The Mining of Asteroids is Beginning

[MHz]

No....

"Among the goodies to be found on near-earth asteroids are much-sought-after platinum, iron, nickel and sulfur as well as more obscure minerals that make excellent semi-conductors.

The equipment could also harvest water, which scientists believe holds the key to building propellants that will allow deep space exploration."

The purpose of mining to bring things back to earth is mineral mining. Water mining is to extend their travels further into space. in other words... they're not willing to start out across the desert until they have some oases to stop at

I didn't hear anything about a return trip from deep space. What would be a suitable size, 2 miles? Can you build something that will not tear itself apart while accelerating and breaking?

The heavy things are going to be gently lowered, right? The moon says that doesn't always happen. Wouldn't we have a better chance in using our existing energy supply to dig into this earth and exploit it as far as possible. Ie tap the heat from the lava under Yellowstone that not only powers North America it also cools it just enough that the explosion is averted

If you took enough of it away, you would change its mass and would likely change how it reacts to gravatational fields. I am not sure how much you would have to take to have a significant effect.

There is also the pushing in the opposite direction each and every time you land or leave the place

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Somebody better check the math, it cost $1B to provide security for a two week gathering in Toronto this century, prices are not falling either.
I have to admit a hho rocket is the way to go and helium might be the way to get some of the heavy air out of the way during lift-off and descent

The idea of using the moon for something is exciting. Wouldn't fiber optics work there because of the no atmosphere thing and a magnifying glass should be able to melt rock as it has a base temp that id very high already. Having light travel down a tube filled with mineral oil might filter out just enough stuff that tanning and green plants could be grown once the sunlight exits the fiber optics. That means natural caves would be the first places to be settled in rather than bring your own city. With 1/6 the gravity building a steel spring rock thrower might be the best way of transporting raw material, a 10 mile toss is the junior design when using 2 tons as the payload. The hard crash would help in the 'crushing sequence'. Be interestinto know the material composition of the great bulge compared to the back side surface material. Iron and such should be on the near side as that is what would have responded to earths graviry way back when the moon was molten. That may mean that as tou descent into the core of the moon the temp should get warmer and two miles down it is t-shirt warm and the fiber optics stills gives greenhouse type of light. Water should be on the far side as it is in the lighter range and the moon could not hold water in its natural forms of gas or liquid but mixed with dust and rock it is stable and needs heating in a closed vessel to be a renewable resource. 2 miles down is the energy free melting pot. Perhaps tourism if there happens to be lots caves that are available, having to drill it down would mean the earth is no longer stable.

The Moon is great, it has water and helium 3 in abundance because in space you need lots of energy to survive and do things like grow food. Building there is a matter of learning new techniques because the gravity is so much less, it could be easier in some ways than on Earth. People could live underground in space too, although that seems a bit dull, because the view would be awesome.

Space is the greatest construction project ever.

Space seems like the penny that doubles, at first it doesn't add up to much in the first week, but by day 30 you have $11 million. Flight only started 100 years ago.