8 ms·

Space resource usage could first happen with asteroids, not on the Moon or Mars. Propellants mined from asteroids can be transferred anywhere with very low delt

Space resource usage could first happen with asteroids, not on the Moon or Mars. Propellants mined from asteroids can be transferred anywhere with very low delta V and low thrust. It just takes time.

senectus1 8y ago
Space mining to build more things in space has to be the next big focus. There is very little coherent argument for bringing space resources back down to earth.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  how do you build things in space? Do you plan to put factories in orbit? That sounds implausible.
  - comboy 8y ago
    That's how Bezos sees it, I'd say he has done some homework. Regardless, we need resources to build these factories first.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    What in particular makes “factories in orbit” seem implausible? We’ve already got/had a limited one of those in the form of the 3D printer on the space station. Sure, fully automated mining, refining, QA, etc. isn’t ready yet, but it’s not implausible, and those things are all still increasingly automated even down here on Earth.
    - orojackson 8y ago
      That's right. Iteration is key. Start small here on Earth, then build a somewhat crude factory in space. Solve any unexpected challenges that may arise, rinse, and repeat. Eventually you'll have factory-producing factories.
  - pault 8y ago
    No, you build factories in orbit.
  - Balgair 8y ago
    Likely, the early stages of the solar economy will resemble the Atlantic Slave Trade of the 16-19th centuries[0]. In the horrific middle passage, slaves were'sourced' from Africa and sent to the Caribbean for work on the plantations. Then the cash crops of cotton, sugar, tobacco, etc were sent to the manufacturing centers of North America/Europe. These manufacturing centers then sent finished goods like guns and ammo back to the colonies. Sir John Hawkins, a pioneer of British slaving, was the first to run that route, making a profit at every stop[1]. Similarly, we can expect that the early solar economy will provide opportunities for the same, though there is a lot of still undiscovered issues at hand. Here, Mars/Moon will make the food and other 'simple' goods that are then sent to the Asteroid Belt. This is because the delta-V to get foodstuffs and goods off Mars/Moon is a lot less than on Earth and, depending on more surveying, there seems to be a fair bit of water on Mars that you can use. It seems thus far that corn-pone and beef-steaks do not grow well in 0G, though that remains to be seen. These simple goods and food-stuffs will then be consumed by the Asteroid Belt in the use of mining for rare-earth elements and in production of vehicles and fuel for use in the outer solar system. The mined elements and materials will then be sent back to Earth for use in highly complex machines and other things. Highly complicated machines built by people that do not want to raise their kids in the Belt or on Mars/Moon will then be sent to Mars/Moon for use in production of simpler goods. A company with skills in (robotic?) space shipping and landing could make a profit at every gravity well. This triangular trade is not likely to last very long as greenhouses are set-up (if possible) in the belt, manufacturing and leisure are made easier on Mars/Moon, and as techniques and science are improved on Earth. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkins_(naval_commander) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkins_(naval_commander)
  - narag 8y ago
    Most likely in the Moon first. It would be relatively easy (compared to alternatives) to send small crews for six months shifts. The facilities would be underground to avoid radiation and micrometeorites hits. For really far bases you would need spin gravity in a hollow asteroid for the staff.
adrianN 8y ago
I would be really neat if we could get a demo mission that converts some local resource on an asteroid to fuel and refuels an orbiter. Perhaps electrolyse some ice to Hydrogen and Oxygen.
zaarn 8y ago
The moon would be acceptable and Mars is simply the next big thing. Esp. the moon because you can use a cannon to launch spacecraft so you don't need to use fuel on it (if you'd do it with a magnetic cannon you could do it entirely with solar arrays).
- mirekrusin 8y ago
  Escape velocity is more than 2km/s, roughly the speed of bullet, that's a bit too much to "launch spacecraft" or am I missing something? ps. it's actually interesting concept, you could have something similar to medieval catapult on the Moon and throw rocks on Earth which would be equivalent to nuclear explosions, no?
  - steve_musk 8y ago
    No/little air resistance and plenty of space mean that you could accelerate the spacecraft over a longer period of time
  - mirimir 8y ago
    See Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
    - RegBarclay 8y ago
      RIP NORAD
  - wongarsu 8y ago
    Accelerating from 0 to 2km/s at 3g (suitable for humans) takes about 60 seconds, and a barrel that's about 70km long (40 miles). That's no easy feat, but certainly achievable. You can get around the barrel length by building a circular barrel (with it's own set of problems). Just launching cargo is a lot easier, we already know how to accelerate things to the speed of a bullet in a variety of ways. Scaling up a railgun to handle heavier bullets is comparatively easy.
