this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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There is no economically viable space mining scenario now. Someday with a large free fall population there might be, with CHON mining first, but even that is completely untested technology built on massive assumptions.
I wish it were different, I really do, since we may run out of easily available resources here and lose the ability to get out there.
Speaking as a metallurgical engineer with experience in mining. There is no resource out there that we can't mine on Earth for a bazillion dollars (approx.) less.
On the Mars side of things, I like Aldrin's cycler idea for a practical pipeline to Mars, but I'm not an expert on that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_cycler
‘The thing we haven’t invented yet isn’t economically viable yet.’ Yeah, no shit.
I guess let’s just keep polluting our planet, because it’s cheaper.
For FAR less than trying to mine in space we can develop emissionless refining methods and less destructive mining on Earth. I'd purpose that path as more realistic.
I worked at an emissionless copper refinery back in the 80s. You know why we still emit sulphur dioxide during copper refining? Because this company shut it down because it was not economically viable with a copper price below like $1.50 a pound. There is just no way space mining is an answer in the short or medium term. You are taking orders of magnitudes of difference in cost, if it is even possible at all.
And it may not be.
One of the many reasons mining is so comparatively cheap on Earth is because the planet has kindly concentrated interesting minerals for us. This does not happen for most asteroids, they are undifferentiated. Earth may have a smaller proportion of some element than an asteroid on average, but due to any of a number of gravity and atmospheric driven processes we have learned to find areas where it is so concentrated it is worthwhile to pick it up from the ground. Due to these processes we can find gold ores with 1 gram of gold per ton and that is economical. You would have to find some way to refine an entire asteroid to extract what is valuable. No gold veins there.
And you have to think about how you are going to get it here to where we can use it. What impact do you think it will make to the environment to deorbit a years worth of whatever metal? Do the calculations yourself to understand the amount of heat. It would be a constant addition of heat to the atmosphere for any realistic technology that, at scale, could be as bad or worse than HCGW.
Friend, I am on your side here, but if there's is not an economic incentive to do something, it is not going to happen. It will be hard enough to require the additional cost of using known technology here on Earth that would make the use and reuse of these materials sustainable. We should focus our mineral efforts there, not space.
If we colonize the Moon or Mars, mining there for local purposes could well be viable, but economically even less viable to send that to Earth.
We’re not talking about materials for use on earth. We’re talking about using those materials in space, and not needing launch everything up the gravity well for use up there.