Asteroid Mining and Space Elevators (split from Are billionaires rich enough yet?)

[atrib]

I predict that in about 50 years when we have found ways to mine asteroids in space, a new class of trillionaires will emerge that will make our billionaires today look like paupers in comparison. And this will be a very exclusive club with members who have the billions today to fund research into space travel, which will effectively give them a monopoly in this field. But that is a rant for another day.

 

[Derec]

I predict that in about 50 years when we have found ways to mine asteroids in space, a new class of trillionaires will emerge that will make our billionaires today look like paupers in comparison.

Even at 3% inflation for the next 50 years, Bezos and Musk would not need any increase in real wealth to break into the terabuck club.

Asteroid mining will be very expensive, and probably only feasible to supply any space construction, not to be brought back to Earth. I.e. it will have limited applications for at least a century or more. So I do not think asteroid mining entrepreneurs will make our current billionaires look like paupers.

 

[atrib]

I predict that in about 50 years when we have found ways to mine asteroids in space, a new class of trillionaires will emerge that will make our billionaires today look like paupers in comparison.

Even at 3% inflation for the next 50 years, Bezos and Musk would not need any increase in real wealth to break into the terabuck club.

Asteroid mining will be very expensive, and probably only feasible to supply any space construction, not to be brought back to Earth. I.e. it will have limited applications for at least a century or more. So I do not think asteroid mining entrepreneurs will make our current billionaires look like paupers.

I was obviously speculating. I don't know that we will have evolved the technology to become a spacefaring species in 50 years exploiting asteroids for resources and energy. But if our descendants do take that step, and at some they will have to in order to survive, even if it is many millions of years in the future, the people who control the technology to allow this to happen are going to be the wealthiest people on the planet.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I predict that in about 50 years when we have found ways to mine asteroids in space, a new class of trillionaires will emerge that will make our billionaires today look like paupers in comparison.

Even at 3% inflation for the next 50 years, Bezos and Musk would not need any increase in real wealth to break into the terabuck club.

Asteroid mining will be very expensive, and probably only feasible to supply any space construction, not to be brought back to Earth. I.e. it will have limited applications for at least a century or more. So I do not think asteroid mining entrepreneurs will make our current billionaires look like paupers.

I was obviously speculating. I don't know that we will have evolved the technology to become a spacefaring species in 50 years exploiting asteroids for resources and energy. But if our descendants do take that step, and at some they will have to in order to survive, even if it is many millions of years in the future, the people who control the technology to allow this to happen are going to be the wealthiest people on the planet.

Oh the irony, the cost to mine asteroids will be extraordinary! First you need to get to it, then somehow get the metals, then somehow get that to Earth. So, a lot of difficult things.

That said, once that tech is there, asteroid mining will become like diamonds. Precious metals aren't as precious if they aren't as rare.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Oh the irony, the cost to mine asteroids will be extraordinary! First you need to get to it, then somehow get the metals, then somehow get that to Earth. So, a lot of difficult things.

That said, once that tech is there, asteroid mining will become like diamonds. Precious metals aren't as precious if they aren't as rare.

There's little worth shipping from the asteroids to Earth. However, using the material as raw materials in space is quite another matter. And there are space-manufactured products that are worth shipping to Earth. We have ships that are inherently unsinkable--they're lighter than their volume, push them underwater and they'll pop back up. However, the materials are weak, you can't make a big ship and even the small ones can be damaged enough to sink. In microgravity you can make metal foam--pound for pound stronger than the base material and it can be made to float. Unsinkable ships in any size.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

On shipping material mined from asteroids to Earth, umm...actually, my thinking is that robotic unmanned barges could be run very cheaply. I mean if you are just talking about shipping a large quantity of precious metal to Earth, then you only have to worry about lift-off and getting it on just the right vector so that it eventually makes a reasonably slow approach to Earth or its moon. You do not have to constantly propel the shipment all the way through the solar system. Once you had established an economy of scale, the shipping cost would end up being rather cheap, maybe even cheaper than shipping by sea. We are talking about a relatively frictionless environment.

 

[bilby]

On shipping material mined from asteroids to Earth, umm...actually, my thinking is that robotic unmanned barges could be run very cheaply. I mean if you are just talking about shipping a large quantity of precious metal to Earth, then you only have to worry about lift-off and getting it on just the right vector so that it eventually makes a reasonably slow approach to Earth or its moon. You do not have to constantly propel the shipment all the way through the solar system. Once you had established an economy of scale, the shipping cost would end up being rather cheap, maybe even cheaper than shipping by sea. We are talking about a relatively frictionless environment.

The problem is getting it down to the surface in a usable and accessible condition, without harming the environment or the local population.

