It looks like asteroid mining may not be as lucrative as some people hoped.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25716103
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25716103
General / Off-Topic Asteroid mining
- Thread starter JohnStabler
- Start date
doh i was ninja'ed =)
Few asteroids are worth mining, suggests Harvard study
should come as a shock to some ED folks
Few asteroids are worth mining, suggests Harvard study
should come as a shock to some ED folks
Philip Coutts
Volunteer Moderator
I tweeted this story last night, interesting article.
It might be ok, Dr.Elvis is involved!
"He emphasised there were large uncertainties in the values and called for more thorough surveys of what's out there."
So, basically scientist himself admitted that it is based on what we know - and we know very little about rocks floating around in Sol system. Heck, we barely know bits who threaten us. It's all basically risk calculation - currently they don't favor mining.
So, basically scientist himself admitted that it is based on what we know - and we know very little about rocks floating around in Sol system. Heck, we barely know bits who threaten us. It's all basically risk calculation - currently they don't favor mining.
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Thanks for the link, this article is interesting
Mining may not be lucrative with our tehnology but in ED it will certainly be very lucrative
Well, that's what scanners are for. Also, even if an asteroid might not have big rocks we can still blast it to dust and harvest the mixed dust and then refine it according to the design doc.
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7196
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7196
There's fracking in the UK?
unfortunately yes, and they are even giving sizable tax breaks to encourage it
LOL what a useless study, there's money out there to be made writing these junk articles eh? And its not gonna stop 1 damn person from trying either.
"But Eric Anderson, co-founder of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, told BBC News that the values quoted in the study were off - conservatively - by a factor of 100."
"But Eric Anderson, co-founder of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, told BBC News that the values quoted in the study were off - conservatively - by a factor of 100."
There's fracking in the UK?
Indeed, our beloved Government have decided to let local councils decide if fraking should be done in their areas. They will carry out all the environmental studies, health and safety issues and all relevant stuff. Of course, should they decide to let it go ahead, the local council will get a big old chunk of the business tax generated from the fraking.
I don't see the councils doing much fraking... Aye right.
I am very pleased with this study and the results.
I cannot imagine that we would venture out into space and collect these asteroids, bring them to Earth for mining, effectively using the precious world and its finite resources to turn it into a world-sized ore smelter or blast furnace, using up precious air and fossil fuels just to get more mobile phones on the market. Or other such junk that require rare ores.
Just 'zoom out' from our world and see if for what it really is. A tiny spec of mass we cling on to, racing through space at 30.000 km an hour, with an atmosphere so fragile and thinking it is amazing solar winds aren't ripping it off and within those 30 km of atmosphere we pump out greenhouse gasses as if there is no tomorrow.
And in all that frailty you want to bring in more materials that require oxygen to smelt as well as fossil fuels?
And space is so much bigger than out tiny world. And so in space, given time, we can find almost infinite amount of smelt-able ores to put against our Earth's ecology.
How can we hope to maintain the world for the future if we start turning it into a blast furnace?
Let there be as little useful materials in space as possibly I pray. So that entrepreneurs will be dissuaded to not even try make a profit that way.
Yeah if your traveling to other stars and have fusion drive ect ect it's a different story. Like it said at the end of the article it doesn't mean it's worth while, just probably not cost effective at our technology level. If you take it as a few step process and the first thing you do is move your manufacturing off Earth than things would be way easier. The big issue is you need to launch everything from the deepest gravity well with a solid surface in the solar system.
The proper method I think would be use spectral analysis to find some large juicy asteroids with the potential to provide many materials. Then send a probe or probes to investigate them more thoroughly. Once you identify a good one launch mining equipment and construction equipment. At this point is doesn't have to be cost effective. Because what you'd do is turn the asteroid into factory using it's own materials. The factory will basically make more parts for mining. Then at that point you start to travel to other asteroids to mine them. That way you have a "home base" not on Earth that enables you to build parts and process resources away from the gravity well of Earth. Of course this would take tens if not hundreds of billions. I mean consider it'll take billions to get a bus sized tuna can to Mars.
Anyway none of that matters for ED since obviously all the hurtles were already overcome.
