Space Mining

[CarlManvers2019]

Video itself is only a smidgen under thirty minutes, and they're always entertaining and informative when they come from this guy.

Isaac Arthur unlike his associate Kursenatz’ not into insane idealogue stuff as I recall

Though he said he would keep his negative opinions on colleges to himself, but thinks things would be better with online classes and trade schools and less taxation to fund said public/university-education which is inadequate or wasteful and too much time & money spent

 

[Arch Dornan]

So what wouldn’t be generous?

Payment for all those expenses researching and producing the technology they don't own that can be negotiated.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Payment for all those expenses researching and producing the technology they don't own that can be negotiated.

So the US sells to other nations the tech to move into space and use its resources also?

 

[Arch Dornan]

So the US sells to other nations the tech to move into space and use its resources also?

At their own terms when eventually any moderately rich country can do it on their own.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

At their own terms when eventually any moderately rich country can do it on their own.

Globalism returns

 

[Arch Dornan]

Globalism returns

They at least get returns for all the money spent on space.

 

[Flintsteel]

Heeeh, maybe Rufus will be so desperate for validation, he joins this forum.

I like the idea, but holy shit, we do not have the tech to make this viable, never mind sustainable.*

*Barring classified tech that Trump knows about that we don't, which is a a big "if".

Neither did the technology to go to the Moon when Kennedy pointed there and told NASA "Go." They made it on the way. You advance by trying to do something you cannot, until suddenly you can.

Titanium.

Turning lunar regolith into titanium forms is easy and resource cheap. Imagine replacing all steel I-Beams with titanium. Because you could actually form them on the moon and ship them to earth cheaper than it currently costs on Earth to produce and ship steel I-beams. The same for replacing steel plates with titanium plates.

As someone with a background in civil engineering, I find the idea of titanium replacing steel in a lot of construction dubious, at best. Titanium has a great strength-to-weight ratio, but the weight of structural elements is not a huge concern in buildings. Plus, as steel is stronger by volume than titanium, you would need physically larger members if using titanium.

I could certainly see cheap titanium being used in cars and ships (where its corrosion resistance would be a significant advantage), but in buildings that sit still? Not so much.

 

[Bacle]

Neither did the technology to go to the Moon when Kennedy pointed there and told NASA "Go." They made it on the way. You advance by trying to do something you cannot, until suddenly you can.



As someone with a background in civil engineering, I find the idea of titanium replacing steel in a lot of construction dubious, at best. Titanium has a great strength-to-weight ratio, but the weight of structural elements is not a huge concern in buildings. Plus, as steel is stronger by volume than titanium, you would need physically larger members if using titanium.

I could certainly see cheap titanium being used in cars and ships (where its corrosion resistance would be a significant advantage), but in buildings that sit still? Not so much.

We got to start stockpiling Titanium to make Titanium-A battleplate for when the Covie's show up./s

Personally, I think the US needs to start looking beyond Luna and Mars for exo-planetary territory. Need to claim the whole Saturn and Jupiter moon systems before anyone else does.

Though we should nuke Pheobe till it breaks up and fall into the gas giant. That bitch is an extra-solar object that got captured, and I'd prefer not to end up with blue goo everywhere.

 

[Duke Nukem]

We got to start stockpiling Titanium to make Titanium-A battleplate for when the Covie's show up./s

Personally, I think the US needs to start looking beyond Luna and Mars for exo-planetary territory. Need to claim the whole Saturn and Jupiter moon systems before anyone else does.

Though we should nuke Pheobe till it breaks up and fall into the gas giant. That bitch is an extra-solar object that got captured, and I'd prefer not to end up with blue goo everywhere.

Yeah Europa is very promising along with Titan which has a shit ton of natural gas but that would probably be redundant by the time we had the ability to extract it.

 

[Bacle]

Yeah Europa is very promising along with Titan which has a shit ton of natural gas but that would probably be redundant by the time we had the ability to extract it.

Those hydrocarbons on Titan would make good fertilizer and plastic manufacturing feed-stock.

Europa I think we keep isolated and untouched till we can figure out if those oceans under the ice host life. Preserve it for scientific research and to keep it's possible biosphere intact. Same with Euceledous and other possibly life-bearing moons.

