Hey Veeky Forums, when do you think that we'll have industrialized, large-scale asteroid mining?
What kind of infrastructure would be required to set such a thing up?
Hey Veeky Forums, when do you think that we'll have industrialized, large-scale asteroid mining?
Carter Adams
Jordan Wright
after we would colonize other planets and mining on them will be insufficient to keep on with demand and. We would probably built some industrial space station and lunch cargo to them in rockets or some shit
Xavier Torres
I think by the time we get there our economy will have already been completely automated. I don't mean like 95% automated, I mean fully automated. Machines and AI do every single job: they are from doctors to musicians, from drivers to programmers. They even maintain themselves. I imagine the future of mankind as being some kind of utopia where machines do absolutely everything and humans don't have to work. It's funny because if it coincidences with the invention of AI it will be literally the return of God/Jesus, in the Bible prior to God's wrath Adam and Eve didn't have to work same will happen to humans. Asteroid mining will be just another part of this system. Our economic system based on trade, demand, surplus, loans etc doesn't work when you account for effectively infinite resources, there's just so much shit the prices of everything drop to practically zero. It also would have to take into account things like when you have immortality, you can take a loan of infinite money because you can work for infinite time to pay it back. I think the future is very bright to mankind, all it takes is not setting the world on fire right now with nukes.
Noah Young
>build small, autonomous, self-refueling mining drones
>send them to the asteroid belt
>drones disintegrate valuable asteroids and spew their materials into intrastellar space
>asteroid dust is collected by larger vessels in gigantic bags and transported to planetside refineries
highly inefficient and very slow, i know, but more plausible than Armageddon-tier asteroid drilling or trying to tow an asteroid into earth's orbit
Alexander Lewis
Not any time soon. The costs would outweigh the benefits.
I'd say it'd be a minimum of 100 years away, probably much longer.
Anthony Butler
>> highly inefficient and slow
Yeah maybe by your proposed method
Alexander Barnes
It will happen & It' very Lucrative.
>$ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $
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Rare metal mining can pay-off a lot of money
& pay-back space exploration costs.
Thomas Harris
Asteroid Mining
>$$$$ ... trillions of $ ... $$$$
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Lincoln Johnson
The costs are prohibitive in terms of resources and profit.
Quite simply, to move from earth to another asteroid is extremely wastefull compared to any resources an asteroid can provide.
Cameron Stewart
>put rockets onto asteroid
>smash into somewhere useless like the congo or the USA
>mine with regular construction vehicles
Much more efficient.
Mason Adams
>smash into somewhere useless like the congo or the USA
Like the City of ChiCongo for Example
Caleb Stewart
Not going to happen anytime soon.
- too much lag with launch/return windows, there aren't a lot of quickly available NEO targets
- the yield has to be insanely high to be profitable, because the costs are insane. Which means: 1. prospecting is a huge problem 2. delivering is a huge problem 3. one failed mission is a huge blow to the industry
the main issue is that astrophysic models are very unreliable without in situ observations, and even then. See rosetta_vs_hubble.jpg, and New Horizons findings. Geology is much more developed than this.
Jack Wilson
>Referencing a .jpg
>Referencing an image
Now you may not necessarily be wrong, but...
Easton Diaz
I thought that was extremely obvious.
Predicting the composition of any asteroid with accuracy that is sufficient for commercial use is not possible until you've sent a probe mission to scan it, and even then it's a hit or miss. There's too many unknowns and too little data available in astrogeology.
Carter Wilson
You are a fool if you think that technological innovation will continue more than a century. Things just get worse from here.
Jaxon Scott
NEVER EVER
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Joseph Hill
If automation technology continues to advance at the rate it is now and we don't fuck up and kill ourselves in the process, the future is FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM
Juan Sanchez
Why would I artificially synthesize THC when I can find it easily in the plants?
Same argument. Why would I mine an asteroid when I can mine earth?
Joshua James
Why grow cotton in America when you can easily import it from the Arab traders?
It's easier to get rare metals like Iridium from asteroids.
Ian Kelly
Do we need that much stuff? Unless we are building some sort of a megastructure I doubt it'll ever be necessary.
Wyatt Powell
when we remove the jews.
Joseph Anderson
Oh so you're one of those "the future is glorious with no problems because i have expectations of x technology without knowing much about it".
Thomas Nelson
What has to happen first.
exploration - must find viable targets that will result in a high yield. The general location is the belt between Mars and Jupiter.
cutting launch costs - progess has been made thanks to spacex. But launching rockets into Earth orbit is a big upfront cost.
Before capture is a consideration, the infrastructure must already be in place to process the ore. Furthermore where will they do this? Earth orbit poses a risk of a asteroid Collison. Is this risk acceptable? Who owns the inorbit refinery? Or is it somewhere else? Mars?
Automation is likely part of the answer but the process has to be flawless.
Which brings me to the next question. How will the refined ore be sent to Earth to be of use? Jettison pods? Space elevator? Automatic manufacturing in space?
also don't laws as they are prevent countries and corporations owning things in space?
There are obviously many other things that need to go right and tested before this is possible. One of spacex's goals is asteroid mining.
Landon Parker
> It's easier to get rare metals like Iridium from asteroids.
[citation needed]
Jaxson Smith
>Why would I mine an asteroid when I can mine earth?
China controls REE to a large extent and does not hesitate to use this leverage in extortion on the international market.
Get hold of one metal rich asteroid and tank the market in one big go.
Hunter Fisher
Just smash the asteroid into China.
It will genocide Chinks, killing much more Gooks than when We nuked Japan twice.
Then after most Chinks died just invade, colonize & mine it.
$$ then profit $$
Robert Taylor
>It will genocide
If you plan to wipe out an entire country in one boom the rest of the world will enjoy a nuclear winter for decades to come. Cheap palladium would be the least of the concerns.
Not sure how much but yes, we need a lot. Generators in wind turbines, motors in cars and drones, advanced batteries in mobile and stationary systems will require huge amounts. That is why people are concerned by the Chinese virtual monopoly.
Nicholas Young
it could be profitable now if we do iridium.
move iridium asteroids to the same earth orbit as the ISS. set up some sort of robot facility to harvest the ore. pack it into Dragon capsules launched by Falcon 9s.