C
CosmicGas
Guest
Regarding Hogan-314
"If there were diamonds on the moon, it does you no good if you can't go get them" its been said.
John Lewis' (Mining the sky) and others have detailed the vast incredable wealth of the astroids and outer solar system. However for economic feasability you have to subtract out the cost of logistics. It would be extremly expensive to go mine astroidal bodies and return any resources.Right now there is nothing on any drawing boards to go do that. In the not too distant future when our capabilities reach that point and infastructure is set in place, we could reach a break-even point. Delta-v costs are so high some advocate not bringing back space resources to earth at all, but only using them locally. Inother words, moving and living there.
The one element of Constellation, (ISRU) in-situ resource utilization, with a base on the moon extracting oxygen and water could be a first teaching step in that direction. Even that seems to be on the chopping block under the current political enviroment.
"If there were diamonds on the moon, it does you no good if you can't go get them" its been said.
John Lewis' (Mining the sky) and others have detailed the vast incredable wealth of the astroids and outer solar system. However for economic feasability you have to subtract out the cost of logistics. It would be extremly expensive to go mine astroidal bodies and return any resources.Right now there is nothing on any drawing boards to go do that. In the not too distant future when our capabilities reach that point and infastructure is set in place, we could reach a break-even point. Delta-v costs are so high some advocate not bringing back space resources to earth at all, but only using them locally. Inother words, moving and living there.
The one element of Constellation, (ISRU) in-situ resource utilization, with a base on the moon extracting oxygen and water could be a first teaching step in that direction. Even that seems to be on the chopping block under the current political enviroment.