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Planetary Resources, Inc. Asteroid Mining: First telescope launch within 24 months
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Lies. That was exactly why they did it. I dare you to prove me wrong.
Let's Play Mass Effect - Set 6 Updated 9/8/2012
If you want to tow the party line, you go right ahead, comrade. I'll just dutifully shake my head over here.
DropBox invite link - get 250MB extra free.
....that like pretty much every space agency on the face of the Earth, NASA has been enormously shaped by the military air forces who were charged with aerospace development after the second World War? And it was particularly evident in the 1960s and and early 1970s, the height of competition between the US and USSR?
Because if so....yes? I guess that's the conspiracy theory?
I'm not misunderstanding, we're just having a difference of perspective, I think. I understand why vaporizing parts of the asteroid will push it faster, I'm just saying that there are only a subclass of scenarios where pushing it faster is worth the expense. In the laser case the reaction mass is paid for at the laser end of the system, whereas in the vaporized asteroid case you're burning up mass to fuel the laser and ejecting reaction mass from the asteroid. There's a tradeoff here between final asteroid momentum, laser energy consumption, and asteroid mass loss, and I don't disagree that if your goals are in the right place the vaporization-based acceleration method is the better...but I don't see why you'd want to do it in the general mining case. If you're not in a hurry you can get the asteroid where it's going using only solar energy collected laser-side, without having to haul an engine out to the asteroid and without losing any of the asteroid as reaction mass.
When I said 'specific impulse' I actually meant 'specifically-directed impulse', rather than the general rocketry term (sorry, I'm not a rocket guy). You could more-easily engineer a system that performs fine course adjustments by ejecting plasma/vapor from the surface at small points, since a wide-angle laser pushing system is going to have a fairly limited degree of angular variability in the imparted momentum.
It was a small cannon that was essentially there in case someone tried to take out their station by slamming a satellite in to it. Firing the cannon is not that different from firing rockets and probably used liquid oxygen.
The cannon wasn't fired with people on board because no one knew just how dangerous the recoil would be so they test fired it once the cosmonauts left, it shook the shit out of it but managed to stay in one piece.
lol, this is a conspiracy? Yes, national space programs go hand in hand with the military. I thought everyone knew this.
Deny it all you want, but we know the truth behind the truth. All space travel is done by a magic genie.
Let's Play Mass Effect - Set 6 Updated 9/8/2012
where do i sign
"Reports today confirmed what we have all been talking about for the last two weeks. Asteroid X-34, the first to be implemented in the operations of space mining, has had its orbit dangerously destabilized and will be heading toward what scientists are predicting will be somewhere either in the Euro-zone or Asia. It will break up upon somewhat entering the atmosphere, but not enough to mitigate the immense damage expected from the Texas-sized..."
or:
"Reports today confirmed what we have all been talking about for the last two weeks. Asteroid X-34, the first to be implemented in the operations of space mining, was indeed carrying Alien life: in the form of a retro virus which is quickly spreading throughout the population. If any of you remember a novel by Michael Crichton..."
Let's Play Mass Effect - Set 6 Updated 9/8/2012
Pretty much this. If we were in the business of moving asteroids routinely, then we'd have the technology and techniques to deal with rogue bodies headed our way. Not to mention the mining people are proposing mass producible surveyor telescopes for the Earth - so the entire industry itself by virtue of it's operation would give us planetary defense.
Which is fucking amazing. Living in a world where we've actually mitigated hammer blows from the heaven's as a possible extinction events would be incredible. And you know, where we have shit tons of platinum for bling.
Let's Play Mass Effect - Set 6 Updated 9/8/2012
Alternately, "Due to mining efforts, the asteroid body formerly named "Apophis" which would have entered Earth's atmosphere on Friday, April 13th, 2037, has instead been converted into steel, platinum, and gold which is being used to craft our first moon colony."
Certain things yeah, any moulding/casting would go better because of the lack of atmosphere. Ball bearings are interesting because a zero-g liquid would naturally form a sphere, so you could potentially get better ones if you do it right. In general though, transport costs dominate, you almost never want to manufacture in orbit unless you can get the resources there too
Wasn't that more his observation? If we were getting raw materials in orbit, then presumably some types of goods might end up being cost-effective to manufacture in orbit and then drop down to Earth as finished materials.
Presumably asteroid rock could be sintered into suitable refractory's for the task of re-entry as well.
Well, the idea is to use available resources already in space to construct. An iron rich asteroid could make certain iron/steel products in space. I imagine it would take a while. You'd have to do a shit load of robot space work. Mine the ore, smelt and refine it, then have it manufactured into a manufacturing plant. Probably decades of work.
But imagine making a robot that you can launch into space that can take raw materials from a hunk of space rock and construct a factory and power plant to make useful items for either Earth or further space exploitation.
Let's Play Mass Effect - Set 6 Updated 9/8/2012
Well, it depends; shipping raw materials down you don't care what form they're in when they get there, so you can do things like a metallic foam; if you're shipping finished goods like precision ball bearings then they need transport down in some sort of protected environment which costs more
Just drop em from space! Sure you might take out a few blocks of buildings if you miss, but SCIENCE!
Of course, once we are able to redirect an asteroid the first thing the military will do is co-opt the technology to protect 'murrica in case China gets uppity.
We should coin a phrase when something like that happens.
"You just got SCIENCED!"
Let's Play Mass Effect - Set 6 Updated 9/8/2012
You can also get a necktie.
Military already has the power to destroy all life on earth with the press of a button, this is sort of the more expensive version.
It's actually more realistic to be worried about the bond esque scenario. But everything should be fine unless James Cameron starts building a volcano lair.
At that point we might as well just slap the instructions for artificial wombs, raising children, and a thousand or so human fertilized embryos and shoot them off at every likely-looking star to colonize the galaxy for us.
I believe this exact scenario was addressed in recent XKCD.
(Check the bottom)
The vans are on the way to your location. Please remain put.
This...actually sounds like a great idea.
...for a book.
For science!
Let's Play Mass Effect - Set 6 Updated 9/8/2012
Until there is a reactor malfunction and you end up with the people splintering into factions and each hijacking a colony pod and ending up an extremist societies of naked flower frolicers and hyper capitalists and rambo survivalists all vying for control of the world.
Worth it.
Hey, someone's gotta be looked up to by the drones.
Sounds like a pretty short book.
'and then the babies were born. and then the babies died'
Sounds more like Species, only set on an alien planet and then the weird half-normal/half-Human creature tries to have spacedemon babies.
Von Neumann robots are kind of a trope of "hard" sci-fi.
Anyway, someone in one of the politics threads made me go look up a West Wing clip, which led to my standard 2-hour West Wing clipathon, which led me to this, which I figured I'd drop here: