Asteroid mining

[rlingford]

Hi all,

 

Not sure if this has been discussed before or not, but what are your thoughts around the future of asteroid mining for metals, and how it will effect prices of PMs?

Although we are still years away, I think it is likely that asteroid mining will be starting within some of our lifetimes. This potential for an influx of all metals, including gold and silver, could tank the price of the physical assets. 

I would like to hear some other opinions and thoughts around the whole topic though, as it is something that is on my mind!

[HerefordBullyun]

57 minutes ago, rlingford said:

Hi all,

 

Not sure if this has been discussed before or not, but what are your thoughts around the future of asteroid mining for metals, and how it will effect prices of PMs?

Although we are still years away, I think it is likely that asteroid mining will be starting within some of our lifetimes. This potential for an influx of all metals, including gold and silver, could tank the price of the physical assets. 

I would like to hear some other opinions and thoughts around the whole topic though, as it is something that is on my mind!

I reckon musk must be considering it. Its got to be on his old jeffs bezos radar. Maybe hes looking at robots doing it on Mars,

Edited January 3, 2022 by HerefordBullyun

[Mrpound]

Watch Don’t look up ☝️ On Netflix, also is a piss take on how the world has become

[HerefordBullyun]

3 minutes ago, Mrpound said:

Watch Don’t look up ☝️ On Netflix, also is a piss take on how the world has become

Well I am looking for a robot with flat head so I can put my pint on it when its served me it cold and maybe give me complimentary blowjobs on a whim and they dont nag. Im sure theres going to be market for it.

Edited January 3, 2022 by HerefordBullyun

[Oddjob]

21 minutes ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Well I am looking for a robot with flat head so I can put my pint on it when its served me it cold and maybe give me complimentary blowjobs on a whim and they dont nag. Im sure theres going to be market for it.

Not exactly what you are looking for but close enough for starters.

 

[Oddjob]

1 hour ago, rlingford said:

Hi all,

 

Not sure if this has been discussed before or not, but what are your thoughts around the future of asteroid mining for metals, and how it will effect prices of PMs?

Although we are still years away, I think it is likely that asteroid mining will be starting within some of our lifetimes. This potential for an influx of all metals, including gold and silver, could tank the price of the physical assets. 

I would like to hear some other opinions and thoughts around the whole topic though, as it is something that is on my mind!

If this becomes reality, I can only imagine the price that PM's / base metals have risen to on earth that would make mining for them in space economically viable. If deep ocean PM mining can't be justified on a large basis, then what chance asteroid mining unless you are in deep space like Moon Base Alpha (Space 1999) and have no choice.

 

[HerefordBullyun]

7 minutes ago, Oddjob said:

Not exactly what you are looking for but close enough for starters.

 

Prefer the banned version

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by HerefordBullyun

[LawrenceChard]

35 minutes ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Well I am looking for a robot with flat head so I can put my pint on it when its served me it cold and maybe give me complimentary blowjobs on a whim and they dont nag. Im sure theres going to be market for it.

What you seem to be after is the beauty queen from that place near Liverpool... 

[CANV]

I invented the anti gravity motor 20 years ago.  I’m keeping it quiet untill an asteroid get close enough.   Let’s hope it’s not a silver one ! 

[LawrenceChard]

1 hour ago, rlingford said:

Hi all,

 

Not sure if this has been discussed before or not, but what are your thoughts around the future of asteroid mining for metals, and how it will effect prices of PMs?

Although we are still years away, I think it is likely that asteroid mining will be starting within some of our lifetimes. This potential for an influx of all metals, including gold and silver, could tank the price of the physical assets. 

I would like to hear some other opinions and thoughts around the whole topic though, as it is something that is on my mind!

The cost of mining and transport is probably in the region of £1 million per gram of gold right now, so it is unlikely to be cost effective for most precious metals for an extemely long time, until costs reduce by a few orders of magnitude, and / precious metal prices increase by similar amounts.

It might be more cost effective to go and mine some of the 10 billion trillion trillion carats of diamond which form V886 Centauri a.k.a. BPM 37093, a.k.a. Lucy in the Sky. 

Of coure this might bomb the price of diamonds. and we can now synthesize real diamonds quite economically.

[Minimalist]

37 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

The cost of mining and transport is probably in the region of £1 million per gram of gold right now

With antigravity technology and lazers all this "hidden" technology would make it possible (in theory).