Wow what an ecocentric view. If we could get our resources from space, we wouldn't need to be stressing the ecosystems on earth! Think of the human race as a plane taking off from a runway. Earth and it's biosphere is the runway itself. The plane sits on the runway relying on it to hold the plane up ect. However the plane has a bulldozer ripper in the back. Where every it goes it rips the runway up destroying it. So to halt progress towards space development because of the environment is like slowing the plane down because your running out of runway! Instead if you sped up and took off you wouldn't need the runway anymore, and you wouldn't be damaging it.
Hope my analogy makes sense.
The proper method I think would be use spectral analysis to find some large juicy asteroids with the potential to provide many materials. Then send a probe or probes to investigate them more thoroughly. Once you identify a good one launch mining equipment and construction equipment. At this point is doesn't have to be cost effective. Because what you'd do is turn the asteroid into factory using it's own materials. The factory will basically make more parts for mining. Then at that point you start to travel to other asteroids to mine them. That way you have a "home base" not on Earth that enables you to build parts and process resources away from the gravity well of Earth. Of course this would take tens if not hundreds of billions. I mean consider it'll take billions to get a bus sized tuna can to Mars.
Anyway none of that matters for ED since obviously all the hurtles were already overcome.
Wow what an ecocentric view. If we could get our resources from space, we wouldn't need to be stressing the ecosystems on earth! Think of the human race as a plane taking off from a runway. Earth and it's biosphere is the runway itself. The plane sits on the runway relying on it to hold the plane up ect. However the plane has a bulldozer ripper in the back. Where every it goes it rips the runway up destroying it. So to halt progress towards space development because of the environment is like slowing the plane down because your running out of runway! Instead if you sped up and took off you wouldn't need the runway anymore, and you wouldn't be damaging it.
Hope my analogy makes sense.
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It makes sense but you have to realize that I do not condone our current paradigms in terms of capitalist style open market commercialism that is destroying the world we live on.
For me technology may never exceed our moral understanding and responsibility: I couple technology to our moral aptitude. Your analogy could not occur in my ideal world.
To rip up anything in order to take off is what is destroying our Earth already. It is because we have entered into an age after Descartes (and others) of a paradigm in where nature is stripped of its spiritual aspect, of its 'secondary qualities' into pure matter that we can carelessly exploit. Science lies in bed with capitalism and that is a mistake of gigantic proportions. It has taught us that we can rip anything from the Earth, from its surface and from below the ground to make gadgets of any and all kinds to satisfy pure materialistic needs through the use of capitalist market based economical theories.
If mankind ever launches into space we should not make a mad dash forward, ripping up what is left in an attempt to reach other worlds where we can make the same mistake. We should first learn to limit our conduct on Earth to more ecological principles and take responsibility for our world first before we attack others.
And when we then leave this Earth, our Mother, we take everything with us. We do not just self-select us from the gene-swarm that is the ecological Anima Mundi of World Soul and reach for another star. We take all of the wolrd's soul, all genomes, not just our own.
And we do not kill of the ecological soul of another world, but we terraform barren places. And there we release the Earth ecology so that we can create a new living world.
What games like Elite do is take current capitalist, market based paradigms and extrapolate them literally and more than exponentially to 100 billion star systems.
We cannot see a different future than to act like irresponsible locust that will mine every rock and planetoid and world as if there is no tomorrow.
No. This cannot be. Eccentric? Perhaps, but should it be that? No. This should be a logical and reasonable opinion in a world gone mad with commercialism. We need to bring spirit back into nature and own up to our responsibility as the one species out of the Earth gene swarm that has been somehow selected to carry the flag for our world with our self-aware consciousness to others.
As we bring the Olympic flame to space, I suggest we first learn how to be in this world before we even dare dream of space exploration...or exploitation.
Any species on any world should only reach for the stars when they can do so as a planet, with all genomes and live in harmony with their world of origin.
For me, Klaatu was a hero, not a tyrant from the stars to wipe out the human race because we disrespected the life on our world. Klaatu was quite right. How rare life could be, and what do we do to it?
