Asteroid Mining Architectures

[Twark_Main]

Sounds like the spalling process would effectively act like froth floatation does in mining on Earth for separating minerals (but without the froth!). An interesting idea although I wonder how great the concentration of valuable minerals would be? I would be difficult to be very selective unless the particle size was very small.

TransAstra's aim is extracting volatiles from the asteroids, for water and the precursors for rocket fuel. The solid material is basically a byproduct, useful for radiation shielding. Dr. Sercel barely mentions the possibility of extracting valuable solid materials. Asteroid mining for valuable metals would target different classes of asteroids, and probably use different technologies.

I bring it up because TransAstra has mentioned using optical mining to dig regolith, too. A "rubble pile" asteroid could have significant inclusions of M-Type asteroidal material.

[punder]

There is a new book about asteroid mining

https://www.amazon.com/Asteroids-Greed-Determine-Future-Space/dp/030023192X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1623972120&sr=8-1

[Twark_Main]

There is a new book about asteroid mining


https:// www. amazon. com/Asteroids-Greed-Determine-Future-Space/dp/030023192X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1623972120&sr=8-1

Very cool!

Clean URL: https://www.amazon.com/Asteroids-Greed-Determine-Future-Space/dp/030023192X/

[Robert Thompson]

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-07-21/californias-electric-car-revolution-designed-to-save-the-planet-inflicts-a-big-toll-on-it

It has always seemed to me that the ocean floor is a Rubicon. Yes, obviously, it is less expense to extract manganese nodules from thousands of feet under water than to extract equal mass of manganese and critical elements from an asteroid.

The price we shall have to wait to see, to do the presently less expensive thing, is a price that cannot be reversed once it is seen.

[high road]

That depends on the scale. Good monitoring practices and reparation measures are necessary, and they need to be enforced.

[LMT]

the first asteroids mined will be NEOs

I agree that NEOs will be the first asteroids mined

If Mars perihelion were just 0.08 AU lower, its meteorites, such as Lebanon, would join your NEO list, in a manner of speaking.

So just within this thread, truncate Mars perihelion to 1.3 AU, and refresh your NEO list.

How could that simplify or otherwise improve the "NEO" mining architecture?

[TrevorMonty]

There are two trojan asteroids at L4, latest is 1.2km C type. The DV to L4 is 4.1km/s same as LLO so they relatively  easy to get to. Most important in stable location which makes mining a bit easier.  Like to be few more there waiting to be discovered.

https://www.space.com/earth-extra-moon-trojan-asteroid-2020-xl5-discovery

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[txgho]

Before the mining begins I would expect a distribution of exploration ships with cameras blistered around the hull.
Along the lines of sending a observatory telescope SS to the L4&L5 points of several planets to visually and otherwise prospect any orbital bodies. Also would benefit discovery of other NEO not bound to a Lagrange point.

Expectations would need to be solid and defined. Water being the most valuable commodity would have the highest priority. Heavy metals and other malleable materials would be needed for further development. Export of space born material to Earth would be defeating the purpose of space development.
1. Water
2. Iron
3. Copper
4. Rare earth elements used in the IC industry
5. Silicates used in electronics and optics
6. Other metals used in refining iron to steel and other derivatives.
7. Construction material for walls/insulation against radiation

Industry in space is call for the raw/intermediate materials :
1. Steel
2. Insulating material
3. Solar panels
4. Electronics for monitoring/control

Successful mining in space is going to have people at the core. Mission duration for such will more than 2-3 years. Minimum may be more on the order of 5 or 10 year commitments.

More likely a spaceborn mining colony would be the most productive and inclined for success.
A colony or if you like Mining Expedition starting with 20 to 50 SS tied in a number of parallels rings rotating for a significant percent of 1G. A number of young family units in the crewed SS. In addition to the cargo SS bulk rolls of steel could be attached for developing the station be that sheathing tubes between and building a station around the framework of the rings.

As a station is building and mining ops are started SS thrust sections can be canabolized for the ring structure as a whole. Mining ops would need a storage for all materials of utility. Whole SS could be used for bulk materials before they would be smelted into intermediate states. Again all possible materials of utility would have to be stored/refined and eventually used in some purpose.

A growing station at Jupiter's L4 or L5 could then build their own 10s of thousands square meter field of solar paneling and even much more as materials provide.   With growing power an artificial magnetic field could be engineered around the colony or before the Sun to deflect normal radiation levels as well as surges that accompany CMEs.

[TrevorMonty]

Initially it might just be case of unmanned equipment extracting water and use that to send raw material back EML1 for processing. DV between L4 and EML1 is low. EML1 processing facility can be manned or robotic.



