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That seems like a bizarre take. Even with efficient fully reusable rockets, surely desalination will still be much cheaper than mining water from asteroids and
by NickM 3y ago
That seems like a bizarre take. Even with efficient fully reusable rockets, surely desalination will still be much cheaper than mining water from asteroids and bringing it back to Earth?
And sure, maybe bringing huge amounts of rare earth metals back might reduce the price a bit, but to the point where rare earth elements are cheaper per mass unit than water?
- nathan_compton 3y agoIf we ever have a space elevator bringing water down from space could actually be a net negative expense, since you could be using the weight to carry stuff up out of the gravity well.
- Tagbert 3y ago"If we ever have a space elevator" such a simple phrase doing a lot of rhetorical lifting. The logistics and problems of space elevators make them extremely unlikely in any timeframe that is less than fantasy.
- nathan_compton 3y agoAgreed!
- stainablesteel 3y agoit seems bizarre to me too, i'd also think the practical use of having stores of rare earth metals outweighs their initial value simply due to current inaccessibility but i think the video was saying this as a long-term business strategy wouldn't work, as the cost would decrease over time for the initial cost of all the engineering i'm unfortunately unable to comment on the economics of space water