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School of Mines Wants to Launch the First Space Mining Program
- rpowers 9y agoI think if anyone were to do this, it should be them. Just for their name.
- monocasa 9y agoHaha, they actually do have decent aerospace and mining engineering programs. Their CS program leaves a little to be desired though.
- hexane360 9y agoOne of their two intro programming classes uses C++.
- monocasa 9y agoCan you elaborate? I feel like depending on who you asked, that could be a point for or a point against.
- hexane360 9y agoThe class was CSCI261. It used this curriculum: http://www.zybooks.com/catalog/programming-in-c-plus-plus/ http://www.zybooks.com/catalog/programming-in-c-plus-plus/ It was mainly an elective for non-CS majors, so there was a lot of people with no experience and no future in programming. I think it spent way too much time on syntax and minutiae to be a really good introduction. It spent a really brief time talking about compiled instructions, stacks, etc. but not really enough to justify C++, imo. It shoved pointers into a couple days at the end of the semester. A lot of final questions were things like std::string member functions or construct syntax (for, switch).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Xorlev 9y agoThe real intro course is taught in Python (CS101), all bulletins after 2011 require CS101. But you're correct, CS201 and 202 (numbers might be wrong, it's a long time...) were both C++ courses. Intro to Programming and Data Structures. IMO, C++ was appropriate for Data Structures, but perhaps not CS201. Later, all instruction is more or less in Java, MIPS assembler, or Python. And a little Scheme/Racket.
- Spartan-S63 9y agoThey actually don't have an aerospace program. You're right about their mining engineering program. CS has been getting better over the last several years. It's definitely grown. I do agree it leaves something to be desired, but to be fair, plenty of graduates go on to work jobs at prestigious employers because they went for it on their own and picked up a lot along the way. They didn't just learn what was taught in school. Source: I went there and https://inside.mines.edu/Degrees-Offered https://inside.mines.edu/Degrees-Offered
- oh_sigh 9y agoA lot of Googlers in Boulder went to school of mines so it can't be that bad.
- Xorlev 9y agoGoogler from Mines. There were some fantastic courses and professors, but it definitely suffered from being such a small department at the time I was there. I recently visited to pitch Field Session projects (it's like a capstone project done between junior and senior year over the summer), and was blown away by how large it's become. They're also much better funded now it seems. :)
- sanderjd 9y agoWhy do you say that?
- Xorlev 9y agoAerospace? You must be thinking of CU.
- Sevii 9y agoMy EPICS 2 project was on space mining. Mines already had a good amount of space classes, will have to visit in 2018.
- donutmonger 9y agoMine too! Small world haha.
- slezakattack 9y agoI went to South Dakota School of Mines and was sad to learn this wasn't my school doing this..
- protomyth 9y agoI could see SD doing it, but I expected it was Colorado because they always struck me as having a tinge of the “hold my beer” attitude. They ran a class in high speed filming of explosions not too long ago. I get the feeling that the faculty of that place has some stories to tell.
- arglebarnacle 9y agoThe courses are being offered online--it's a shame grad classes are too expensive to just take for fun! Looks like $6,800 or so to take one of the two they're offering next semester, or about $12,700 for both. The Masters degree would end up costing you about $58.7k plus $1,000/semester in fees. It's a hard sell for something that still looks relatively far in the future, but I suppose if space mining is truly is your dream career, it's great that this program exists.
- trentmb 9y agoIt seems that most distance/online masters programs are money mills- there's an expectation that ones employer will pick up the tab.
- Retric 9y agoExcluding organic materials like oil/coal/etc the global economy does not spend a lot of resources on mining. Further, we have vast excess supply's of most of what we do mine making space based mining problematic. Sure, it sounds good but we need to be in space for some other reasons before mining becomes practical.
- arglebarnacle 9y agoWe're great at mining but bad at putting things in space. The main virtue of mining things in space is that the materials are already in space, sparing the vast expense of launching them up there. I guess I partially agree that having other things we want to do in space is prerequisite, but imagine the kinds of things we could do and build if we had unlimited raw materials already in orbit, or on the moon. Remember, mining water is a big part of this, not just what we tend to imagine with earth mining.
- kerryfalk 9y agoWe are not great at mining. Fun fact: the manufacturing industry has been able to obtain machine utilization at nearly 100%. Mining is in the 40% range.
- jordanb 9y agoWhat's the utilization in the construction industry? I think that'd be a more fair analog for mining.
- nkoren 9y agoOh, it's much, much, much worse than mining. Construction is famously the least-improved, in productivity terms, of all industries: https://www.economist.com/news/business/21726714-american-builders-productivity-has-plunged-half-late-1960s-efficiency-eludes https://www.economist.com/news/business/21726714-american-bu...
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- brettatoms 9y agoI wish this was the School of Mimes wanting to launch the first Space Miming Program.
- julien_c 9y agoI clicked on this link hoping it was the French School of Mines ("Ecole des Mines").
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- minikites 9y ago>[T]he class covered the Outer Space Treaty, a creation of the United Nations that governs outer-space actions and (in some people's interpretations) makes the legality of space mining dubious. If this topic interests you, there's a whole category at your local library for Space Law (it's at the end, KZD1002-6715): https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_k.pdf https://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/classification/lcco/lcco_...
- msandford 9y agoThere are no governments in space yet so as long as you don't bring the goods back to earth nobody can really say anything.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoAs long as you're personally living on Earth, various governments can, and will, say a lot. Even if you migrate to space permanently, it'll only be a matter of whether it's worth it to launch something after you.
- minikites 9y agoThere are no governments in the open ocean but maritime law still exists.
- m-watson 9y agoThe Outer Space Treaty may say that but back in 2015 the United States said it will allow US corporations to keep and sell what they mine in space. So it will be interesting to see how it actually plays out. [0] https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2262 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2262 [1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezp4yk/the-us-says-asteroid-mining-is-legal-for-americans-what-about-everyone-else https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezp4yk/the-us-say... [2] https://www.planetaryresources.com/2015/11/president-obama-signs-bill-recognizing-asteroid-resource-property-rights-into-law/ https://www.planetaryresources.com/2015/11/president-obama-s...
- brandonmenc 9y agoTwenty years ago a high school buddy of mine went to Mines, and he came back wearing a t-shirt showing (if memory serves) the earth with big drills all over it and the rest of the planets in the background and the caption read: "Earth first - we'll get to the other ones later"
- novalis78 9y agoAt this point a reference to the groundbreaking and utterly fascinating "Mining the Sky" book by John S. Lewis is in order which should be on everyone's "must read" list.