Money from asteroids (Overlooking the obvious)

[torino10]

I have read much on asteroids lately and it astounds me that there are no known organizations or corporations trying to cash in on asteroids most obvious financial potential.<br /><br />As clean alternatives to nuclear weapons.<br /><br /> I know , the U.N. has banned all space based weapons systems. as well as not allowing any country to claim land off the surface of the earth, or in antartica. But as the bush Administration has clearly demonstrated, the U.N. does not have to be listened too.<br /><br />besides As someone pointed out about property, private corporations are not bound by the U.N. .<br /><br />My Business model would work by capturing a large chunky regolith asteroid and basically turning it into an orbital trebuchet. this would not be a weapon system per se as the projectiles could be used to prevent other asteroids from impacting the earth.<br /><br />How much money have countries spent on developing and maintaining nuclear weapons systems? what would the consequences be of a devoloping nation having an accident? <br /><br />What this plan would do is give developing nations an economically and environmentally less damaging alternative to nuclear weapons. we sell them the piece of the rock and they tell us what orbital trajectory to launch it on. <br /><br />From a financial view point, the cost of capturing an asteroid with about one quarter teratons of kinetic impact energy should be easily made back even if you only charge about one tenth the cost of developing and maintaining it's nuclear equivalent..<br /><br />Some ways the projectiles could be used are in naval engagements similar to tungaska fireball so as not to raise a tsunami, or to make a small tsunami as a prelude to coastal invasion, or you could just impact a remote area of your country to mine the resources and generate tourist trade, maybe the dust cloud could be applied to Kyoto emission credits as the dust cloud would aid in global cooling.<br /><br />All in all, I think just the mass of an astero

 

[mlorrey]

if a private enterprise did this, they'd call you a terrorist, arrest you all, and slap the book at you, then quietly coopt your technology.

 

[torino10]

If a private enterprise did this they would have more firepower than all of the nukes ever made combined.<br /><br />Japan is pursuing this , so is china if there replies to U.S.A.'s deep impact mission are to be believed. the predominance of the U.S.A.'s research into space tether technology and asteroid compositions is being done by their Naval Research Lab., of course an impact in the ocean I suppose could really mess with the navies ports and stuff.

 

[chriscdc]

Some major flaws in this plan. Nukes can hit a target with high accuracy within minutes of launch. The asteroid needs to be coaxed onto a collision path years in advance. Putting it into orbit removes a great deal of the ke energy that you would get out of it as a weapon as well as making it blindingly obvious as to what you are planning.<br /><br />This would only be possible as a revenge weapon after your country has been destroyed.<br /><br />If self replicating machines are built then this could be one application for it if you are an apocalypse cultist, but apart from that, this would be a very expensive mission.<br /><br />Otherwise I would go with the 'rods from god' plan where you drop tungsten rods from a satellite and let them it the atmosphere, de-orbit and then hit the ground at several km/s. Actually that could work as long as you could incorporate a guidence system and release the rods when you are only km from a target, like a shotgun round. Actually they could rebuild thier anti-nuke missile interceptors with a re-entry shield (well good enough to make sure it survives long enough for a definate hit). <br />Sorry I like going off on tangents about weapon possibilities.

 

[mlorrey]

Rods from God: Project Thors Hammer, look it up.<br /><br />You would lose some, but not most of the ke of your asteroid by putting it into a highly eccentric orbit, say, a 100000 x 500 mi orbit. It would have an apogee velocity of under 1000 mph and a perigee velocity pretty close to escape v. This would prevent pretty much any Earth based interdiction, short of an all out massed nuke missile wave, which would as likely drop the entire rock on their heads...

 

[torino10]

I think it should be possible to spin the asteroid and keep it in the lagrange point between the earth and moon.<br />Then you may be able to break off chunks and keep them tethered to the main body and use the tethers as a means of converting the asteroids angular momentum into velocity changes.<br /><br />Essentially an orbital trebuchet.

 

[nexium]

Present tethers would break before the centrafugal (centripical?) force reached 100 tons.<br />L1 is about 200,000 miles from Earth, so chunks thrown at Earth traveling 20,000 miles per hour average over the 200,000 mile path would take 10 hours to reach Earth. Impact point would be plus or minus 100 miles and the chunk would likely burn up completely in the atmosphere, unless the chunk had rocket engines to perform aerobraking and last minute aiming. Neil

 

[nexium]

I think the tunsten rods need an ablative coating as tungsten burns in oxygen at less than 2000 degrees f. Are you thinking of one cm rods ten cm long? Why are rods better than cubes or spheres? How about spent Uranium or tungstan carbide instead of tungsten? Neil

 

[nexium]

A few kilowatt hours per ton of asteroid, applied decades in advance can change a near miss of Earth to a hit of Earth. Lots more energy is needed a month before a very near miss. A projected hit plus or minus 10,000 miles would cause massive panic, world wide as soon as it was calculated.<br />To park even a one ton asteroid or comet at L1 would take millions of kilowatt hours even if you started decades before the desired park date. Neil

 

[j05h]

If I understand it, the tungsten in the Rods from God scheme impact in a molten plasma state. It's designed to have maximum Earth-penetrating ability. Rod shape is to keep the mass together and vaporize slowly instead of having wide cross-section to slow it down. They want the mass to hit going as fast as possible. I'm not sure if it's pure tungsten or an alloy. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

No, not necessarily. Recent breakthroughs in orbital dynamics show that the lagrange points are the gateways to cheap interplanetary travel with minimal energy. Getting to them is actually quite easy, energy wise.