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[JohnFornaro]

Fun fact: if we brought 16 Psyche's infamous "100 quadrillion dollars worth of metals" back to Earth, that'd be enough iron to completely consume all the free oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.

Fun Fact? Somebody don't do something!

[JohnFornaro]

I can see a business case of shipping water to Mars from asteroids, if mining on Mars turns out to bee to difficult to provide large aumouts needed to refuel a lot of SS. BTW, trans astra architecture is based on SS to launch the robots, so seing the SS progres is very good for them.

And speaking of water and Ceres,  If Ceres is 50% dihydrogen monoxide, and if all of that chemical were beamed down, or hosed down to Mars, what would happpen to the orbital characteristics of Mars and its moons? 

At what point do mass changes in the Solar System have macro effects?

[JohnFornaro]

More likely a spaceborn mining colony would be the most productive and inclined for success.
A colony or if you like Mining Expedition starting with 20 to 50 SS tied in a number of parallels rings rotating for a significant percent of 1G. A number of young family units in the crewed SS. In addition to the cargo SS bulk rolls of steel could be attached for developing the station be that sheathing tubes between and building a station around the framework of the rings.

As a station is building and mining ops are started SS thrust sections can be canabolized for the ring structure as a whole. Mining ops would need a storage for all materials of utility. Whole SS could be used for bulk materials before they would be smelted into intermediate states. Again all possible materials of utility would have to be stored/refined and eventually used in some purpose.

A growing station at Jupiter's L4 or L5 could then build their own 10s of thousands square meter field of solar paneling and even much more as materials provide.   With growing power an artificial magnetic field could be engineered around the colony or before the Sun to deflect normal radiation levels as well as surges that accompany CMEs.

I reccomend a diameter of 1K yards, and a rotation of 1RPM, resulting in 1 Gee artificial gravity.  The ring station would be a clock as well as a preventer of micro-Gee mitochondrial anomalies, as well as a comforting reminder of home.   The ring station grows perpendicular to the plane of rotation, eventually resulting in an O'Neil structure.

[cdebuhr]

I can see a business case of shipping water to Mars from asteroids, if mining on Mars turns out to bee to difficult to provide large aumouts needed to refuel a lot of SS. BTW, trans astra architecture is based on SS to launch the robots, so seing the SS progres is very good for them.

And speaking of water and Ceres,  If Ceres is 50% dihydrogen monoxide, and if all of that chemical were beamed down, or hosed down to Mars, what would happpen to the orbital characteristics of Mars and its moons? 

At what point do mass changes in the Solar System have macro effects?

Something like 99.8% of the mass in the solar system is in the sun.  About 70% of whats left is in Jupiter, and most of whats left over after that is in Saturn.  The left overs after that will be overwhelmingly dominated by Uranus and Neptune, and finally we've got the rocky planets ... roughly 50% Earth, 40% Venus, then Mars and Mercury.  When we're talking about things like moving asteroids around, that won't even be a rounding error.  The mass of everything in the main belt put together is utterly dwarfed by Earths moon.   Moving asteroids around will have no significant effects whatsoever on the overall orbital/mass structure of the system.  You'd literally need to be moving the major planets around to do that.

[TrevorMonty]

More likely a spaceborn mining colony would be the most productive and inclined for success.
A colony or if you like Mining Expedition starting with 20 to 50 SS tied in a number of parallels rings rotating for a significant percent of 1G. A number of young family units in the crewed SS. In addition to the cargo SS bulk rolls of steel could be attached for developing the station be that sheathing tubes between and building a station around the framework of the rings.

As a station is building and mining ops are started SS thrust sections can be canabolized for the ring structure as a whole. Mining ops would need a storage for all materials of utility. Whole SS could be used for bulk materials before they would be smelted into intermediate states. Again all possible materials of utility would have to be stored/refined and eventually used in some purpose.

A growing station at Jupiter's L4 or L5 could then build their own 10s of thousands square meter field of solar paneling and even much more as materials provide.   With growing power an artificial magnetic field could be engineered around the colony or before the Sun to deflect normal radiation levels as well as surges that accompany CMEs.

I reccomend a diameter of 1K yards, and a rotation of 1RPM, resulting in 1 Gee artificial gravity.  The ring station would be a clock as well as a preventer of micro-Gee mitochondrial anomalies, as well as a comforting reminder of home.   The ring station grows perpendicular to the plane of rotation, eventually resulting in an O'Neil structure.

SpaceX are banking on 1/3G being OK for Mars colony so may as well us that, which allows for lot smaller diameter.

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[Michael S]

I can see a business case of shipping water to Mars from asteroids, if mining on Mars turns out to bee to difficult to provide large aumouts needed to refuel a lot of SS. BTW, trans astra architecture is based on SS to launch the robots, so seing the SS progres is very good for them.

