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Each time I'm hearing about minerals (like in asteroid mining) I'm wondering how do you deal with atmosphere re-entry ? Meteorites made of metal are melting so

by tangue 10y ago

Each time I'm hearing about minerals (like in asteroid mining) I'm wondering how do you deal with atmosphere re-entry ? Meteorites made of metal are melting so what's the plan here ? And which country will be ok to receive a ton of unguided metal on its territory ?

gambiting 10y ago
There's literally 0 chance that mining anything on Mars and bringing it back to Earth would be profitable. Obviously mining is still going to be important to build things on Mars, but sending any metals over, no matter how rare, is just crazy.
- singuerinc 10y ago
  You are thinking what we can do right now. Probably the same thought had the Europeans 500 years ago.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    The energy cost of transporting mass over distance isn't going to change no matter what technology we invent.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- perilunar 10y ago
  Maybe not Mars, but asteroids definitely. Platinum is $33k per kg. Bringing back a tonne would net you $33 million.
  - CoryG89 10y ago
    I think the point is that while it may be worth $33 million, it would take much, much more than that to get it safely back to Earth. Also, the price of platinum is currently driven by the knowledge that it's naturally scarce and the likelihood of a large amount of "new" platinum coming on the market is low. If this ever changes (we somehow figure out how to profitably bring back a tonne of platinum), then the price would likely crash, as the amount out there in space is essentially infinite.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    If you bring back a tonne it would make the value plummet. And $33 million is still more than your average space mission, and this wouldn't be an average space mission.
andyjohnson0 10y ago
Coat the metal in an ablative shield made of Martian rock (handwaving over how this is done), fire it to earth using a mass-driver, guide it in with an on-board chemical rocket engine, and drop it into the Pacific for recovery (more handwaving). Of course, this also has other uses [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment
tsaprailis 10y ago
I think the whole idea of space/asteroid mining is to use them eventually in space based manufacturing. The biggest cost of space exploration is actually raising a spaceship into outer space. If you just build it up there it's very fuel efficient to transport between space and to other stations/planets.
- tangue 10y ago
  Ok in an Ender's game future, but asteroid startups are talking about ten years...

by tangue 10y ago

gambiting 10y ago

There's literally 0 chance that mining anything on Mars and bringing it back to Earth would be profitable. Obviously mining is still going to be important to build things on Mars, but sending any metals over, no matter how rare, is just crazy.

singuerinc 10y ago
You are thinking what we can do right now. Probably the same thought had the Europeans 500 years ago.
- gambiting 10y ago
  The energy cost of transporting mass over distance isn't going to change no matter what technology we invent.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
perilunar 10y ago
Maybe not Mars, but asteroids definitely. Platinum is $33k per kg. Bringing back a tonne would net you $33 million.
- CoryG89 10y ago
  I think the point is that while it may be worth $33 million, it would take much, much more than that to get it safely back to Earth. Also, the price of platinum is currently driven by the knowledge that it's naturally scarce and the likelihood of a large amount of "new" platinum coming on the market is low. If this ever changes (we somehow figure out how to profitably bring back a tonne of platinum), then the price would likely crash, as the amount out there in space is essentially infinite.
- gambiting 10y ago
  If you bring back a tonne it would make the value plummet. And $33 million is still more than your average space mission, and this wouldn't be an average space mission.

andyjohnson0 10y ago

Coat the metal in an ablative shield made of Martian rock (handwaving over how this is done), fire it to earth using a mass-driver, guide it in with an on-board chemical rocket engine, and drop it into the Pacific for recovery (more handwaving). Of course, this also has other uses [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

tsaprailis 10y ago

I think the whole idea of space/asteroid mining is to use them eventually in space based manufacturing. The biggest cost of space exploration is actually raising a spaceship into outer space. If you just build it up there it's very fuel efficient to transport between space and to other stations/planets.

tangue 10y ago
Ok in an Ender's game future, but asteroid startups are talking about ten years...