Asteroid Day

[caelite]

Einion Yrth said:

caelite said:

it won't be long before we are able to send up craft to circularise and exploit the bountiful resources held within some of these asteroids.

Really? Megatonnes of mass and some kps of delta-v? Far, far beyond current capabilities in terms of anything we couldn't just leave to burn up in the atmosphere.

Can't claim to know the means behind it, however there are a half dozen companies currently exploring the options, although all are currently still in prospecting stages, of designing satelites to confirm what resources are actually held within the asteroids, as I said optimistic forecasts see the first viable mining missions occuring in 2-3 decades. The thing is though, as much as it seems far fetched, unlike exploratory space agencies (NASA etc) which seek to go to space for intangible means such as 'knowledge', these private companies are going there for resources, and once they can confirm that they have a means of getting said resources into a useable state it is expected that the amount of investment will skyrocket as they are offering a very real resource for the taking, we are talking billions of usd, which will absolutely decimate the measely budgets that governments give to scientific agencies.

Money gets results.

[Einion Yrth]

caelite said:

Einion Yrth said:

caelite said:

it won't be long before we are able to send up craft to circularise and exploit the bountiful resources held within some of these asteroids.

Really? Megatonnes of mass and some kps of delta-v? Far, far beyond current capabilities in terms of anything we couldn't just leave to burn up in the atmosphere.

Can't claim to know the means behind it, however there are a half dozen companies currently exploring the options, although all are currently still in prospecting stages, of designing satelites to confirm what resources are actually held within the asteroids, as I said optimistic forecasts see the first viable mining missions occuring in 2-3 decades. The thing is though, as much as it seems far fetched, unlike exploratory space agencies (NASA etc) which seek to go to space for intangible means such as 'knowledge', these private companies are going there for resources, and once they can confirm that they have a means of getting said resources into a useable state it is expected that the amount of investment will skyrocket as they are offering a very real resource for the taking, we are talking billions of usd, which will absolutely decimate the measely budgets that governments give to scientific agencies.

Money gets results.

Mining in situ and sending home the interesting bits? Yeah, probably, maybe - given enough money and desire. Circularise the orbit of an incoming dinosaur killer? No chance; not without a major propulsion breakthrough that would require a rewrite of the laws of physics, or an unfeasibly large lead-time.

[jmorgan]

Chip chunks off and send it to tne moon.

[caelite]

Sorry, I have written what I meant entirely incorrectly. They don't circularise it persay, merely slow it enough for an orbital capture, a burn at the periapsis (low point) of the objects orbit would require minimal deltaV to perform, leaving it in a highly eccentric orbit. Allowing them to mine the resources for potential de-orbit burn. The nature of this orbit would allow objects to be gradually slowed by the atmosphere over several orbits before re-entry, again with minimal deltaV required.

[XM5ER]

Boring_Chris said:

The news outlets have been packed full of asteroid / meteor stories recently. Are they slowly buttering us up for the end of the world? Or have I missed something.

Now you know why.

"In the new TV thriller "Salvation," premiering today (July 12) on CBS, an unlikely collection of heroes — an MIT student, a public affairs officer, an eccentric billionaire and a Pentagon official — try to deflect an asteroid hurtling toward Earth."

https://www.space.com/37456-salvation-thriller-tv-...

This happens so often, there are some very clever PR people out there.

[Boring_Chris]

XM5ER said:

Boring_Chris said:

The news outlets have been packed full of asteroid / meteor stories recently. Are they slowly buttering us up for the end of the world? Or have I missed something.

Now you know why.

"In the new TV thriller "Salvation," premiering today (July 12) on CBS, an unlikely collection of heroes — an MIT student, a public affairs officer, an eccentric billionaire and a Pentagon official — try to deflect an asteroid hurtling toward Earth."

https://www.space.com/37456-salvation-thriller-tv-...

This happens so often, there are some very clever PR people out there.

Haha. Yes!

It's like when dinosaur cloning pops up on Yahoo! news every day all of a sudden... Oh and there's a new Jurassic Park movie coming out. What are the odds.

[XM5ER]

Yep.