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I can see a way to get the rocks down. Cut off chunks of particular size, cover them in nets and tie the nets to a little robotic space tugboat, that uses rocke
by hristov 15y ago
I can see a way to get the rocks down. Cut off chunks of particular size, cover them in nets and tie the nets to a little robotic space tugboat, that uses rocket power to pull the rocks into earth orbit and then lands with the rocks in a parachute. The space tug boat will be reusable of course.
Radiation is also a tough problem. Most space metals should be radioactive. They have been swimming in space radiation for millions of years, so even metals that are usually non-radioactive, like iron should get plenty of opportunity to get activated. And once a metal is radioactive we have no way to fix that. The only fix is to wait for it to deplete itself. And that is usually a very long wait.
But now that I think of it, perhaps in an asteroid only the outside metals are radioactive. Perhaps the inside of the asteroid gets shielded by the metals on the outside that absorb all incoming particles. If that's the way things work, one should be able to mine non radio-active metals on the inside.
So I see nothing impossible, but it will be difficult.
- ChuckMcM 15y agohttp://www.webelements.com/iron/isotopes.html http://www.webelements.com/iron/isotopes.html Radio isotopes of iron. Unlikely that you'd have to worry too much about it. Did you have a particular nucleotide you were concerned about?
- hristov 15y agoWhy is that something that we should not worry about? (I am not being sarcastic, honestly asking, nuclear physics is not my primary expertise.) Yes many of them seem to have short half-lives but one of them has a half life of 1.5 million years. Also I am not sure these are the only iron isotopes. This seems to be a list of "naturally occurring" iron isotopes which usually means "naturally occurring on Earth". Also another thing to worry about is the isotopes of platinum and platinum group metals that seem to be the main and most lucrative target of space mining.
- gliese1337 15y ago> Yes many of them seem to have short half-lives but one of them has a half life of 1.5 million years. Which means it's completely safe. If it has a half-life that long, it won't be releasing radiation at a very high rate. Hardly enough to register above background. The isotopes you have to worry about are the ones with in-the-middle half lives- long enough that they don't deplete themselves in a conveniently short period, but short enough that they produce a dangerous power output.
- hristov 15y agoThat depends on concentrations of the isotope in the metal and the amount of metal we will be using. I have no idea what the concentrations of iron isotopes in meteors are and which iron isotopes are there, but I do not think it is correct to automatically say that radioactive isotopes with long half-lives are completely safe.
- mikeash 15y agoDon't you need free neutrons to cause radioactive activation? Space is full of radiation, but not AFAIK the activating kind.
- maaku 15y ago> Most space metals should be radioactive. They have been swimming in space radiation for millions of years, so even metals that are usually non-radioactive, like iron should get plenty of opportunity to get activated. Simply false.