As a species we are utterly clueless of 'how to be in the world'. We have no understanding of what life is, what it is for nor do we respect the incredible opportunity that we have been given each of us individually to exist as a self-aware being in the cosmos, in reality itself. We take it for granted, because science tells us we are merely the product of the coincidence that life evolved on this not too special rock around a not to remarkable star, that nature is dead and all there is matter, to exploit into consumable products.
Should all the cosmos be a playpen or framework for materialism and capitalism and such notions? Should a man standing on the shore of an alien world watching a sunrise measure it along the paradigm of commercialism? Is that the destiny of the human species? Go forth, thy self aware ape of Earth and exploit?
No thanks. I rather see our world and us destroyed than that we should bring that way of life to the stars. Because the implications are mind boggling, that we should reach a world and live there like we live here and destroy it in the same way as we do ours now.
For me technology may never exceed our moral understanding and responsibility: I couple technology to our moral aptitude. Your analogy could not occur in my ideal world.
To rip up anything in order to take off is what is destroying our Earth already. It is because we have entered into an age after Descartes (and others) of a paradigm in where nature is stripped of its spiritual aspect, of its 'secondary qualities' into pure matter that we can carelessly exploit. Science lies in bed with capitalism and that is a mistake of gigantic proportions. It has taught us that we can rip anything from the Earth, from its surface and from below the ground to make gadgets of any and all kinds to satisfy pure materialistic needs through the use of capitalist market based economical theories.
If mankind ever launches into space we should not make a mad dash forward, ripping up what is left in an attempt to reach other worlds where we can make the same mistake. We should first learn to limit our conduct on Earth to more ecological principles and take responsibility for our world first before we attack others.
And when we then leave this Earth, our Mother, we take everything with us. We do not just self-select us from the gene-swarm that is the ecological Anima Mundi of World Soul and reach for another star. We take all of the wolrd's soul, all genomes, not just our own.
And we do not kill of the ecological soul of another world, but we terraform barren places. And there we release the Earth ecology so that we can create a new living world.
What games like Elite do is take current capitalist, market based paradigms and extrapolate them literally and more than exponentially to 100 billion star systems.
We cannot see a different future than to act like irresponsible locust that will mine every rock and planetoid and world as if there is no tomorrow.
No. This cannot be. Eccentric? Perhaps, but should it be that? No. This should be a logical and reasonable opinion in a world gone mad with commercialism. We need to bring spirit back into nature and own up to our responsibility as the one species out of the Earth gene swarm that has been somehow selected to carry the flag for our world with our self-aware consciousness to others.
As we bring the Olympic flame to space, I suggest we first learn how to be in this world before we even dare dream of space exploration...or exploitation.
Any species on any world should only reach for the stars when they can do so as a planet, with all genomes and live in harmony with their world of origin.
For me, Klaatu was a hero, not a tyrant from the stars to wipe out the human race because we disrespected the life on our world. Klaatu was quite right. How rare life could be, and what do we do to it?
As a species we are utterly clueless of 'how to be in the world'. We have no understanding of what life is, what it is for nor do we respect the incredible opportunity that we have been given each of us individually to exist as a self-aware being in the cosmos, in reality itself. We take it for granted, because science tells us we are merely the product of the coincidence that life evolved on this not too special rock around a not to remarkable star, that nature is dead and all there is matter, to exploit into consumable products.
Should all the cosmos be a playpen or framework for materialism and capitalism and such notions? Should a man standing on the shore of an alien world watching a sunrise measure it along the paradigm of commercialism? Is that the destiny of the human species? Go forth, thy self aware ape of Earth and exploit?
No thanks. I rather see our world and us destroyed than that we should bring that way of life to the stars. Because the implications are mind boggling, that we should reach a world and live there like we live here and destroy it in the same way as we do ours now.
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OK, I'll bite. What is "spiritual"?
I think I already know the conversation will not go far, given your ideological dislike of science.
I have no dislike of science. Somehow it is 'bad' to dislike science? Because the argument usually is that science brought us so many good things, like an easy life, medicine, the whole Maslow pyramid is pretty much satisfiable, if you work hard in the economy.
But I am technorealistic, much more so than most other people I see. Technorealims provides for me a system of analysis in which I can weigh the merits of technology versus the downsides of it.
