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Posted: 1/14/2017 1:34:04 AM EDT
It's a topic I have read quite a lot about. The question I never hear is why hasn't nasa pushed this? Just the ability to craft and control fuel would be huge for them, not to mention everything else. No initiative, not exciting enough, not enough money?
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Juice worth the squeeze? Seems that there would need to be something very valuable to make it worth it..
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1 Kg of fuel is $10,000. one large asteroid would provide more fuel that the history of human space flight combined. Fairly easy to get fuel from water even in space with solar. Since nasa isn't investment driven the 5-10 year wait to bring a nice iceberg home would be negligible. They would control the costs of exploration since a majority of it is fuel related. Even the cost and reliability of the craft is fuel cost dependent. "If it costs 20 million in fuel to get to Saturn that mission better work 100% of the time. If it was 2 million we could do the shotgun approach" type thing.
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1 Kg of fuel is $10,000. one large asteroid would provide more fuel that the history of human space flight combined. Fairly easy to get fuel from water even in space with solar. Since nasa isn't investment driven the 5-10 year wait to bring a nice iceberg home would be negligible. They would control the costs of exploration since a majority of it is fuel related. Even the cost and reliability of the craft is fuel cost dependent. "If it costs 20 million in fuel to get to Saturn that mission better work 100% of the time. If it was 2 million we could do the shotgun approach" type thing. View Quote Rocket fuel doesn't cost anywhere NEAR $10,000/kg. Heck, it doesn't even cost $10/kg (NASA paid less than $4/kg for Hydrogen for the Space Shuttle, and less than $.50/kg for the O2). ROCKETS are what makes space travel expensive. Fuel costs are less than 1% of the cost of a rocket launch. The rocket itself, and building and operating the infrastructure required are the true expenses. This is why SpaceX is attempting to make the Falcon 9 first stage recoverable. It doesn't save a drop of fuel, and in fact requires more to get the same amount of cargo to orbit. Getting fuel to orbit? Yes, that costs a lot, but it is because you need to carry it on the rocket, and the rocket itself costs a lot. Payload to orbit is expensive, but it is because of the size and cost of the rocket you need to use to get it there. Having fuel available in orbit means that you wouldn't have to carry that fuel on launch, but you still have to build the rocket with a fuel tank to carry it once you get there. You also have to build, and transport to your asteroid, all of the equipment necessary to mine, refine, store, and then transfer all that fuel. You also need to develop the capability to safely move your iceberg from where ever you found it to Earth's orbit. This will, in all likelihood, require you to launch more rockets carrying more cargo and COSTING more than all previous spaceflight. Also, the delta-V required to move your rocket fuel back to Earth orbit will likely require that you refine and use the majority of it just for that trip. Being able to make fuel in space out of LOCAL resources is likely to be extremely useful for, say, a Mars mission. But the key is being able to make the fuel WHERE you need it, with minimal additional effort (on Mars you can get Oxygen and Carbon out of the atmosphere with very little equipment and required mass, for example). Creating a huge infrastructure to go out and get it isn't viable, at least in the short to medium term. Even if your asteroid were in orbit, with the fuel stores in place, we couldn't afford to build the rockets to make use of it, nor do we have a clear need for them. You are proposing the analog to building an entire fossil fuel production, storage, and distribution system, before Henry Ford builds his first automobile. Mike |
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The $10,000/kg cost of fuel sounds sort of ballpark for cost of getting 1kg of fuel into orbit, not the direct cost of fuel. A bit of reading and cost per kg to get to LEO is about $20,000/kg. To get to geosynchronous orbit is closer to $50,000 / kg. I've no idea of the cost per kg to get to an asteroid that is out in the Kuiper belt, or wherever they plan to latch onto a big rock)
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Sounds sort of ballpark for cost of getting 1kg of fuel into orbit. A bit of reading and cost per kg to get to leo is about $20,000/kg. To get to geosynchronous orbit is closer to $50,000 / kg. View Quote Make sure you are mining a 'rocky' asteroid. And how much is the cost of getting the equipment to process and clean the frozen asteroid going to cost to get there? Probably about the same $20,000 to $50,000 per kilogram. And that is NOT just the fuel cost. |
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Yes it's the cost of fuel in space, no it's not $10,000 for a kg of hydrogen on earth. 1 kg of water to the ISS costs 10k according to nasa and the further you go the higher the costs. You need a Saturn 5 to get to the moon due to fuel issues, the falcon 9 second stage could easily take you there if refueled in orbit. I wonder how much further it might be able to one way trip. So the high cost to go past LEO is fuel focused. The amount of fuel to bring an asteroid back for the purpose of fuel would be zero. That's like complaining about the cost of fuel to get a supertanker from Saudi to the US. The ability to fly to, bag, sublimate ice and convert to hydrogen and oxygen have been solved just untested. You have your return fuel right there. Any other thoughts on the original Q?
