched the series when it was on the air. If I had, I would have been immensely pissed off when they canceled after only four or five episodes. The idiots at Fox don't recognize quality programming. They cancelled "Tru Calling" which was probably the second-best series they had broadcast (after Firefly) barely into the second season. Most likely they will kill off the new series "Bones" before it gets a chance to get established too.
That's fine. Asteroid mining is feasible in economic terms right now. But not the way they propose in the article. None of the technical solutions I have seen make any business sense at all.
Kofi Annan has nothing to say about this, nor has his non-gov organization, the UN. The 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty governs.
Excellent read!
Man, that strip mining ruins the nearby property values.
The actual stopper is legal. Economically, it is feasible.
If you mine, don't you also change the mass of the asteroid, and subsequently its orbit? Also, as mentioned, even with high-value metals, the cost of returning them for use on earth is break-even at best (and thus an awful lot of effort to go through). Using the metals in orbital manufacturing (and returning the finished products down the gravity well) is a little better, and use for extraterrestrial construction or actual use in space is slightly into the plus column due to the cost of lofting such materials into orbit.
I very, very, very, very seriously doubt that.
I'll start a company to start extracting stuff from really low grade ore, or previous mining operations, or just go REALLY REALLY deep on earth, and I'll do it cheaper than doing it from an Asteroid every single time.
America has lost its technological edge. Don't they teach physics anymore?
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