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Robotic mining company.
by WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
Robotic mining company.
- noir_lord 8y agoBeen a trope in scifi for a long time, I remember reading about automated mining systems in a scifi novel back in the 80's. It refined pure metals and then blew gas through them (think of a Carbury's wispa), these where then dropped into the pacific and floated until a ship retrieved them. The idea seemed neat though the line from "We are going to drop a 1000 tonnes of metal into the pacific and that of we are going to drop a 1000 tonnes of metal onto your house" seemed a thin one. It's hard to defend from the bottom of a gravity well against someone at the top of one.
- astrodust 8y agoDropping metal back on Earth presumes that we'd actually care about Earth at that point. There might be so many resources up there that nobody comes back.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoThis. I have the idea that folks on the ground will play games with money, and imagine themselves wealthy while developing asteroid resources. But it'll all be for the benefit of space-based industry, which will server space-based populations. Ultimately Earth will realize they have a big pile of imaginary points and no more metal.
- RandallBrown 8y agohttps://www.planetaryresources.com https://www.planetaryresources.com
- astrodust 8y agoUnless they're autonomous, the lag would be brutal.