    - 8y ago
the_spacebyte 8y ago
How so? Can't you do it from the Moon with low delta v as well? (honest question) And I think the Moon's proximity and "static" position relative to the Earth is another great advantage.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Escaping the moon’s gravity well requires a decent amount of effort.
  - Tepix 8y ago
    1.73km/s to get into a low orbit. Another 0.68km/s to escape.
    - narag 8y ago
      The question is not only escape velocity, if you want to fly away from the Moon, you still need to escape Earth and the Sun. The other part of the problem on Earth is atmosphere with its drag and the fact that some kind of propulsion, like ionic, is impossible. Edit: hmmm... it seems that escaping Earth and the Sun would be easier from the Moon, since the Moon trajectory components include already the 9 km/s and 30 km/s of Moon and Earth's orbits. Once in Moon's orbit, with the right angle and a little push, you should be able to escape Sun.
  - metalliqaz 8y ago
    With no atmosphere you could use ground-based accelerators
sisu2019 8y ago
It sounds cool sure, but what resources do we even want from asteroids? We have plenty rocks and ice on earth and even something like iron ore is just 0,08$ per kilo. Getting that kilo to LEO is 2200$ and getting cheaper every year. We have all the resources and infrastructure we need right here on earth while absolutely no one has any idea how to manufacture things in space.
- codeulike 8y ago
  Resources that arent stuck at the bottom of a gravity well is the attraction. Whether anyone can make it work is what we're trying to find out.
- wongarsu 8y ago
  > absolutely no one has any idea how to manufacture things in space. That's a bit of an overstatement. We have a 3d printer on the ISS and me make great strides in producing fiber optics in space that are superior to what we can do on earth at similar price points [1]. 1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2421.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experime...
- whiskers08xmt 8y ago
  A lot of heavy rare earth metals can only be found in very limited concentrations in the earth's crust, with the largest concentrations all being from asteroid impacts. As a consequence, these metals are incredibly valuable. A single high-concentration asteroid, could provide more of these metals than has been mined in the history of the earth, in high concentrations, and may be able to make a host of applications economically viable, which previously weren't.
  - sisu2019 8y ago
    The rare earth scarcity scare is already receding: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metals-discovery-japan-china-monopoly https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metal... Yeah, heavy REMs are still expensive but there is really no reason to believe that they'll stay that way. New sites will be found, new extraction techniques will be tried and new processes developed and then the problem will go away. Sure, it could happen in space but it's so much easier to do here on earth that it might never be worth it to go to space for it.
lmm 8y ago
To my mind Phobos is the obvious starting point: all the advantages of an asteroid, but as close as Mars.
- stetrain 8y ago
  That gets rid of some of the delta-v advantage though since it's in Mars' gravity well. It could make sense if you can design a spacecraft that can use Mars' atmosphere to slow down (aerocapture) without going all the way to a landing. Being able to use the atmosphere to slow down is why in some ways it's easier to land a heavy payload (like Curiosity) on Mars than on the Moon.
- magduf 8y ago
  Mars isn't close; it takes months to get there. There's lots of asteroids that cross Earth's orbit. Also, Phobos is in Mars's gravity well.
pault 8y ago
One of the plot points in Neal Stephenson's Seveneves [minor spoiler alert] is an Elon Musk-type character that melts a nuclear reactor into an ice comet to make a thruster that uses the comet as fuel. I always thought that was really neat.
- awaaz 8y ago
  Don't forget Asimov's The Martian Way. First published in November 1952 (!!!), the story is about how Earth refuses to export its water to Martian colonies who are using them as reaction mass on their spaceships. The Martians, in response, fly to Saturn's ice rings and ship a huge chunk back by using it itself for reaction mass. Asimov truly was legendary.
  - zepearl 8y ago
    I loved his "Robots"-trilogy (actually I think that there was a 4th book but when I the first 3 again recently I haven't been able to find the 4th one as ebook on Amazon & Kobo :( ) => they definitely motivated me to learn & program my first backpropagation network :)
- zepearl 8y ago
  Kind of similar characters & practical approaches used many times in John Ringo's "Looking Glass" and "Troy rising" sci-fi series: story & characters are definitely "american-style" (very direct & aggressive), but in these cases I ended up liking quite a lot this approach (basically it fits the setup of the stories because of the fight for survival of the species). --- --- List of books (Spoiler alert - don't read the plots): Looking glass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Space_Bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Space_Bubble Troy rising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Rising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Rising

