We should be mining the asteroid belt

[Greatcloud]

Yes we should be doing it already we knew this in the '80's mostly from a book by Stine. Why are we still exploring when we should be gaining resources from space. Please add your comments also please be aware of Stines book "the third industrial reveloution" thank you.

 

[Greatcloud]

We put too much on exploring when we ought to be building things in space. It is the perfect medium for manufacturing any temperature needed and any gravity you want also any space junk you just point it tworads the sun there you go.

 

[Gracchus]

Do you know why all the gold mines in California shut down? There is still gold there, but it costs more to get it out of the ground than it will bring on the market.

We aren't mining the asteroid belt because it is not cost-effective.

 

[Strathos]

It might be eventually

 

[High Fidelity]

There are already plans that tie in with other NASA missions to capture and redirect an asteroid into lunar orbit in the 20s, which we will visit, explore and almost certainly mine, even if only for scientific value initially.

It's a stepping stone, at the very least.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

We put too much on exploring when we ought to be buildinfutureg things in space. It is the perfect medium for manufacturing any temperature needed and any gravity you want also any space junk you just point it tworads the sun there you go.

While on the surface, treating the sun as a stellar garbage disposal seems like a good idea, I think we would be foolish to think there's no consequences to continuing our wasteful ways in space.

I do believe we should and will mine asteroids for resources in the not-so-distant and I also believe we should also look towards terra forming mars to better suit us in the future but as has been mentioned, the potential gains simply do not offset the costs of getting there.

It may as well be impossible for now.

 

[RDKirk]

Well, first it will be necessary to abrogate the UN "Outerspace Treaty." I'm not an anti-UN knee-jerker, but I've thought the Outerspace Treaty as well as the Seabed treaties were stupid ideas when they first passed. Fortunately the US never signed the Moon Treaty.

Technologically, the next thing that needs to be accomplished is a real orbital construction and launch platform. Launching entire mission vehicles right off the earth is only for stunts, not for real space utilization. The shuttle program was originally intended for that purpose, but the US punked out and settled for the International Space Station.

 

[florida2]

Yes we should be doing it already we knew this in the '80's mostly from a book by Stine. Why are we still exploring when we should be gaining resources from space. Please add your comments also please be aware of Stines book "the third industrial reveloution" thank you.

Some companies are actively looking into it, such as this one: Home - Planetary ResourcesPlanetary Resources | The Asteroid Mining Company

 

[mindlight]

Yes we should be doing it already we knew this in the '80's mostly from a book by Stine. Why are we still exploring when we should be gaining resources from space. Please add your comments also please be aware of Stines book "the third industrial reveloution" thank you.

In the 80s the memory of the Apollo missions was still fresh and the space shuttle offered the promise of easier access to space on a regular basis. To some extent the dream in this book was well ahead of the reality. The american government provided practically limitless resources to make space happen but the pace of the marketplace and actual technology has been much slower. NASA and a reluctant Obama are part of the problem in the current context preferring safe science to the more romantic crewed space flight vision and the business utilisation of space. But this OP is very timely because the times are finally catching up with the vision. Space X , Virgin Galactica and rival governments have plans that are far more ambitious the current American government.

My own view is that we should build a massive hub like space station in high earth orbit. Rotating it at 1g. We should cover the habitation modules in a thick layet of cut and cemented asteroid rock for radiation shielding. The station can be a fuel manufacturing base , mineral refining and space port for earth and interplanetary traffic. A moon base for mining and tourism. We should build large asteroid miners that can extract precious metals, water etc from asteroids. We should build large solar power farms for the energy required by the refining process. Many manufacturing processes could also be moved off earth. Eventually space craft will use hydrogen fuel cells manufactured in space for the trips to earth and back. The by product of their burns in orbit would be water.

Its a dream but it can happen and the world will be richer if it does

 

[lesliedellow]

Yes we should be doing it already we knew this in the '80's mostly from a book by Stine. Why are we still exploring when we should be gaining resources from space. Please add your comments also please be aware of Stines book "the third industrial reveloution" thank you.

How many millions of dollars does it cost to get a sattelite into orbit?