Most people seem to lack any historical perception on how we got where we are now. That is why I mention Descartes. I won't go into that much further, we can all find wikipedia.
Science today is bereft of any notion that nature is alive. Science studies matter in all shapes and forms, but does not acknowledge there is a consciousness within it. Nature people, who are animists, believe that.
But it is not about necessarily believing in it. It can be used as a model for how to be in the world, you see? If you bestow these qualities upon a tree, that it is alive, has a destiny, a role to fulfill, a relationship with the trees around it and the animals that find shelter on its branches, what you basically do is limit yourself in the way in which you deal with that tree.
It is harder to carelessly cut it down because 'it is in the way' as we are building a road through that spot, or need to get to the precious ores under its roots.
So it provides a moral framework. Science is not bad, but it has been abused under capitalist systems, market theories based on exploitation of all natural resources to provide us with things that we believe will make us live happier lives.
Science wasn't always like that you know. You go back to the time of Plato and the great philosophers of that time and you will find they did not specialize but had strengths in many fields of study and they wrote poetry and busied themselves with politics..basically...they studied 'how to be in the world'.
Science gets a free ride every time because it provides us with gagets that make life easy. The argument is often quite stupid:' you cannot take a painkiller if you criticize science'. The argument of hypocrisy, that if you dare speak against science, you shgould not use any of it.
But the fact is, we are born into this lifestyle and though we try to move to a greener lifestyle, we fall short tremendously because we live within this model and perspective that does not give answers to that question: how to be in the world.
Why are you here on Earth as John Stabler? Are you merely a tax paying consumer/worker? Were you born to have a good time? At the end of your life on your deathbed, what is it that you look back on that you could be proud of? You consumed a pile of junk that when displayed in the front yard would make you weep? You were nice to your friends and family? You finished many great projects at work?
What in the end did you leave behind or what did you help perpetuate? What use did you really make of your consciousness?
To me the answer would be that I enjoyed many sunsets and sunrises, I watched the stars and wondered. I reflected upon my self-awareness, I loved my girlfriend deeply, I'd have striven to do right by my fellow human being. I would leave this world and move onto what lies behind the gates of death in the assurance that I did not help to diminish this glory world further down the slippery slope to climate change and species extinction.
All a man needs is to look at nature to find peace and meaning. I do not find it in my junk, not in Elite style games, though they are fun to play. And better I play these than to live in a cosmos of mercantilism gone overdrive.
Do we need to satisfy every need of the Maslow pyramid? The top of it, the first two or three should be our focus, not the bottom two. Self-realization, recognition and appreciation can be had without buying matter in a shop, molded into some form by the forces of machines and electrical power.
We need to produce less junk and sacrifice less for these bottom securities. And we need to focus on the fact that a sunrise, a walk in a forest can bring as much, if not more joy than a new cell phone or a plasma tv.
Science is fine, but it needs to be on a leach. Science is not neutral to our lives and the world, it does not give us satisfaction in the top range of Maslow's pyramid. These are empty notions. All science does is throw a stick into the hen's coop, causing turmoil and confusion and then sits back excusing itself as the hens try to find out among themselves how to deal with the stick. Whether it is a nuclear weapon or a medicine makes no difference.
We tell ourselves we cannot oppose or limit science because one day maybe this research will benefit us in some way - and usually we mean a new fancy product or something that satisfies the lowest steps on Maslow's pyramid.
We humans need guidance, models we can use to answer the question of 'how to be in the world'. Put spirit back in nature and in science. And spirit can be an animistic view on reality, a solipsist view or something like deep ecology. Anything is better than current paradigms.
So if you like science, you should set it free and agree with me rather than those who stand behind the idea that nature is dead, has no soul and would cheerfully go on destroying it because economy and labour are more important than anything else.
But I am technorealistic, much more so than most other people I see. Technorealims provides for me a system of analysis in which I can weigh the merits of technology versus the downsides of it.
Most people seem to lack any historical perception on how we got where we are now. That is why I mention Descartes. I won't go into that much further, we can all find wikipedia.
Science today is bereft of any notion that nature is alive. Science studies matter in all shapes and forms, but does not acknowledge there is a consciousness within it. Nature people, who are animists, believe that.