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"The amount of fuel to bring an asteroid back for the purpose of fuel would be zero."
Not exactly. You still need some fuel to slow the orbiting object enough to put it onto the earth. Protection from re-entry heat generated by atmospheric friction is a big issue. You will have to get suitable reentry vehicles UP to orbit to be loaded. |
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If you are going to mine it in orbit/space you have one big problem....Low to no gravity. All practical mining practices known to man have been developed on earth and in some way utilize gravity to aid the mechanisms used. When you drill on earth you have gravity holding the drill rig still and you can feed the drill down. You will have to push the drill in orbit and any substantial drill would require more force than that needs to push the rig up off the asteroid. You would have to use rockets or explosively driven anchors to hold the rig still so he drill will actually drill.
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The only objects that humans have so far moved in deep space are space probes.
Most space probes mass around one ton, Cassini-Huygens was very massive at six tons. Asteroids mass millions and billions of tons, moving an asteroid more than a very little is currently beyond our capabilities. Bringing an asteroid back from deep space to high Earth orbit for resource extraction will be very, very expensive. Cheaper than boosting all that mass up to orbit, yes. Economically feasible with current technology, no. |
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What material is going to be found in an asteroid that has enough value to be worth the effort?
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The easy answer is water is the resource. Of course all the other stuff has value as well. Bagging it, sublimating and processing it technically is doable in zero g. The ability to move thousands of tons, I didn't think about that. You have the fuel but thruster size and momentum control would be tricky. Doable but a complex problem to solve without practice. And you might want to practice before you send a rock that big home.
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The easy answer is water is the resource. Of course all the other stuff has value as well. Bagging it, sublimating and processing it technically is doable in zero g. The ability to move thousands of tons, I didn't think about that. You have the fuel but thruster size and momentum control would be tricky. Doable but a complex problem to solve without practice. And you might want to practice before you send a rock that big home. View Quote You have to start with force = mass x acceleration. A small impulse isn't going to do anything. The acceleration is gone as soon as the force is gone. I can't even image the thrust / duration / fuel mass / etc. it would take to change the orbit of a asteroid in the kuiper belt to an orbit that we could utilize. Or conversely, get mining equipment to an asteroid and figure out a way to mine the asteroid robotically and get the processed ores heading to earth orbit. The energy figures would be interesting. |
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I guess you could figure out an accurate weight for the object by very precise tracking and a set rocket burn figure. Then measure the change. It would be a big education for NASA. Like driving a tractor over a car. I would think early on you would want a water asteroid. Actually bring it back for processing, use and tech development. Then go after a metal one and try process on site or bring it back. Fun to think about bagging a small water rock. Using it as fuel to go to a metal asteroid and bring it back.
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I guess you could figure out an accurate weight for the object by very precise tracking and a set rocket burn figure. Then measure the change. It would be a big education for NASA. Like driving a tractor over a car. I would think early on you would want a water asteroid. Actually bring it back for processing, use and tech development. Then go after a metal one and try process on site or bring it back. Fun to think about bagging a small water rock. Using it as fuel to go to a metal asteroid and bring it back. View Quote And then you will find out that it takes as much energy to disassociate water into Hydrogen and Oxygen as the thrust the engine can produce burning them. There is no free lunch in thermodynamics. |
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The $10,000/kg cost of fuel sounds sort of ballpark for cost of getting 1kg of fuel into orbit, not the direct cost of fuel. A bit of reading and cost per kg to get to LEO is about $20,000/kg. To get to geosynchronous orbit is closer to $50,000 / kg. I've no idea of the cost per kg to get to an asteroid that is out in the Kuiper belt, or wherever they plan to latch onto a big rock) Edited, View Quote The 10,000KG number hasn't been accurate fro years. SpaceX can get a KG to orbit much cheaper now. |
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http://www.planetaryresources.com/#home-intro
Ya'll need to read that link. Billionares who plan on mining the Asteroids, including James Cameron and Ross Perot Jr. |
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http://www.planetaryresources.com/#home-intro Ya'll need to read that link. Billionares who plan on mining the Asteroids, including James Cameron and Ross Perot Jr. View Quote Even "Billionares" can be suckered by complex things out of their experience. |
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They are changing to provide other services in space and then dovetail that tech into asteroid mining or info selling to others who want to. Good way to servive in a high cost long return profile environment. That is why I think nasa should take this on. A 10 year mission is nothing for them but a killer for a company with no other profits.
