[ExI] Mining the Sky SL Talk I gave today

[Adrian Tymes]

--- On Tue, 4/27/10, samantha <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > The goal is that whoever funds the rest will agree,
> "We
> > believe that W amount of X can be sold for $Y, which
> is
> > greater than the $Z this costs, and we believe that
> we
> > can obtain at least W amount of X from this specific
> > asteroid."  This step may have to be preformed
> > pre-funding; fortunately, it is also something NASA
> is
> > capable of doing, if they can be talked into
> sponsoring
> > this step (see Centennial Challenge suggestion).
> > Expected cost: less than one million USD. 
> (Satellite
> > telescopes have run from tens of millions to billions
> > of USD, but this can use existing hardware without
> > buying new, and may be doable with far cheaper ground
> > telescopes.)
> 
> What is reasonable?

Whatever's demanded by the people who'll fund the rest.
Of course the data is needed in and of itself, but if
you're looking for a specific minimum level of certainty
to get to, that's it.

> I ran across a
> "Mining the Sky" ppt that was interesting in that it gave a
> lot of information about data mining the information already
> gathered from various sources.  It is here:

Missing link.

> Well, I disagree with your step 2.

Fair enough.  There's ample room for other plans, and there's
certainly a valid case for using fuel gathered on site.  But
one has to decide on a plan before one can cost it out.  ;)

If you manage to get into that AIAA meeting to give your
presentation, you might want to list both plans, partly to
note there are alternatives (they may be tired of people
pitching their own One True Way) - even though both
alternatives are "mine the asteroids", a significant jump
from the status quo.

> > 3. Processing.  Design, build, and launch
> Any hollowed meteor (except the mushier slush balls) will
> do for rad hardened storage / habitat and possible reentry
> ablation.  Stone seems as good as iron for the outer
> shell.  L4/L5 may not be the immediate target as we
> need this material much closer to earth for building out
> space infrastructure around the planet.

I just suggested L4/L5 as a parking orbit for stage 2, to
reduce the panic from those convinced the asteroid will hit
Earth.  Also, a big, unprocessed ball of rock might cause
problems for other satellites (in terms of particles shed)
if stored in GEO or lower.  Eventually, the material does
indeed come to a lower orbit.

> The costs is too mushy of course.  With what kind of
> launch?  Putting up what kinds and how much
> material?  What sorts of trained personnel?

Problem is, to get absolutely precise figures on that
will require doing a fair bit of the engineering - which
will require money.  It is said that Boeing doesn't
actually know how much an individual 777 costs to
produce, because they've never bothered to spend the
money to figure it out to that level.

> Why would you drop a heavy rock into the ocean?  Why
> not in remote desert or some such where it at least will not
> sink?

That works too, if you can secure an area of desert large
enough.  (Large areas might be easier to temporarily secure at
sea than on land.)  The point is just to do it far from an
inhabited area.

> Why only platinum or precious metals? 
> Thousands of tons of high grade iron and nickel is also a
> substantial commodity.

Platinum first, because that has the best selling price.
(Which material you make a meteor of, is unlikely to
substantially affect the cost of getting it down to Earth,
recovering it, and selling it - unless you find radioactives
or other substances that require special handling.)

But if the cost proves to be low enough (as measured by the
first few recoveries) that the iron and nickel can be
recovered profitably, then sure.  More funding to go recover
more asteroids, so there's even more iron and nickel
available in space to make stuff with.