Is Space Mining Feasible?

Roland Piquepaille writes "There is a large amount of precious minerals on the Moon and Mars. Would it be feasible to bring these valuable materials back on Earth? Space.com says that mining specialists and space engineers, who gathered at the latest Space Resources Roundtable, think the answer is yes. But there are many issues to solve. The first one is to build a permanent base. Then, you have to live on space resources. The article looks at other issues, such as strategic and economic potentials, before examining legal concerns about working conditions and extraterrestrial resource ownership. As the article says about lawyers, it 'turns out you can't leave Earth without them.' This summary contains more details and a rendering of a possible commercial Lunar base."

Comments

hurray!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who ever said we needed to go to have people? It seems with todays advancements in robitics it would be much more effecient to have robots controled by humans down on earth to set about the task of space mining. You also eliminate a large amount of problems with staining life outside of our atmosphere.

Food for thought...

Another shot in the arm?

[Coyote67]

Maybe this will be the final push thats needed to get Nasa the funding it needs. I may be alone in thinking this, but I believe that Nasa is solely responsible for America being where it is today. Think about how many innovations came out of the space program. What Nasa does today fuels the industries of tomorrow.
Or maybe I'm just asking to be modded as offtopic.

Re:Another shot in the arm?

[kippy]

NASA needs direction not funding change. They were able to get us to the moon since we set a clear atainable but chalenging goal. The budget was only about 10% more in todays dollars to do that. If we redirected NASA's efforts to establishing a Mars exploration and setelment program, we could easily do it. we are in a better position today to go to Mars then we were in the 60's to go to the Moon.

The payoff isn't just Mars or access to the astroid belt. It's a generation of people inspired to persue careers in science and technology that will advance the human race to new levels of existance.

No

[plj]

Would it be feasible to carry minerals by aeroplanes? No, it wouldn't, unless they're extremely valuable minerals.

Much less it's feasible to carry them from space, as space travelling is yet much more expensive than flying.

Re:No

[Carnildo]

Once you get off the Earth, space travel is much cheaper than flying. Getting off the Earth takes high-power, politically-correct, inefficient engines firing over short periods of time. Shipping a million tons of iron from an asteroid to the Moon or to Earth orbit can use a slow, energy-efficient engine such as a solar sail, ion drive, or VASIMR engine. Moving personnel from place to place can be done using a politically-inexpedient, high-power method such as a nuclear-thermal engine -- since it's "not in my backyard", there'll be far fewer people blindly reacting to the word "nuclear".

Re:Feasible?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article, or even the slashdot blurb, it's talking about making a PROFIT in space, not spending billions and billions into a blackhole.

After the investors make profit in space, nothing says they won't make donations about AIDS, famine, crime, erosion, etc.

Clearly your troll of for another thread, not this one!

Re:Isn't limited availibility what makes it valuab

[susano_otter]

I imagine the cost of getting the materials safely to Earth, where they can compete with local sources, would do a lot to offset the savings generated by the sudden surplus of such minerals.

I further imagine that the value of these space minerals will be based on the new things they allow us to do: manufacture things in space. That is, their value will be based on the demand for space-built items (stations, mining facilities, moonbases, city-ships, &c.). So long as these space-built items remain desireable, demand will remain high, even as scarcity is reduced in space the same way it's been reduced on earth.

Re:new triangle trade

[The_Steel_General]

I was going to make the comment that Earth doesn't necessarily need all that much metal. Then I realized that, if it's cheap enough, it will make its own market. (Although with current cost-to-orbit, it's probably worth more in space than on earth.)

I'm not sure I like the idea, though, of having speculation in Martian land at this point. Ownership, sure -- by homesteaders taking possession, with a limit on acres per homesteader. Yes, I know that Earth will be ill-equipped to handle any land disputes between folks on Mars...on the other hand, the homesteaders will be ill-equipped to defend any large areas, as well. All the more reason not to have the Full Faith, Credit and Arsenal of any or all countries committed to their defense.

Hmmm...which probably means that the ownership issue, isn't: Anyone that's not on Earth can basically say "You want to stop us taking posession, come up and take it back." Although it does still make financing a problem, unless investors can be convinced that profits can be generated even if the "estate" isn't "real."

TSG

Space mining

[RayBender]

The moon could be made out of cocaine and it wouldn't make economic sense to go get it. At current prices, it's $20,000 to get a kilogram of mass into Earth orbit. You're talking hundreds of billions in investment to get a mining colony in the astroid belt. Taking the Apollo missions as a starting point, and saying you could be 100 times more efficient, it's still $100,000/kg material returned.

The materials (iron, rare earths, iridium, nickel) that you could bring back simply do not command prices high enough to make it worthwhile - they're in the few dollars to few hundred dollars/kg range.

This might change IF someone invented fusion that worked, and required He3. Then it might be worth it. Don't call me until that happens... and don't hold your breath, either.

Re:Space mining

[RayBender]

Who said anything about current prices? If/when a space elevator is built, which isn't to far off, launch prices will plummet, fuel requirements to reach other parts of the solar system will be greatly reduced, bringing cargo/people down from orbit will be infinitly safer, and the technologies that will be developed once space access is cheap will only improve all of these factors.

I wish I still had my youthful enthusiasm, but having seen Mir re-enter, the Concorde retired, the Shuttle explode twice, and the level of apathy in the American public, I just don't see it happening. Sorry.

A space elevator ("beanstalk") is very far off, regardless of the hype. Even if they could make carbon nanotube strands longer than 10 microns, and even if they could braid them in a fashion where they wouldn't slip, they'd still have to launch a few thousand tons worth of stuff into geosynch orbit. And then they'd have to figure out how to avoid getting the tether cut by space debris... If I see it in my lifetime I'll die a happy man.

Look, space mining and space development in general is a great idea. It just won't happen - there is too much of a chicken-and-egg problem. Someday maybe, when we need He3 and we've figured out how to make a good tether, and we've found a high specific-impulse engine, then perhaps it'll happen. But like I said, don't hold your breath.

Minerals are heavy, people

[popo]

The value-per-pound of minerals (even gold) exceeds the cost-of-launch-transport-and-reentry-per-pound.

Or in formulaic terms (V/W) > (CLTR/W)
(where W is weight)

Thus we have the inherent problem of space mining.

Basically the problem is that 'gold' is either too heavy, or not valuable enough -- depending on how you look at it.

However... if we were talking about 'spice' from Arrakis, or 'gold pressed latinum'... or 'Droids' even... then the whole space trading would totally make sense.

(of course)

Re:The UN has laws regarding outer space

[ID_Roamer]

UN? Legally Bound? Give me a break. The only "binds" on those treaties is peer pressure from other countries. Treaties are pieces of paper with flowery words on them unless someone is willing to enforce them. Trust me, as soon as a country figures out how to make a significant amount of money by owning space resources, those words will go right out the window. International Law is a nice phrase that makes people feel good, and it is useful for settling things that people are willing to fight over, but if push came to shove, someone will force private property rights on space objects no matter how much the UN kicked and screamed.