Space mining techniques?

[inventorwannabe]

Hi!<br /><br />Do You know where to find information about the latest in how to process materials from different space resources? Fx. oxygen, iron, precious metals...<br /><br />Brgds / InventorWannabe

 

[solarspot]

http://www.permanent.com/index.htm<br /><br />That's the most up-to-date site I know for space mining...

 

[inventorwannabe]

Yes, the site was a mine in itself! Thank You. Ordered their book right away.<br /><br />Brgds / InventorWannabe<br /> <br />PS: Hope the site wakes up again... A lot of nonfunctional links etc etc DS<br /><br />

 

[owenander]

Quick question<br />Can you "suck" things up a tube while in a vacuum? Like for instance sucking up dust from an asteroid to a ship?

 

[inventorwannabe]

Nope, you couldn't!<br /><br />Brgds / InventorWannabe <br /><br />Actually, you could...<br /><br />Ask Mr. Bigelow to build one of his inflatables around an asteroid of proper size. Attach a chamber to the inflatable connected through a first pipe(this one is to be used as the suction pipe), it has to reach a bit into the chamber. Then connect two long pipes with valves at the ends which should be attached to the chamber closer to the inflatable. This is to force the gasflow to make an 180 deg turn. Now, when filled to the right pressure, open the outer valve on the first long pipe and the the inner. Gas will now flow from through the suction pipe and into the chamber and then out into the first pipe. When the gas reaches the outer valve it should be quickly shut. The gas that went through the suction pipe has now actually sucked material from the asteroid to the chamber. Now open the outer and inner valves on the second pipe and during that time pump back the gas from the first pipe into the chamber or the inflatable. Close the valves on the second pipe and evacuate it... Keep'em just doing their stuff and you have a Kirby good enough for Guiness book of records . I believe that it is of most use if you pump the gas back to the inflatable, with this gas flow you could blow material nearer to the suctionpipe mouthpiece to make it more efficient! So you can actually suck material from an asteroid, it just needed some thought... Well, this idea is no news anymore and therefore not patentable OK, I'm willing to make a deal 50/50 if someone bothers to take the administrative task of making a patent out of this!

 

[nyarlathotep]

<font color="yellow">Can you "suck" things up a tube while in a vacuum?</font><br /><br />Only if you had somehow generated a much greater vacuum (exercise for the reader) and were prepared to wait a while. Given the mean free path and particle density to be found out in the main belt, you'd probably want to put the kettle on... for few trillion years. <br /><br />I suggest you'd be better off ablating the material with a large mirror or high powered laser.

 

[inventorwannabe]

"I suggest you'd be better off ablating the material with a large mirror or high powered laser."<br /><br />The problem with this is how to catch the volatiles... <br /><br />Brgds / InventorWannabe

 

[j05h]

<i>> I suggest you'd be better off ablating the material with a large mirror or high powered laser.</i><br /><br />You still need to process the material. Various tunnel boring machines (TBM) and centrifuges to separate materials make a lot of sense if you want to separate water and other material. A lot of processing can be done by singular harvester machines. This is mostly for semi-soft objects, Martian glaciers and extinguished NEO comets. Lasers probably make more sense for slicing metal asteroids. Even then, we'll harvest smaller/simpler access objects (shattered/conglomerate asteroids) before we'll need to be cutting into shear cliffs of steel. <br /><br />My single favorite near-term concept is one by Robert Maas on sci.space: a "bagger" robot that swallows boulders off a larger asteroid. The unit seals around the boulder, heats it with sunlight and extracts volatiles. When done, it unseals, drops the boulder on the surface and picks up another one. Great idea. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[mdodson]

"Space Resources and Space Settlements" NASA SP-428 gives a view of thinking thirty years ago. http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceres/index.html

 

[corbarrad]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Can you "suck" things up a tube while in a vacuum? Like for instance sucking up dust from an asteroid to a ship?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />You just might be able to if the material becomes ionized during removal , then you could "suck" it in by applying an electric potential.<br />Of course the loss would be enpormous if you were mining volatiles...