You could use this technology remotely (in the ocean or on a island) from a terrestrial point of view.

Imagine a situation where a team can shoot down an asteroid, or steer it into a direction where it can be slowed down towards or into it a velocity where it would land into the atlantic or pacific ocean safely.

Obviously this "team" would be sponsored by Goldman Sachs and the BIS.

[CANV]

id probably get lloyds involved in that as well 😳

[modofantasma]

3 hours ago, rlingford said:

Although we are still years away, I think it is likely that asteroid mining will be starting within some of our lifetimes. This potential for an influx of all metals, including gold and silver, could tank the price of the physical assets. 

 

Are there any SIC codes for this kind of thing or patents for this kind of operation?

[Martlet]

The cost for mining an astroid will be extremely high, making it uneconomic at first. Then they'll make it scale and the cost will plummet, with virtually no variable costs (energy, labour, transportation, royalties etc).  The target will be for base metals in bulk with an angle on being environmentally friendly, gold and silver will come out of the tailings for free.  It'll take time to get there, when it does it'll flip economics of minerals very quickly. 

[Oddjob]

Until tech advances to the point to make mining asteroids cost effect, the Germans mining Helium 3 on the moon will be the high point to date.

 

[Happypanda88]

I guess if Disney cartoons are fairytales for children, then asteroid mining would be fairytale for grown-ups 😅

[LawrenceChard]

10 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

What you seem to be after is the beauty queen from that place near Liverpool... 

Nobody going to ask her name?

[HerefordBullyun]

2 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

Nobody going to ask her name?

Its not Ken Dodds ex wife showing off her Diddys is it? Albiet they maybe round her ankles now!

Edited January 4, 2022 by HerefordBullyun

[LawrenceChard]

2 minutes ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Its not Ken Dodds ex wife showing off her Diddys is it? Albiet they maybe round her ankles now!

No, I meant Miss Birkenhead, but pronounced with  Scouse accent, hence...

...Miss Beer Can Head

😎

[HerefordBullyun]

Just now, LawrenceChard said:

No, I meant Miss Birkenhead, but pronounced with  Scouse accent, hence...

...Miss Beer Can Head

😎

Ah truly awful! Happy new year Mr C

[Pete]

Whatever material you require will I am pretty certain always be much much cheaper mined on Earth rather than on an asteroid.
It costs about $40million to have a human sent to space for a week on the ISS, whilst it possibly only costs $10 a week to send an exploited worker down a deep mine.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Pete
typo

[Silverlocks]

The tyranny of the rocket equation is the killer here.

I think the killer app of mining stuff in space is for materials intended to be used in space.  Then it might be worth the cost to set up the infrastructure to avoid the cost of humping large amounts of the materials into orbit.  In practice, this means water, and aluminium from lunar regolith at the poles of the moon.

Asteroids are a potential source of materials Mining precious metals from an asteroid means you've probably got to have a second mine to supply volatiles unless you can find a volatile bearing nickel-iron asteroid or one where the regolith has a lot of precious metals in its composition.  However, there's about 3km/sec of delta-v at least to get them anywhere useful, plus whatever delta-V is needed between the mines.  This is most likely to be feasible on asteroids in Jupiter's trojan points as they're all travelling in similar orbits.

More likely would be setting up shop on Mars or one of Jupiter's moons where there is a local supply of volatiles (i.e. something you can use to make rocket fuel).  Mars is a bugger to get on and off, so it's really only viable if one sets up a local ISRU plant for volatiles, or maybe nuclear propulsion.  But there's the question of what we actually mine there - there's still a lot of delta-V to get materials from Mars to somewhere useful (i.e. Earth orbit or the Moon), so the question is what would be worth all the faff?.

Jupiter's moons are another option for something self-contained (or Saturn's, for that matter).  However, they're far enough away that PV cells aren't terribly useful for power, although possibly one could do something involving mirrors to concentrate light.  However, that's additional hardware to get to your destination in order to set up the infrastructure.  It might be easier to send a nuclear reactor.

But, again, there's the question of getting whatever you're mining back to where you're planning to use it, which means you also need enough delta-V to get it out of the Jovian system as well as for a rendezvous with Earth, plus braking into orbit.  Atmospheric braking might be viable here but you'd be coming in at a fair clip with one chance to slow down enough for a capture.  That means you've also got to lug a beefy heat shield around the solar system.

I may or may not play too much Kerbal Space Program.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Silverlocks