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> I just don't see any commercial reason to launch people into space Asteroid mining comes to mind. And sure, we can do that with robots, but it's incredibly

> I just don't see any commercial reason to launch people into space Asteroid mining comes to mind. And sure, we can do that with robots, but it's incredibly convenient to have actual sapient personnel in close proximity to coordinate things, perform repairs, etc. And Ceres is a reasonable choice for such a colony (more so than Mars, IMO, though I know plenty of people might disagree), given the low escape velocity and abundance of water (as ice, but you can always melt ice) making it great for both sustaining human habitation and for refueling return trips. In general, the more people we can get into space permanently, the greater the chances of humanity's survival long-term, since we would no longer be tied to one planet (and importantly: if we can maintain permanent settlements in space, then we could likely survive all but the most extreme calamities on Earth). I feel like that alone more than justifies any and all efforts to get Earth-to-orbit infrastructure as cheap and robust and predictable as possible; the scientific and commercial objectives are critical but secondary.

elcritch 6y ago
There’s a story by sci-fi writer Daniel Suarez about that very idea of human mining an asteroid [1]. It’s actually a well thought out thought experiment. I suspect it’d almost require shenanigans like described in the book as modern society is so cautious as to be bordering on paranoid. Space won’t get colonized without significant risk for significant rewards. 1: https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/24/sci-fi-delta-v-daniel-suarez-asteroid-mining-space/ https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/24/sci-fi-delta-v-daniel...
giantrobot 6y ago
Asteroid mining is pointless for Earth-based industry. There's more of everything on Earth and it's orders of magnitude closer to processing and manufacturing infrastructure. The ISS in Earth orbit cost billions of dollars and was only possible because the Space Shuttle was an awesome utility vehicle that could act as an orbital work platform. Putting even trivial ore processing and refining infrastructure in a place where it could process mined ore from asteroids would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Every gram of refined asteroid ore would amortize that bootstrapping cost. It could never pay for itself. Even if you want to use asteroid metals for space based manufacturing...that infrastructure is more hundreds of billions of dollars to bootstrap. Then there's the pesky problem of life support, water, and food for everyone working in space to build all that shit. Every kilogram coming from Earth, even in the best priced SpaceX rocket, costs hundreds of dollars. That's all besides the fact the technology to actually mine an asteroid doesn't exist and would need to be developed at great cost. Even if you assume government space agencies will foot the bill for these expenses, that's still decades of their human spaceflight budget focused on nothing but bootstrapping infrastructure. That would preclude the establishment of off-Earth bases or colonies unless said space agency budgets were significantly increased. It ends up coming down to money because shit isn't free and in space humans need to take all of their air, food, water, and shelter with them everywhere they go. You wouldn't cross the Sahara desert to go to some oasis to fill up a gallon bucket of water and take it home. Especially when the Nile is right there. If you try to build a new golden civilization around that oasis you'll spend tons of money bootstrapping doing so and then...you're in the middle of the desert. Conducting trade or doing anything eats into your scarce resources making the entire venture extremely expensive and inefficient. You've also got a significantly higher risk of catastrophe wiping out your oasis city since it is isolated, small, and resource starved.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > There's more of everything on Earth No there ain't. A single asteroid could have billions if not trillions of dollars' worth of precious metals (gold, silver, platinum) and would flood the respective markets of those precious metals (making them less "precious" and more commodities, which would be a massive boon for all sorts of industries). Even more common metals like iron and nickel are abundant enough to represent multiple years of Earth's production per asteroid. Thus: > that infrastructure [for space-based manufacturing] is more hundreds of billions of dollars to bootstrap. That will readily pay for itself. > Then there's the pesky problem of life support, water, and food for everyone working in space to build all that shit. Asteroids happen to be rich in water ice and hydrocarbons. Ceres, on that note (like I mentioned previously), is a giant ball of the former and has rich surface deposits of the latter (particularly tholins), making it pretty great as a refueling stop and colony site in support of asteroid belt mining operations (better, IMO, than Mars or the Jovian moons). Melt some water and setup some hydroponic farming and you're set. > That's all besides the fact the technology to actually mine an asteroid doesn't exist and would need to be developed at great cost. We've been mining for hundreds of years at this point; the key differences with asteroids v. Earth are the (relative) lack of gravity and the lack of atmosphere, both of which should be relatively straightforward to overcome (if anything they should make things easier). Having humans at the mining sites would allow for faster iteration and development of the specific methods. > You wouldn't cross the Sahara desert to go to some oasis to fill up a gallon bucket of water and take it home. No, but you might cross the Sahara to find gold, which is exactly what motivated explorers of centuries past. No different here.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    Most asteroids are worthless chunks or carbon, another significant portion are sort of dirty balls of sand and rock. The smallest portion are composed of any metals. Metallic asteroids are mostly iron and nickel and unlikely to be loaded up with precious metals. Any that would be interesting for mining would be in the asteroid belt which requires significant amounts of energy to reach in a reasonable time frame. You also don't seem to be aware, Ceres does not currently have a space gas station on the surface. If you intend to refuel and resupply there such a thing would need to be build...for hundreds of billions of dollars because it's super difficult and none of the technology to do it currently exists. So that would need to be invented, developed, built, and put into space. Also raw ore amounts don't mean anything without refining capacity. There's roughly zero of it currently anywhere off the surface of the Earth. Again, in-space ore refining is something that exists pretty much only as concept drawings and some PhD thesis. So that would need to be invented, developed, built, and put into space. Even if we could reliably get people out to the asteroid belt and keep them alive, the volume of the belt is absolutely enormous. Worthwhile asteroids are vast distances apart and far away from any larger asteroids you might want to use as bases. It would require enormous expenditure of resources to get some mining equipment to a worthwhile asteroid, mine it, and get that raw ore somewhere it could be processed. The lack of gravity and atmosphere makes space mining far far more difficult than mining on Earth. If you kick up dust on Earth it blows away in the wind or settles quickly. Kick up dust on an asteroid and it goes into orbit around it and takes potentially centuries to settle. Asteroid dust also has no weathering so it would be extremely harsh on all the equipment. That all just makes the venture more difficult and more expensive. Then you've got some iron and nickel, something the Earth literally has tons of. Even if you manage to find the Comstock Lode asteroid you'll spend billions to mine precious metals which will cease to be precious thus lose their monetary value. The differences between crossing the Sahara to find gold and looking for it in an asteroid are when you cross the Sahara there's air at the destination. You don't have to make the crossing in a tin can containing your own personal universe. At any point along the journey you can take a deep breath. If you tear your shirt you don't suffocate and die. If you trip and fall you don't float away unable to be recovered. If you drop something important it lands on the ground rather than float away never to be seen again. A solar flare isn't likely to kill your entire crew or destroy the only space gas station for tens of millions of miles. The Sahara is inhospitable and will kill you if unprepared. Space is downright hostile. You can't really be taken seriously when you sort of hand wave the challenges doing anything in space. It just sounds like you're pointing to some sci-fi books as if those are the answer to everything. Space is hostile and doing anything in it is dangerous and expensive. Any resources that exist there are orders of magnitude more difficult to access let alone exploit than any on Earth.