If you haven't seen it look up the video where they despin an asteroid by bagging it then filling the balloon with argon to provide friction to slow the spin. When done vent the argon and you have a bagged asteroid ready to make fuel or just contain for the return trip. |
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They are changing to provide other services in space and then dovetail that tech into asteroid mining or info selling to others who want to. Good way to servive in a high cost long return profile environment. That is why I think nasa should take this on. A 10 year mission is nothing for them but a killer for a company with no other profits. If you haven't seen it look up the video where they despin an asteroid by bagging it then filling the balloon with argon to provide friction to slow the spin. When done vent the argon and you have a bagged asteroid ready to make fuel or just contain for the return trip. View Quote Spin is far from the largest energy to be handled. The asteroid is in orbit around at least the sun. Without a use in situ there is nothing valuable enough to bring back to the surface of any major celestial body. You are going to have to establish a huge demand. |
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Spin is far from the largest energy to be handled. The asteroid is in orbit around at least the sun. Without a use in situ there is nothing valuable enough to bring back to the surface of any major celestial body. You are going to have to establish a huge demand. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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They are changing to provide other services in space and then dovetail that tech into asteroid mining or info selling to others who want to. Good way to servive in a high cost long return profile environment. That is why I think nasa should take this on. A 10 year mission is nothing for them but a killer for a company with no other profits. If you haven't seen it look up the video where they despin an asteroid by bagging it then filling the balloon with argon to provide friction to slow the spin. When done vent the argon and you have a bagged asteroid ready to make fuel or just contain for the return trip. Spin is far from the largest energy to be handled. The asteroid is in orbit around at least the sun. Without a use in situ there is nothing valuable enough to bring back to the surface of any major celestial body. You are going to have to establish a huge demand. There is also the minor problem that adding argon to your bagged asteroid isn't going to actually do anything to the spin. Since there isn't anywhere to dump the angular momentum, you'll just end up with the argon and the bag spinning at the same rate as the asteroid. It would be MUCH more efficient to use the argon as the working mass in a series of plasma thrusters set on the surface and thrusting tangentially to induce torque against the spin. You may or may not need your "bag" as structural support to keep the asteroid from coming apart from the local stress of your thrusters, however. Mike |
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They can also afford consultants to evaluate things for them too. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Even "Billionares" can be suckered by complex things out of their experience. They can also afford consultants to evaluate things for them too. Who will grab the money and tell them what they want to hear. Without a massive infrastructure in space there is nothing of that much value in asteroids. Go look at a periodic table. |
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Would there be any demand for large space manufactured antennas in geosynchronous orbit?
Build an antenna and send up a comsat that attaches? I'm thinking an antenna might be relatively easy to manufacture compared to a manned habitat. This might provide an early market for metals returned to HEO. |
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Who will grab the money and tell them what they want to hear. Without a massive infrastructure in space there is nothing of that much value in asteroids. Go look at a periodic table. Platinum Group Metals. Still not worth enough. |
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What would the value of rocket fuel in earth orbit equil in volume to every rocket ever fired into space be worth? That is the low threshold for value. I would think the juice is worth the squeeze. It will be neat in 20 years when this is old news however it turns out.