Meteors bring between 40 and 80 thousand tonnes of material to Earth each year right now; But it mostly arrives as dust, which is useless, and what arrives in larger pieces either turns to dust on re-entry, rendering it useless, or stays in one lump, rendering it highly dangerous.

Getting stuff down in remote areas is probably fairly easy to arrange, though it requires very precise control both to prevent loss (to burnup or to deflection off the atmosphere), but ore in remote areas we already have lots of, without the hassle of going to space for it.

What we really need is a space elevator.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

On shipping material mined from asteroids to Earth, umm...actually, my thinking is that robotic unmanned barges could be run very cheaply. I mean if you are just talking about shipping a large quantity of precious metal to Earth, then you only have to worry about lift-off and getting it on just the right vector so that it eventually makes a reasonably slow approach to Earth or its moon. You do not have to constantly propel the shipment all the way through the solar system. Once you had established an economy of scale, the shipping cost would end up being rather cheap, maybe even cheaper than shipping by sea. We are talking about a relatively frictionless environment.

The problem is getting it down to the surface in a usable and accessible condition, without harming the environment or the local population.

Meteors bring between 40 and 80 thousand tonnes of material to Earth each year right now; But it mostly arrives as dust, which is useless, and what arrives in larger pieces either turns to dust on re-entry, rendering it useless, or stays in one lump, rendering it highly dangerous.

Getting stuff down in remote areas is probably fairly easy to arrange, though it requires very precise control both to prevent loss (to burnup or to deflection off the atmosphere), but ore in remote areas we already have lots of, without the hassle of going to space for it.

What we really need is a space elevator.

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

 

[Bomb#20]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

How long a line will you use? The distance from the moon to the earth varies by 43,000 km every two weeks.

 

[Bomb#20]

What we really need is a space elevator.

What's a space elevator? It's just some physical object capable of holding a "climber" vehicle up against gravity, all the way to space, so you can go up as slowly as you like instead of using a rocket with a specific impulse measured in minutes. So why not build a space elevator? Because (a) if we built one we'd need to use super-strong futuristic high-tech materials we don't know how to make, and (b) it would be tall and skinny and therefore have about a million potential failure points and attack vulnerabilities, and (c) it would probably cost more than any resulting revenue stream could justify, and (d) we've already got one.

It's low-tech, it's free, and it's indestructible. It's called "the atmosphere". These guys are working on the climber for it.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

How long a line will you use? The distance from the moon to the earth varies by 43,000 km every two weeks.

Who, me? I am not an engineer. I had only heard of the proposal before, but it was made by someone that really was an engineer.

 

[bilby]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

How long a line will you use? The distance from the moon to the earth varies by 43,000 km every two weeks.

That's not a drama, you just need a winch on the Moon to wind in and pay out line as required.

And a spool large enough to hold that 43,000km of line.

And a motor capable of pulling in the line at a maximum rate of a couple of hundred km/h.

 

[bilby]

What's a space elevator? It's just some physical object capable of holding a "climber" vehicle up against gravity, all the way to space, so you can go up as slowly as you like instead of using a rocket with a specific impulse measured in minutes.

No, that's not all a space elevator is.

Orbit isn't difficult to reach because it's far; It's difficult to reach because it's fast.

A space elevator gives the stuff it lifts the lateral speed necessary to stay in orbit. Any system that fails to do this cannot launch stuff into orbit; You might get your satellite to an arbitrarily high altitude by lifting against the atmosphere, but if you stop supporting it, it will just become an instant meteor.

The atmosphere simply doesn't extend far enough out to get you anywhere near to a point where orbital velocity is close to zero ground speed - aka Geostationary Orbit.

I suspect you already know this.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

https://what-if.xkcd.com/126/

 

[Loren Pechtel]

On shipping material mined from asteroids to Earth, umm...actually, my thinking is that robotic unmanned barges could be run very cheaply. I mean if you are just talking about shipping a large quantity of precious metal to Earth, then you only have to worry about lift-off and getting it on just the right vector so that it eventually makes a reasonably slow approach to Earth or its moon. You do not have to constantly propel the shipment all the way through the solar system. Once you had established an economy of scale, the shipping cost would end up being rather cheap, maybe even cheaper than shipping by sea. We are talking about a relatively frictionless environment.

The problem is getting it down to the surface in a usable and accessible condition, without harming the environment or the local population.

Meteors bring between 40 and 80 thousand tonnes of material to Earth each year right now; But it mostly arrives as dust, which is useless, and what arrives in larger pieces either turns to dust on re-entry, rendering it useless, or stays in one lump, rendering it highly dangerous.

