I had this posted over my when I was at engineering college!
I had this posted over my when I was at engineering college!
I think I’m saying that mining on asteroids will probably never be profitable or realistic (with a possible exception of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen CHON once people are living on orbit). Mining on other planets might require understanding different geology and maybe different refining technology. Anything mined on a planet will likely stay there. But there just won’t be any ores on asteroids because they never had a chance to differentiate into higher and lower concentrations of various useful metals.
Metallurgical engineer here. One thing I never see talked about on this topic is how astreoids don’t have nearly the mechanisms for concentrating matals into ores like planetary bodies do.
So while there may be a higher proportion of, say, iridium on an asteroid than the average of Earth, it is pretty homogenous. You would have to refine the whole thing to get a little bit of iridium. On Earth, it may be more rare on average, but Earth also concentrates metals into ores via heat, gravity and water action so that you can mine a small area to get what your want economically.
Metal meteoroids are mostly iron, which is cheap on Earth and of little use in space. Aluminum, which is useful in space, is one of the most common elements on Earth and even higher on the Moon, but it’s only economically mined in tropical soil that had ages of water erosion. Titanium, different process but similar story.
Given the economics of getting to where you want to mine, mining a non-concentrated rock, and then transporting it back to Earth’s for sale I just didn’t see any path for mining asteroids.
Once there’s is an established human presence in space, there might be a reason to mine organics (CHON) but that is not now and not what people think of when they tout asteroid mining.
It’s not scare quotes. Just indicating a verbatim quote from her ex.
His name will be on the ballot, but if scotus finds that he’s ineligible he can’t win the nomination here, so vote for him would be wasted. Well, it’s wasted no matter what but you know what I mean.
You can resist your dark urge too. That has a fun ending too.
After you’ve had the Ultimate Love Affair that has broken you, leaves you certain love has been poisoned in your system, then, and only then, can you be saved and uplifted by the Post-Ultimate Love Affair. - Harlan Ellison http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0072/ERBAEN0072.htm
Deleted my 8 year old account and posts just last week. Feels great man.
The guy in the photo can’t even be bothered to wear his respirator correctly.
Well to be fair to the actual journalists, a lot of those articles are published by random people with an agenda that are labeled “Contributor” as opposed to staff.
Next week on Star Trek…
Shrug maybe they could. They have yet to prove it in the real world in the US, as you mentioned.
I like that my ISP has no profit motive and is driven solely by customer/taxpayer satisfaction.
I wouldn’t like it if it became a political football, but so far so good. I think its safe for now because it is the same network used by the fire and police departments. Comcast really tried to kill it off.
I love my Model O Glorious mouse. Adjustable dpi super dependable.
I love it! It kind of sells the “we’re in the middle of a war and have to slap a bunch of stuff together just to field some more ships for defense” vibe. Even if really it was just a kit bashed computer model.
I have a minor one… Simply Human trash can. Got tired of throwing out plastic trash cans every couple years and bought a stainless steel one. It was more expensive than one plastic, but it is going strong. It has lots of nice little design touches too, like a hole to allow air to escape so that the bag can fill the trash can cavity and removable inner frame to make it easy for cleaning.
And they are repairable for reasonable prices for the things that do break.
We taxpayers built a municipal fiber to house broadband in Longmont Colorado. Stable service, one of the fastest in the nation and inexpensive.
I love it when a telecom asks me to"upgrade" to their service. It messes up their script when I ask them if they can beat 1 gig up and down for $45.
This is the way competition should work. Some things private companies do better, other things the government can do better. Let them hash it out in the market without loading the dice.
Half-drow dark urge warlock. Interesting reactions to my race so far.
Never mind. That is the way to change it, but for some reason it’s not always clickable.
Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney is exactly what you are looking for.