Edit: the bagged asteroid with argon to create atmospheric friction to slow spin. I couldn't find details on this. How would it work? I think It would make heat. Minimal effect to the craft that could be handled with maneuvering thrusters. I don't know much about this. The other ways seem much more complicated or risky. |
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What would the value of rocket fuel in earth orbit equil in volume to every rocket ever fired into space be worth? That is the low threshold for value. I would think the juice is worth the squeeze. It will be neat in 20 years when this is old news however it turns out. View Quote Since NASA doesn't have a mission directive requiring this fuel, and couldn't afford to build and operate the space vehicles to utilize it if it existed, the return on investment is moot at this point. Nor can it afford to carry out this project itself, for that matter. You can't drive space development with a fuel manufacturing project. If development moves far enough, it will eventually drive the fuel requirement and cause such a project to be undertaken. Mike |
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Only if you have a use for it in situ. It is not like we are running out of water on earth, or ever would. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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The easy answer is water is the resource. Of course all the other stuff has value as well. Only if you have a use for it in situ. It is not like we are running out of water on earth, or ever would. I think the ultimate goal is to have off-world mining and space craft production in order to reach distant solar systems or planets. It might be more feasible to do this by getting everything we need to accomplish that goal by mining asteroids as opposed to hauling those materials out of our orbit which would be very expensive. |
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Every metal used ion any quantity has a market price based on demand, ore content, difficulty in mining, smelting, and purifying. We used to produce atomically pure metals for special uses using the same basic method we used in WW2 to seperate U235 and U238. A calutron. A very purpose designed mass spectrometer. We now can make super conductors so the wire used for the electromagnet has zero resistance and no loss. The cost is the huge cooling systems necessary to achieve low enough temperatures to allow super conducting. As we have played with various metals we have found alloys that allow super conduction at higher temperatures than the initial liquid helium levels. There are some that are around 77K (still very cold but not the <10 K early ones required). Mercury is 4.2 K. |
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There is a 'market value' for any and every metal that is used in significant quantities. Go look up the price for even the platinum group. It is not that high. Platinum $936.90 per ounce. Still lower than gold. |
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I think a lot of people are assuming that we'd be going all the way out to the asteroid belt.
Lots of asteroids fly very close to earth all the time. I watched a video saying that Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries are planning to target near earth asteroids. Some of these things actually pass closer than the moon. |
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I think a lot of people are assuming that we'd be going all the way out to the asteroid belt. Lots of asteroids fly very close to earth all the time. I watched a video saying that Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries are planning to target near earth asteroids. Some of these things actually pass closer than the moon. View Quote It will take a lot of work to slow then down. |
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You mean speed up to catch them. My guess would be the first miners will mine as they go collecting what they want then sending concentrate back when it's in the right part of the orbit. Easier to hitch a ride than alter the direction of the titanic at first.
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You mean speed up to catch them. My guess would be the first miners will mine as they go collecting what they want then sending concentrate back when it's in the right part of the orbit. Easier to hitch a ride than alter the direction of the titanic at first. View Quote Whatever is "sent back" will still have the velocity of the body it was taken from. |
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True but much less total mass so easier to handle. An example off the top of my head might be an inflatable fuel or water tank. Sublimate and fill the container. Have a return module and when filled send it back. Like a propane bottle exchange on earth. Had the processor on the asteroid and only send tanks to and from. Will it be worth it though is always the sticking point. The large rockets and reusability may greatly lower the cost per kg to orbit and so the viability to mine asteroids for water.
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This thread has too much talk and not enough numbers.
Run the numbers, then draw your own conclusions. Some numbers to think about - How much energy is required to change the orbit of a frozen water asteroid to get it into Earth orbit? How do you keep it from vaporizing once you get close enough to Earth to mine it (think, comet)? How do you convert ice into H2 and O2 fuels and what is the cost of that processing plant? To whom will you sell your resources and at what price, given that you are going to be "flooding the market" (pun intended). Who said you will be allowed to orbit an asteroid close to Earth and what happens if your calculations are a little bit off or a thruster fails, or,... (think, dinosaur extinction)? I could go on but unless I see some numbers, this thread is just BS. |
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This thread has too much talk and not enough numbers. Run the numbers, then draw your own conclusions. Some numbers to think about - How much energy is required to change the orbit of a frozen water asteroid to get it into Earth orbit? Depends on the delta V your dealing with and the most cost effective way would be to use the asteroid for energy so time would be more of a factor. How do you keep it from vaporizing once you get close enough to Earth to mine it (think, comet)? Bag it, would need to do that anyway to contain the volatiles. How do you convert ice into H2 and O2 fuels and what is the cost of that processing plant? Cost of the plant would be enormous, solar array for heat and for electricity. One melts the other converts. To whom will you sell your resources and at what price, given that you are going to be "flooding the market" (pun intended). Satellites and ISS to start. Who said you will be allowed to orbit an asteroid close to Earth and what happens if your calculations are a little bit off or a thruster fails, or,... (think, dinosaur extinction)? Good one, the plan was for it to hang around the moon, an ice ball isn't a huge risk. Now a metal asteroid for platinum would be riskier. I could go on but unless I see some numbers, this thread is just BS. View Quote |
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