Space Buisness Q&A:

[why06]

Say I was just wondering...<br /><br />Say I wanted to start an asteroid mining company in the future what kind of equip ment and money would I need? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div>________________________________________ <br /></div><div><ul><li><font color="#008000"><em>your move...</em></font></li></ul></div> </div>

 

[quarkstorm]

You would need a means of lifting 100's if not 1000's of tonnes of heavy duty mining equipment into space. I would suggest that such a thing is not economically viable with the launch technology currently in use. Look at the costs of launching the international space station.<br /><br />The asteroids are, however, full of raw materials if we could only find a way of getting the mining equipment necessicary up there. Once we had established the mines we would have all the raw materials we needed. As a result we wouldn't have to bring anything except people from earth ever again, because we could manufacture all the vessels, space station and goods we needed in space.<br /><br />I would suggest that the most economically viable means of lifting the tonnage of equipment necessary to get a mining colony off the ground is a vessel powered by nuclear pulse propulsion, ie a vessel based upon the ever controversial project orion. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> Very few earth based launches of such a craft would ever be necessary, because as I have said once asteroid mines were operational we would have no need to bring anything heavy from earth ever again.<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

 

[why06]

How about something stronger than nuclear....here's a link on hafnium http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A22099-2004Mar24&notFound=true</ahafnium<br /><br />To start the project we could launch machines to the moon that would build a inititial factory large enough to build starships to fly to the asteroid belt and ready the construction of a drilling machine. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div>________________________________________ <br /></div><div><ul><li><font color="#008000"><em>your move...</em></font></li></ul></div> </div>