Space resource usage could first happen with asteroids, not on the Moon or Mars. Propellants mined from asteroids can be transferred anywhere with very low delta V and low thrust. It just takes time.

senectus1 8y ago

Space mining to build more things in space has to be the next big focus. There is very little coherent argument for bringing space resources back down to earth.

ekianjo 8y ago
how do you build things in space? Do you plan to put factories in orbit? That sounds implausible.
- comboy 8y ago
  That's how Bezos sees it, I'd say he has done some homework. Regardless, we need resources to build these factories first.
- ben_w 8y ago
  What in particular makes “factories in orbit” seem implausible? We’ve already got/had a limited one of those in the form of the 3D printer on the space station. Sure, fully automated mining, refining, QA, etc. isn’t ready yet, but it’s not implausible, and those things are all still increasingly automated even down here on Earth.
  - orojackson 8y ago
    That's right. Iteration is key. Start small here on Earth, then build a somewhat crude factory in space. Solve any unexpected challenges that may arise, rinse, and repeat. Eventually you'll have factory-producing factories.
- pault 8y ago
  No, you build factories in orbit.
- Balgair 8y ago
  Likely, the early stages of the solar economy will resemble the Atlantic Slave Trade of the 16-19th centuries[0]. In the horrific middle passage, slaves were'sourced' from Africa and sent to the Caribbean for work on the plantations. Then the cash crops of cotton, sugar, tobacco, etc were sent to the manufacturing centers of North America/Europe. These manufacturing centers then sent finished goods like guns and ammo back to the colonies. Sir John Hawkins, a pioneer of British slaving, was the first to run that route, making a profit at every stop[1]. Similarly, we can expect that the early solar economy will provide opportunities for the same, though there is a lot of still undiscovered issues at hand. Here, Mars/Moon will make the food and other 'simple' goods that are then sent to the Asteroid Belt. This is because the delta-V to get foodstuffs and goods off Mars/Moon is a lot less than on Earth and, depending on more surveying, there seems to be a fair bit of water on Mars that you can use. It seems thus far that corn-pone and beef-steaks do not grow well in 0G, though that remains to be seen. These simple goods and food-stuffs will then be consumed by the Asteroid Belt in the use of mining for rare-earth elements and in production of vehicles and fuel for use in the outer solar system. The mined elements and materials will then be sent back to Earth for use in highly complex machines and other things. Highly complicated machines built by people that do not want to raise their kids in the Belt or on Mars/Moon will then be sent to Mars/Moon for use in production of simpler goods. A company with skills in (robotic?) space shipping and landing could make a profit at every gravity well. This triangular trade is not likely to last very long as greenhouses are set-up (if possible) in the belt, manufacturing and leisure are made easier on Mars/Moon, and as techniques and science are improved on Earth. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_trade [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkins_(naval_commander) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hawkins_(naval_commander)
- narag 8y ago
  Most likely in the Moon first. It would be relatively easy (compared to alternatives) to send small crews for six months shifts. The facilities would be underground to avoid radiation and micrometeorites hits. For really far bases you would need spin gravity in a hollow asteroid for the staff.

adrianN 8y ago

I would be really neat if we could get a demo mission that converts some local resource on an asteroid to fuel and refuels an orbiter. Perhaps electrolyse some ice to Hydrogen and Oxygen.

zaarn 8y ago

The moon would be acceptable and Mars is simply the next big thing. Esp. the moon because you can use a cannon to launch spacecraft so you don't need to use fuel on it (if you'd do it with a magnetic cannon you could do it entirely with solar arrays).

mirekrusin 8y ago
Escape velocity is more than 2km/s, roughly the speed of bullet, that's a bit too much to "launch spacecraft" or am I missing something? ps. it's actually interesting concept, you could have something similar to medieval catapult on the Moon and throw rocks on Earth which would be equivalent to nuclear explosions, no?
- steve_musk 8y ago
  No/little air resistance and plenty of space mean that you could accelerate the spacecraft over a longer period of time
- mirimir 8y ago
  See Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
  - RegBarclay 8y ago
    RIP NORAD
- wongarsu 8y ago
  Accelerating from 0 to 2km/s at 3g (suitable for humans) takes about 60 seconds, and a barrel that's about 70km long (40 miles). That's no easy feat, but certainly achievable. You can get around the barrel length by building a circular barrel (with it's own set of problems). Just launching cargo is a lot easier, we already know how to accelerate things to the speed of a bullet in a variety of ways. Scaling up a railgun to handle heavier bullets is comparatively easy.
  - 8y ago

the_spacebyte 8y ago

How so? Can't you do it from the Moon with low delta v as well? (honest question) And I think the Moon's proximity and "static" position relative to the Earth is another great advantage.