elcritch 6y ago

There’s a story by sci-fi writer Daniel Suarez about that very idea of human mining an asteroid [1]. It’s actually a well thought out thought experiment. I suspect it’d almost require shenanigans like described in the book as modern society is so cautious as to be bordering on paranoid. Space won’t get colonized without significant risk for significant rewards. 1: https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/24/sci-fi-delta-v-daniel-suarez-asteroid-mining-space/ https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/24/sci-fi-delta-v-daniel...

giantrobot 6y ago

Asteroid mining is pointless for Earth-based industry. There's more of everything on Earth and it's orders of magnitude closer to processing and manufacturing infrastructure. The ISS in Earth orbit cost billions of dollars and was only possible because the Space Shuttle was an awesome utility vehicle that could act as an orbital work platform. Putting even trivial ore processing and refining infrastructure in a place where it could process mined ore from asteroids would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Every gram of refined asteroid ore would amortize that bootstrapping cost. It could never pay for itself. Even if you want to use asteroid metals for space based manufacturing...that infrastructure is more hundreds of billions of dollars to bootstrap. Then there's the pesky problem of life support, water, and food for everyone working in space to build all that shit. Every kilogram coming from Earth, even in the best priced SpaceX rocket, costs hundreds of dollars. That's all besides the fact the technology to actually mine an asteroid doesn't exist and would need to be developed at great cost. Even if you assume government space agencies will foot the bill for these expenses, that's still decades of their human spaceflight budget focused on nothing but bootstrapping infrastructure. That would preclude the establishment of off-Earth bases or colonies unless said space agency budgets were significantly increased. It ends up coming down to money because shit isn't free and in space humans need to take all of their air, food, water, and shelter with them everywhere they go. You wouldn't cross the Sahara desert to go to some oasis to fill up a gallon bucket of water and take it home. Especially when the Nile is right there. If you try to build a new golden civilization around that oasis you'll spend tons of money bootstrapping doing so and then...you're in the middle of the desert. Conducting trade or doing anything eats into your scarce resources making the entire venture extremely expensive and inefficient. You've also got a significantly higher risk of catastrophe wiping out your oasis city since it is isolated, small, and resource starved.

