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Wait, before deflecting them? Why? There’s at least a plausible need there, what with the whole “don’t want to slam an asteroid into the planet” problem. Mini
by perardi 4y ago
Wait, before deflecting them? Why?
There’s at least a plausible need there, what with the whole “don’t want to slam an asteroid into the planet” problem.
Mining is still an utter fantasy. It’s completely economically unviable to mine anything from an asteroid and bring it down the gravity well, and we have close to zero ability to actually mine and manufacture anything in space. We are a long long long time away from that.
- hackeraccount 4y agoIt's an interesting question. The assumption is that it will never (or at least not for a very very long time) make sense to mine or manufacture in space for use on Earth. Mining/Manufacturing in space for use in space will presumably happen in only a very long time. That said; what the bigger issue - for in situ operations, the distance to get the raw materials or just doing anything with the raw materials at all? Is it going to be - we could do anything at all but going all the way past the orbit of Mars is too much trouble - or - Getting to a rock past Mars is easy but it's hard to do anything practical with it (compared to just getting it off Earth presumably) I got no clue as to which way it could go but it doesn't seem a question that answers itself to me.
- mabbo 4y agoIf you want a fun read, "Delta V" by Daniel Suarez is a fantastic near-future hard scifi novel on the topic.