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So nothing of immediate or direct use here on earth, just things that may be usable for further off-world construction or (in the case of He-3) might be an ener
by thombat 3y ago
So nothing of immediate or direct use here on earth, just things that may be usable for further off-world construction or (in the case of He-3) might be an energy source someday.
- hnben 3y agoisn't metal in orbit much more valuable than metal on earth? i.e. you can build plenty cheap satellites with it.
- hnbad 3y agoThis assumes you can refine the ores "in orbit" and manufacture everything "in orbit". This in turn requires a ton of manufacturing on Earth and a lot of launches to move all this stuff off Earth. Not to mention all the supporting industry and infrastructure manufacturing normally has on Earth. Not to mention the R&D costs and staff logistics. This isn't a video game. You can't just click a button and have an autonomous satellite factory churning out satellites in space. Moving any amount of manufacturing or refining into space is a massive logistics undertaking we haven't even begun to explore. Just because Bezos has a vision of moving the working class off Earth or Musk made some off-the-cuff remarks to rile up his yes-men, that doesn't mean this is something that will happen soon, much less something that will be useful soon.