And speaking of water and Ceres,  If Ceres is 50% dihydrogen monoxide, and if all of that chemical were beamed down, or hosed down to Mars, what would happpen to the orbital characteristics of Mars and its moons? 

At what point do mass changes in the Solar System have macro effects?

That question is more likely designed for Isaac Arthur.  It would take hundreds of billions of tonnes of mass to increase Mars’ mass by .0001%. And that is an understatement.
As for macro effects on the Solar System, a 1% increase in planetary mass would start to be noticeable, but the gathering of available resources in the system and relocating them to Mars would probably have a more noticeable effect.

[Twark_Main]

Fun fact: if we brought 16 Psyche's infamous "100 quadrillion dollars worth of metals" back to Earth, that'd be enough iron to completely consume all the free oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.

Fun Fact? Somebody don't do something!

No $100,000,000,000,000,000 payday huh? Sounds like somebody hates growth and jobs. Gettim boys!

[Twark_Main]

More likely a spaceborn mining colony would be the most productive and inclined for success.
A colony or if you like Mining Expedition starting with 20 to 50 SS tied in a number of parallels rings rotating for a significant percent of 1G. A number of young family units in the crewed SS. In addition to the cargo SS bulk rolls of steel could be attached for developing the station be that sheathing tubes between and building a station around the framework of the rings.

As a station is building and mining ops are started SS thrust sections can be canabolized for the ring structure as a whole. Mining ops would need a storage for all materials of utility. Whole SS could be used for bulk materials before they would be smelted into intermediate states. Again all possible materials of utility would have to be stored/refined and eventually used in some purpose.

A growing station at Jupiter's L4 or L5 could then build their own 10s of thousands square meter field of solar paneling and even much more as materials provide.   With growing power an artificial magnetic field could be engineered around the colony or before the Sun to deflect normal radiation levels as well as surges that accompany CMEs.

I reccomend a diameter of 1K yards, and a rotation of 1RPM, resulting in 1 Gee artificial gravity.  The ring station would be a clock as well as a preventer of micro-Gee mitochondrial anomalies, as well as a comforting reminder of home.   The ring station grows perpendicular to the plane of rotation, eventually resulting in an O'Neil structure.

Anyone can "recommend' until they're blue in the face, but the real challenge (especially given such a luxurious and, dare I say, cost-maximized design) will be selling your pitch deck to investors.

[DanClemmensen]

Fun fact: if we brought 16 Psyche's infamous "100 quadrillion dollars worth of metals" back to Earth, that'd be enough iron to completely consume all the free oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.

Fun Fact? Somebody don't do something!

No $100,000,000,000,000,000 payday huh? Sounds like somebody hates growth and jobs. Gettim boys!

Sigh. The iron is not very valuable on Earth, not worth sending down to the surface. Keep it in space and use it to build rockets, spacecraft, structures, etc. Separate out the stuff that is valuable on Earth and send it down, completely destroying nearly the entire mining industry and the financial structure instead of destroying life by consuming the oxygen.

[Twark_Main]

Fun fact: if we brought 16 Psyche's infamous "100 quadrillion dollars worth of metals" back to Earth, that'd be enough iron to completely consume all the free oxygen in Earth's atmosphere.

Fun Fact? Somebody don't do something!

No $100,000,000,000,000,000 payday huh? Sounds like somebody hates growth and jobs. Gettim boys!

Sigh. The iron is not very valuable on Earth, not worth sending down to the surface. Keep it in space and use it to build rockets, spacecraft, structures, etc. Separate out the stuff that is valuable on Earth and send it down, completely destroying nearly the entire mining industry and the financial structure instead of destroying life by consuming the oxygen.

The price calculation is based on the spot metal value on Earth.

Point being, it's an absurd calculation on a number of levels.

"Keep it in space" is a good quip, but it's begging the biggest unsolved question in spaceflight economics. It's still an open question whether it can ever be economical to live your entire life in space.



All you've done is replace one hard problem (asteroid mining economics) with an even harder problem (space habitation economics).

[txgho]

The biggest obstacles of human being is dying and preservation of the human species.
All the eggs are in one basket.
Biggest hurdle to disperse from the basket would be getting the eggs out of the basket.

The sooner the eggs get more even miniscule small and precarious baskets built the sooner said eggs can build the bigger more robust baskets to assist the further unloading the big basket.   

For so many of the viable and creative ideas that humanity is capable of the missing lynk to further insurance to humanity's survival is to generate the momentum in moving to space. Eggs gotta get crackin (Kraken) .

How much nuclear fuel may be found in Psyche to be used as fuel for power. 
Mining expedition staff for the metallic asteroid should be called Reevers.