 

[LordsFire]

It's all about the threshold of cost to return. Once a certain threshold is crossed where a definite profit is possible, you'll start seeing a snowball effect, as more and more successful businesses starts creating economy of scale, more investment in further technological development, etc.

In the mean time, the fact that space is really cool drives a fair bit of R&D expenditure, the demand for satellites and etc most of the rest.

Interestingly, as a political and economic reality, given how China & the EU's economies are looking to implode because of the Coronavirus, the US is extremely unlikely to see any kind of competition any time soon.

The UK, Australians, and Japanese are the only others I can think of with any real likelihood of having meaningful space-lift development in the next few decades, and they'd all do it in cooperation with the US anyways.

There's always the question of what the Russians, as the only other established nation with real space capability, will do, but they're a waning power anyways. It's very unlikely they'll decide to try to upset everything and risk being completely wrecked for their trouble.

 

[Arch Dornan]

What a shame we won't be alive to see it happen by then.

 

[Lanmandragon]

They can stop the US from sending more missions to outer space and back

Send officials, declare NASA to be unsafe and bigoted, try influencing any corporations associated with NASA and the USA to stop it

Umm what no. If and when we decide to colonize the moon. The UN will remain the joke they've always been. While the SJW crowd who your talking about will be ignored. In the pursuit of profit just like now sjws and such certainly have nfluence but far less then your giving them here.

 

[Doomsought]

I've long stated that as soon as space mining is financially possible, the outer-space treaty would get reneged upon. Squatters rights will be what really governs it.

 

[Arch Dornan]

I've long stated that as soon as space mining is financially possible, the outer-space treaty would get reneged upon. Squatters rights will be what really governs it.

I can believe it. Tis the nature of countries to reconsider when they have all the cards.

 

[Sailor.X]

I am concerned about how mass mining of the moon will affect the gravity dynamic between the Earth and the Moon. I mean the moon while large is not Earth sized. We don't know how taking material from it and bringing it to Earth will work out in the long run. This needs more study.

 

[Doomsought]

I am concerned about how mass mining of the moon will affect the gravity dynamic between the Earth and the Moon. I mean the moon while large is not Earth sized. We don't know how taking material from it and bringing it to Earth will work out in the long run. This needs more study.

If we are acting on a big enough of a scale that it is possible for that to be a problem, then it not a problem. The energy threshold you are talking about is immense. You are literally talking about moving planetary masses around the solar system, and the amount of energy need to do that isn't any smaller if you do it piecemeal or all in one go.

 

[Bacle]

I am concerned about how mass mining of the moon will affect the gravity dynamic between the Earth and the Moon. I mean the moon while large is not Earth sized. We don't know how taking material from it and bringing it to Earth will work out in the long run. This needs more study.

That's a damn good point.

We do not want to cause the moons orbit to shift. Building things on the moon using materials from there is probably safe, but shipping it off or adding a lot might have unforeseen consequence for it's orbital path relative to Earth.

 

[TriforcedLink]

I honestly think we'll start out using the moon as a starting base to mine and plan further expeditions out. Though if we're talking about mining that will not put an impact on any planets we want to start colonies on, I think we'll use the floating space debris that is the asteroid field eventually.

And god knows how many floating rocks that have no gravity influencing them are waiting outside our tiny pocket just waiting to be cracked open.

 

[Scottty]

That's a damn good point.

We do not want to cause the moons orbit to shift. Building things on the moon using materials from there is probably safe, but shipping it off or adding a lot might have unforeseen consequence for it's orbital path relative to Earth.

The amount you would have to remove to make any serious difference would be... astronomical.

I honestly think we'll start out using the moon as a starting base to mine and plan further expeditions out. Though if we're talking about mining that will not put an impact on any planets we want to start colonies on, I think we'll use the floating space debris that is the asteroid field eventually.

And god knows how many floating rocks that have no gravity influencing them are waiting outside our tiny pocket just waiting to be cracked open.

Fact check - all of them have gravity influencing them. All of them. Nothing in space is "floating" - they are all in free-fall. Asteroids in the solar system are orbiting the sun.