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

Recent IEEE Spectrum article on Asteroid Mining

[orac2]

I'm some shameless self promotion, /. reader's may be interested to read this article by Mark Ingebretson in August's issue IEEE Spectrum on the topic - he talks about how water, not metal, is the most likely first choice for a mining economy.

Don't forget about energy

[Walter Bell]

One of my co-workers was telling me that NASA is also actively researching the possible drilling for petroleum on other planets (Mercury comes to mind, IIRC). He said that there are a lot of ways that "fossil" fuels could have been generated on other planets through chemical reactions between the soil and the atmosphere and the responsible research group would like send a few probes out in the coming years to investigate the possibility.

Although an incentive for continued reliance on petroleum is a Bad Thing(tm) for the environment, alternative energy research, and noise, it is nice to see that there may be a breakthrough that helps ease our pain when we run out of oil on Earth.

~wally

comets

[Alien54]

If they're going to go as far as start mining on Mars, then why not just colonize it and start up some industry and communities there?

I suspect that more resources are going to be needed. And a bit of terraforming to make it much more sustainable. You want to be able to have the thing last on it's own, sustain itself and grow.

This gets into things like altering the paths of comets so that they crash into Mars depositing all kinds of extra water into the place. But that raises all kinds of questions. For example there is this old debate on if the earth is being constantly pelted on by mini-comets. If this is happening on Earthe, what is going on at mars?

All kinds of things to talk about.

Re:mine WHAT?

[SirSlud]

> Space travel costs are in the billions of dollars per ton

Isn't that because of takeoff? Once you get something going in space (ie, out of gravities way), it's cheaper to move shit in space than on earth. Basically, you get to stop paying tariffs to our good friends friction and air resistance.

I suppose once you start saying that you're going to mine the galaxy, you've already got some sort of low-cost method of escaping earths atmosphere, a la space elevator, or maybe even anti-gravity.

Anyone here read James Blish's City in the Stars? (I think thats what it was called)

The Rape of the Moon

[EccentricAnomaly]

"On the Moon, we want to look at those lunar polar regions, where there may be hydrogen concentrations...water ice, perhaps"

Water is far more valuable for being water than for being a source of hydrogen. Mining the ice on the moon for propellant is stupid and short-sighted. The moon has very little water and that water will be needed to support eventual human colonies on the moon.

There is a real danger that missions to the moon in the near future will use the water ice to make propellant and lower their cost. I don't think that wasting this water is a good idea... the Moon is the only water source near Earth that won't cost you hefty launch costs. This lunar water will be valuable to lunar colonies as well as colonies on asteroids and in orbit around the Earth as it will be much easier to get than water from Earth or Mars.