yellowapple 6y ago
> There's more of everything on Earth No there ain't. A single asteroid could have billions if not trillions of dollars' worth of precious metals (gold, silver, platinum) and would flood the respective markets of those precious metals (making them less "precious" and more commodities, which would be a massive boon for all sorts of industries). Even more common metals like iron and nickel are abundant enough to represent multiple years of Earth's production per asteroid. Thus: > that infrastructure [for space-based manufacturing] is more hundreds of billions of dollars to bootstrap. That will readily pay for itself. > Then there's the pesky problem of life support, water, and food for everyone working in space to build all that shit. Asteroids happen to be rich in water ice and hydrocarbons. Ceres, on that note (like I mentioned previously), is a giant ball of the former and has rich surface deposits of the latter (particularly tholins), making it pretty great as a refueling stop and colony site in support of asteroid belt mining operations (better, IMO, than Mars or the Jovian moons). Melt some water and setup some hydroponic farming and you're set. > That's all besides the fact the technology to actually mine an asteroid doesn't exist and would need to be developed at great cost. We've been mining for hundreds of years at this point; the key differences with asteroids v. Earth are the (relative) lack of gravity and the lack of atmosphere, both of which should be relatively straightforward to overcome (if anything they should make things easier). Having humans at the mining sites would allow for faster iteration and development of the specific methods. > You wouldn't cross the Sahara desert to go to some oasis to fill up a gallon bucket of water and take it home. No, but you might cross the Sahara to find gold, which is exactly what motivated explorers of centuries past. No different here.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  Most asteroids are worthless chunks or carbon, another significant portion are sort of dirty balls of sand and rock. The smallest portion are composed of any metals. Metallic asteroids are mostly iron and nickel and unlikely to be loaded up with precious metals. Any that would be interesting for mining would be in the asteroid belt which requires significant amounts of energy to reach in a reasonable time frame. You also don't seem to be aware, Ceres does not currently have a space gas station on the surface. If you intend to refuel and resupply there such a thing would need to be build...for hundreds of billions of dollars because it's super difficult and none of the technology to do it currently exists. So that would need to be invented, developed, built, and put into space. Also raw ore amounts don't mean anything without refining capacity. There's roughly zero of it currently anywhere off the surface of the Earth. Again, in-space ore refining is something that exists pretty much only as concept drawings and some PhD thesis. So that would need to be invented, developed, built, and put into space. Even if we could reliably get people out to the asteroid belt and keep them alive, the volume of the belt is absolutely enormous. Worthwhile asteroids are vast distances apart and far away from any larger asteroids you might want to use as bases. It would require enormous expenditure of resources to get some mining equipment to a worthwhile asteroid, mine it, and get that raw ore somewhere it could be processed. The lack of gravity and atmosphere makes space mining far far more difficult than mining on Earth. If you kick up dust on Earth it blows away in the wind or settles quickly. Kick up dust on an asteroid and it goes into orbit around it and takes potentially centuries to settle. Asteroid dust also has no weathering so it would be extremely harsh on all the equipment. That all just makes the venture more difficult and more expensive. Then you've got some iron and nickel, something the Earth literally has tons of. Even if you manage to find the Comstock Lode asteroid you'll spend billions to mine precious metals which will cease to be precious thus lose their monetary value. The differences between crossing the Sahara to find gold and looking for it in an asteroid are when you cross the Sahara there's air at the destination. You don't have to make the crossing in a tin can containing your own personal universe. At any point along the journey you can take a deep breath. If you tear your shirt you don't suffocate and die. If you trip and fall you don't float away unable to be recovered. If you drop something important it lands on the ground rather than float away never to be seen again. A solar flare isn't likely to kill your entire crew or destroy the only space gas station for tens of millions of miles. The Sahara is inhospitable and will kill you if unprepared. Space is downright hostile. You can't really be taken seriously when you sort of hand wave the challenges doing anything in space. It just sounds like you're pointing to some sci-fi books as if those are the answer to everything. Space is hostile and doing anything in it is dangerous and expensive. Any resources that exist there are orders of magnitude more difficult to access let alone exploit than any on Earth.