saagarjha 8y ago
Escaping the moon’s gravity well requires a decent amount of effort.
- Tepix 8y ago
  1.73km/s to get into a low orbit. Another 0.68km/s to escape.
  - narag 8y ago
    The question is not only escape velocity, if you want to fly away from the Moon, you still need to escape Earth and the Sun. The other part of the problem on Earth is atmosphere with its drag and the fact that some kind of propulsion, like ionic, is impossible. Edit: hmmm... it seems that escaping Earth and the Sun would be easier from the Moon, since the Moon trajectory components include already the 9 km/s and 30 km/s of Moon and Earth's orbits. Once in Moon's orbit, with the right angle and a little push, you should be able to escape Sun.
- metalliqaz 8y ago
  With no atmosphere you could use ground-based accelerators

sisu2019 8y ago

It sounds cool sure, but what resources do we even want from asteroids? We have plenty rocks and ice on earth and even something like iron ore is just 0,08$ per kilo. Getting that kilo to LEO is 2200$ and getting cheaper every year. We have all the resources and infrastructure we need right here on earth while absolutely no one has any idea how to manufacture things in space.

codeulike 8y ago
Resources that arent stuck at the bottom of a gravity well is the attraction. Whether anyone can make it work is what we're trying to find out.
wongarsu 8y ago
> absolutely no one has any idea how to manufacture things in space. That's a bit of an overstatement. We have a 3d printer on the ISS and me make great strides in producing fiber optics in space that are superior to what we can do on earth at similar price points [1]. 1: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/2421.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experime...
whiskers08xmt 8y ago
A lot of heavy rare earth metals can only be found in very limited concentrations in the earth's crust, with the largest concentrations all being from asteroid impacts. As a consequence, these metals are incredibly valuable. A single high-concentration asteroid, could provide more of these metals than has been mined in the history of the earth, in high concentrations, and may be able to make a host of applications economically viable, which previously weren't.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  The rare earth scarcity scare is already receding: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metals-discovery-japan-china-monopoly https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metal... Yeah, heavy REMs are still expensive but there is really no reason to believe that they'll stay that way. New sites will be found, new extraction techniques will be tried and new processes developed and then the problem will go away. Sure, it could happen in space but it's so much easier to do here on earth that it might never be worth it to go to space for it.

lmm 8y ago

To my mind Phobos is the obvious starting point: all the advantages of an asteroid, but as close as Mars.

stetrain 8y ago
That gets rid of some of the delta-v advantage though since it's in Mars' gravity well. It could make sense if you can design a spacecraft that can use Mars' atmosphere to slow down (aerocapture) without going all the way to a landing. Being able to use the atmosphere to slow down is why in some ways it's easier to land a heavy payload (like Curiosity) on Mars than on the Moon.
magduf 8y ago
Mars isn't close; it takes months to get there. There's lots of asteroids that cross Earth's orbit. Also, Phobos is in Mars's gravity well.

pault 8y ago

One of the plot points in Neal Stephenson's Seveneves [minor spoiler alert] is an Elon Musk-type character that melts a nuclear reactor into an ice comet to make a thruster that uses the comet as fuel. I always thought that was really neat.

awaaz 8y ago
Don't forget Asimov's The Martian Way. First published in November 1952 (!!!), the story is about how Earth refuses to export its water to Martian colonies who are using them as reaction mass on their spaceships. The Martians, in response, fly to Saturn's ice rings and ship a huge chunk back by using it itself for reaction mass. Asimov truly was legendary.
- zepearl 8y ago
  I loved his "Robots"-trilogy (actually I think that there was a 4th book but when I the first 3 again recently I haven't been able to find the 4th one as ebook on Amazon & Kobo :( ) => they definitely motivated me to learn & program my first backpropagation network :)
zepearl 8y ago
Kind of similar characters & practical approaches used many times in John Ringo's "Looking Glass" and "Troy rising" sci-fi series: story & characters are definitely "american-style" (very direct & aggressive), but in these cases I ended up liking quite a lot this approach (basically it fits the setup of the stories because of the fight for survival of the species). --- --- List of books (Spoiler alert - don't read the plots): Looking glass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Space_Bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_of_the_Space_Bubble Troy rising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Rising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Rising