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> This article assumes that we'll solve any possible resource problems through ingenious innovations, but that no possible innovation will ever make asteroid mi
by notahacker 5y ago
> This article assumes that we'll solve any possible resource problems through ingenious innovations, but that no possible innovation will ever make asteroid mining economically feasible
The base assumption for asteroid mining is that substances like carbon, iron and nickel that asteroids are composed of become so difficult to obtain on Earth that return trips of a few tens or hundreds of million miles including atmospheric reentry are worthwhile to obtain it. Space travel becoming cheaper alone doesn't make it economically viable, unless you assume our ability to mine and transport stuff cheaply on earth goes backwards.
- mechanical_bear 5y agoNo one said anything about re-entry. Assuming this level of development, we would also have production capabilities in space.
- notahacker 5y agoI'm not sure that multiplying the complexity (do future humans have non-trivial quantities of stuff that needs producing closer to a particular asteroid than planets with the same minerals in much greater quantities? Why?) is much of a counter argument to the basic intuition that it's only economically viable to mine comparatively tiny quantities of commodities in massively dispersed locations far away from human production centres if it's for some reason difficult to get it closer to home.