Difference between revisions of "Talk:Resources in space"

Revision as of 00:40, 26 April 2012

This 'discussion page' is currently used to hold notes for the development of this website (however it can still be used for discussion)

First, we need to prospect them with remote sensors to find out what they're made of

There are an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 near-earth asteroids. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/ tracks the ones that have been discovered

Asteroids have no atmosphere or gravitational pull, making landing and takeoff less energy-expensive than the Moon or Mars.

We need two technologies:

Two things to mine:

Metals: platinum-group metals, nickel, iron, rare-earth elements like indium
Water i.e. hydrogen + water, i.e. rocket fuel. Water in space is important, but only if we don't solve the cheap launch problem

Two ways to mine them:

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Situ_Resource_Utilization
 *http://www.esm.vt.edu/~sdross/papers/ross-asteroid-mining-2001.pdf
+===Notes and thoughts on asteroid mining===
+First, we need to prospect them with remote sensors to find out what they're made of
+There are an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 near-earth asteroids. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/ tracks the ones that have been discovered
+Asteroids have no atmosphere or gravitational pull, making landing and takeoff less energy-expensive than the Moon or Mars.
+We need two technologies:
+*Better, cheaper space launch
+*Better, cheaper robots
+Two things to mine:
+*Metals: platinum-group metals, nickel, iron, rare-earth elements like indium
+*Water i.e. hydrogen + water, i.e. rocket fuel. Water in space is important, but only if we don't solve the cheap launch problem
+Two ways to mine them:
+*Send robots to intercept and harvest them
+*Nudge them into earth orbit and mine them there.