NASA On Mining Extraterrestrial Sources

FortKnox writes "Looks like something from the game "Homeworld", but NASA discusses mining ore from planets/asteroids or any other source of "Cosmic Dirt"." I remember debating this idea in high school debate - it's a wonderful idea.

Comments

Where's My 'Ore?

[StaticEngine]

That's good thinking on NASA's part, because after being cooped up in a spaceship on a multi-month trip to Mars, I'd be in a mood for a few hours with any 'ore I could find.

Ba Dum Bum.

Birth of the Orbital Railgun...

[Bonker]

...Or any other of a hundred disasters waiting to happen.

One of the big, big problems I see with interplanetary mining is the inherent possibilities for danger in the celestial shipment process.

Say you mine an Iron-rich asteroid, and then send the packets of ore back home to earth via a cheap, long-trajectory orbit. How easy would it be to hijack huge chunks of ore from their trajectories and then fire them at the enemy of your choice on the planet with the aid of a rail gun.

I'm not a engineer, but I've seen enough 'build your own railgun' pages out there to know that it would be fairly easy and cheap for any given interplanetary free-lancer to build such a weapon in orbit.

There is also a high probability of space accidents. With all that ore just floating around, someone is bound to hit it sooner or later. Worse, suppose that the mining activities send large-enough chunks of poorly aimed metal-rich debris toward earth? Worse, suppose mining activities affect the orbit of certain Near-Earth Asteroids.

Asteroid and Planetary mining is a very good thing, because it will help save the Earth's environment, provide massive amounts of employment and wealth on Earth. Unfortuneately, there are very serious risks that should be addressed before mining begins.