But it is not about necessarily believing in it. It can be used as a model for how to be in the world, you see? If you bestow these qualities upon a tree, that it is alive, has a destiny, a role to fulfill, a relationship with the trees around it and the animals that find shelter on its branches, what you basically do is limit yourself in the way in which you deal with that tree.
It is harder to carelessly cut it down because 'it is in the way' as we are building a road through that spot, or need to get to the precious ores under its roots.
So it provides a moral framework. Science is not bad, but it has been abused under capitalist systems, market theories based on exploitation of all natural resources to provide us with things that we believe will make us live happier lives.
Science wasn't always like that you know. You go back to the time of Plato and the great philosophers of that time and you will find they did not specialize but had strengths in many fields of study and they wrote poetry and busied themselves with politics..basically...they studied 'how to be in the world'.
Science gets a free ride every time because it provides us with gagets that make life easy. The argument is often quite stupid:' you cannot take a painkiller if you criticize science'. The argument of hypocrisy, that if you dare speak against science, you shgould not use any of it.
But the fact is, we are born into this lifestyle and though we try to move to a greener lifestyle, we fall short tremendously because we live within this model and perspective that does not give answers to that question: how to be in the world.
Why are you here on Earth as John Stabler? Are you merely a tax paying consumer/worker? Were you born to have a good time? At the end of your life on your deathbed, what is it that you look back on that you could be proud of? You consumed a pile of junk that when displayed in the front yard would make you weep? You were nice to your friends and family? You finished many great projects at work?
What in the end did you leave behind or what did you help perpetuate? What use did you really make of your consciousness?
To me the answer would be that I enjoyed many sunsets and sunrises, I watched the stars and wondered. I reflected upon my self-awareness, I loved my girlfriend deeply, I'd have striven to do right by my fellow human being. I would leave this world and move onto what lies behind the gates of death in the assurance that I did not help to diminish this glory world further down the slippery slope to climate change and species extinction.
All a man needs is to look at nature to find peace and meaning. I do not find it in my junk, not in Elite style games, though they are fun to play. And better I play these than to live in a cosmos of mercantilism gone overdrive.
Do we need to satisfy every need of the Maslow pyramid? The top of it, the first two or three should be our focus, not the bottom two. Self-realization, recognition and appreciation can be had without buying matter in a shop, molded into some form by the forces of machines and electrical power.
We need to produce less junk and sacrifice less for these bottom securities. And we need to focus on the fact that a sunrise, a walk in a forest can bring as much, if not more joy than a new cell phone or a plasma tv.
Science is fine, but it needs to be on a leach. Science is not neutral to our lives and the world, it does not give us satisfaction in the top range of Maslow's pyramid. These are empty notions. All science does is throw a stick into the hen's coop, causing turmoil and confusion and then sits back excusing itself as the hens try to find out among themselves how to deal with the stick. Whether it is a nuclear weapon or a medicine makes no difference.
We tell ourselves we cannot oppose or limit science because one day maybe this research will benefit us in some way - and usually we mean a new fancy product or something that satisfies the lowest steps on Maslow's pyramid.
We humans need guidance, models we can use to answer the question of 'how to be in the world'. Put spirit back in nature and in science. And spirit can be an animistic view on reality, a solipsist view or something like deep ecology. Anything is better than current paradigms.
So if you like science, you should set it free and agree with me rather than those who stand behind the idea that nature is dead, has no soul and would cheerfully go on destroying it because economy and labour are more important than anything else.
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Anyway: after reading the WHOLE article it doesn't sound so negative to me. If you include the feedback from the guys who want to make it a business (So I expect them to know more about it than one single scientist). To me it seems that only the known 1 percent of rocks already contain enough material for a worhtwhile businesscase. To me that can only grow with knowing where the rest of the 99% can be found.
Also the fact that Water-Ice can be mined for future rocketfuel is not mentioned here. So that would add a whole new business appliance.
Man must explore and expand it's sources for resources or we are forever bound to our cradle.
Also the fact that Water-Ice can be mined for future rocketfuel is not mentioned here. So that would add a whole new business appliance.
Man must explore and expand it's sources for resources or we are forever bound to our cradle.