You want it to take a trip to thje asteroid belt, collect maybe a ton of raw material containing perhaps 5% iron, and bring it back to Earth.

It would be far far cheaper to manufacrure cars out of 25 carat gold.

 

[RDKirk]

My own view is that we should build a massive hub like space station in high earth orbit. Rotating it at 1g. We should cover the habitation modules in a thick layet of cut and cemented asteroid rock for radiation shielding. The station can be a fuel manufacturing base , mineral refining and space port for earth and interplanetary traffic. A moon base for mining and tourism. We should build large asteroid miners that can extract precious metals, water etc from asteroids. We should build large solar power farms for the energy required by the refining process. Many manufacturing processes could also be moved off earth. Eventually space craft will use hydrogen fuel cells manufactured in space for the trips to earth and back. The by product of their burns in orbit would be water.

As I said earlier, if we're not going to build the permanent space station, there's no point doing anything. Launching complete mission vehicles from earth is just for stunts, not real space exploration.

 

[High Fidelity]

As I said earlier, if we're not going to build the permanent space station, there's no point doing anything. Launching complete mission vehicles from earth is just for stunts, not real space exploration.

And incredibly expensive!

 

[mindlight]

As I said earlier, if we're not going to build the permanent space station, there's no point doing anything. Launching complete mission vehicles from earth is just for stunts, not real space exploration.

Well I agree which is why a phased plan makes more sense to me. Proper Space Station, moon base, asteroid mining, Mars expeditions etc. Basically the IIS is a science lab in orbit but thats only a small part of what space is about and is just a cost. A hotel , space port , fuel depot, asteroid refining centre, manufacturing centre is a way to make money rather than waste it and of course the science labs can always be an add on to that.

Bush seemed to get this though even his plan was underfunded and on an overly long timescale. Obama does not get space , he does not want to screw anything up but the vision is lacking. In the meantime other nations and companies are making plans. Maybe America needs another Sputnik to wake up.

 

[Greatcloud]

Here is an interesting site with more information about mining the Asteroids.


How Asteroid Mining Could Work (Infographic) | Planetary Resources Asteroid Mining

 

[greatcloudlives]

We should be making money in space instead of just continue to explore it.

 

[greatcloudlives]

Gerald O'neil wrote about the idea decades ago In the book "the third industrial revolution" he goes step by step about how to accomplish this revolution.

The medium of space is ideal in many ways to industry. You can have virtually any temperature you want, from absolute zero to as high as you need 1,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit or more. You can have any gravity or pressure. Easy to mix large batches of any substance, grow crystals of enormous size ....ect. Solor power would be free 24/7 and any waste material can be disposed of by sending it into the Sun.

Virtually any material including water can be found in the astriod belt. Minerals and precious metals . We could have a large space station shilded with earth material from the moon. Read the book by O'neil called "the third industrial revolution" it's a good book but decades old. We are behind in his vision, we should have been doing some of what he wrote about long ago.

 

[greatcloudlives]

I know who's going to be the ones to do it. It's going to be the new seventh branch of the military that President. Trump created, the Space Corp.

 

[greatcloudlives]

In the OP I said it was Stine that was an error I meant to say Gerald O' Neil he wrote several books about space, the best imo was "the third industrial revolution" he was a true visionary ahead of his time.

 

[RDKirk]

I know who's going to be the ones to do it. It's going to be the new seventh branch of the military that President. Trump created, the Space Corp.

There is no "Space Corp." It's the Space Force, and the military does not make money, the military kills people and breaks things.

Whenever government tries to use the military for anything other than killing people and breaking things, it works to great disadvantage.

 

[Hans Blaster]

There is no "Space Corp." It's the Space Force, and the military does not make money, the military kills people and breaks things.

Whenever government tries to use the military for anything other than killing people and breaking things, it works to great disadvantage.

This person seems to have a serious problem with the digestion and comprehension of facts. It also occurs to me that the last post in this thread before the 5 year hiatus has a very similar name to our necromancer and that user was last seen a few months before the thread reanimator's account was created. Looks like a case of a lost password.