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I guess what should really be considered is, why would you return the raw ore to earth? The dawn of space mining will trigger the dawn of space refining and man
by lsaferite 11y ago
I guess what should really be considered is, why would you return the raw ore to earth? The dawn of space mining will trigger the dawn of space refining and manufacturing I think.
- creshal 11y agoYou'd still have to return the final products. And with something like platinum, which is used in tiny traces, stuffing half a ton in bars into a Soyuz and sending it back would probably be more profitable than, say, building whole exhaust catalysts in space and returning those.
- lsaferite 11y agoWell, I did say 'refining' in addition to manufacturing. In some cases refined raw material makes sense to deorbit. But if you consider the costs of lifting objects to orbit, the ability to manufacture large mass components in orbit would be a huge win. Sure, the initial costs of getting to the point where you can manufacture in orbit are large. But, if space mining becomes profitable they'll need more and more gear to do this. If they have to lift all that gear off earth then it is prohibitive. Hence space manufacturing is a self-help path for mining.
- wlesieutre 11y agoI suspect lsaferite has space uses in mind for the resources. If you wanted to build a large moon base, or maybe a giant telescope dish on the moon, not having to lift your materials out of Earth's gravity is a huge bonus.
- bobcostas55 11y agoAFAIK getting rid of heat in space is still an enormous problem, making refining/manufacturing virtually impossible.