Getting stuff down in remote areas is probably fairly easy to arrange, though it requires very precise control both to prevent loss (to burnup or to deflection off the atmosphere), but ore in remote areas we already have lots of, without the hassle of going to space for it.

What we really need is a space elevator.

To get it down you take the good stuff, turn it into foam so it floats. Then wrap that in foamed slag. Drop it into a big patch of ocean. The drop zone is limited to the retrieval ships only, both for safety (you had better be tied in with the tracking guys!) and to avoid piracy. Since it's a foam even if it breaks on impact (terminal velocity will be pretty high) the pieces just float.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

Can't be done--look at the actual orbit of the moon.

A cable like you envision could actually be done off Phobos for getting to Mars. (It can't throw to Martian escape, but it can throw to another cable on Deimos--and that one can throw to Earth.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

How long a line will you use? The distance from the moon to the earth varies by 43,000 km every two weeks.

That's not a drama, you just need a winch on the Moon to wind in and pay out line as required.

And a spool large enough to hold that 43,000km of line.

And a motor capable of pulling in the line at a maximum rate of a couple of hundred km/h.

And some way of handling the lunar libration.

 

[ZiprHead]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

How long a line will you use? The distance from the moon to the earth varies by 43,000 km every two weeks.

That's not a drama, you just need a winch on the Moon to wind in and pay out line as required.

And a spool large enough to hold that 43,000km of line.

And a motor capable of pulling in the line at a maximum rate of a couple of hundred km/h.

I suspect you would need a lot more than just 43K km of line. The land point on Earth would be stationary while the moon moves away and towards that point.

I hope we've had enough of this science fiction derail.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

How long a line will you use? The distance from the moon to the earth varies by 43,000 km every two weeks.

That's not a drama, you just need a winch on the Moon to wind in and pay out line as required.

And a spool large enough to hold that 43,000km of line.

And a motor capable of pulling in the line at a maximum rate of a couple of hundred km/h.

I suspect you would need a lot more than just 43K km of line. The land point on Earth would be stationary while the moon moves away and towards that point.

I hope we've had enough of this science fiction derail.

43K km of line that has to be rolled and unrolled, there's a lot more that would never be rolled. It's completely impractical.

 

[Bomb#20]

What's a space elevator? It's just some physical object capable of holding a "climber" vehicle up against gravity, all the way to space, so you can go up as slowly as you like instead of using a rocket with a specific impulse measured in minutes.

No, that's not all a space elevator is.

Orbit isn't difficult to reach because it's far; It's difficult to reach because it's fast.

Sorry, should have said "all the way to space and orbital speed", and should have said "It's low-tech, it's free, it's indestructible, and it isn't tall and skinny."

A space elevator gives the stuff it lifts the lateral speed necessary to stay in orbit.

But it only needs to do that if it's tall and skinny. You'll fall to the ground as soon as you start accelerating laterally if you don't have orbital speed right from the get-go, because as soon as you start accelerating laterally you're not being supported any more, because you're not on the elevator any more, because it's tall and skinny. That's the only reason you have to ride it all the way up to 35,000 km -- that's where the elevator is going at orbital speed. But if instead the elevator is short and wide, then you can start accelerating laterally wherever you please, and you'll still be on the elevator, still being supported against gravity while you're below orbital speed. So you can accelerate up to orbital speed as slowly as you like, same as you can go up as slowly as you like. The outfit I linked to is designing aircraft to go up to where the atmosphere is thin enough for an ion drive to work, and then accelerate laterally up to orbital speed. The drive is vastly more efficient than a chemical rocket but it doesn't deliver the gees to hold itself up against gravity while it's doing it. Holding it up against gravity is the atmosphere's job.

Seems to me if Bezos wants to leapfrog Musk and mine asteroids first and become the first trillionaire, he could probably finance the R&D for less than Musk is going to pay for Twitter.

 

[Elixir]

A lunar elevator would be more feasible if you wanted to go that route. Think about it: the moon always has the same face toward Earth. If we could establish a line between the surface of the moon and a station set up in a low orbit in the atmosphere of Earth (maybe using solar powered propulsion to hold it in its proper orbit), then it would be reasonable enough to design a cargo plane that could travel between the station and the planet's surface.

Can't be done--look at the actual orbit of the moon.

A cable like you envision could actually be done off Phobos for getting to Mars. (It can't throw to Martian escape, but it can throw to another cable on Deimos--and that one can throw to Earth.)

You could do it (assuming miracle fiber) above the equator at >geostationary distances but you’d have to continue to add energy to the high end or the orbit would decay under weight. So ultimately you wouldn’t get rid of, or significantly reduce the absolute energy needed to lift to LEO, except the air resistance.
And you could use a tethered lighter than air launch platform to counter most of that …