Spaceflight 🚀Sep 2, 2023

#LAtimes 📆 Sept. 4, 2022 "Two #asteroids in the belt between #Mars and #Jupiter 🪐 have more #iron, #nickel and #cobalt than exists on #Earth. Ultimately these products could be not only #mined ⛏️ but also #processed in #space, reducing #pollution of both the #air and #water on #Earth" https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-04/commercialization-space-earth

"Both #NEAs have surfaces with 85% #metal such as iron and nickel and 15% silicate material, which is basically #rock" https://news.arizona.edu/story/mini-psyches-give-insights-mysterious-metal-rich-near-earth-asteroids

Picture: #RASSOR on #Ceres https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prototype-d%27excavateur-de-la-NASA--RASSOR.jpg

#AsteroidMining #SpaceMining #SpaceRobot

Op-Ed: Can space save Earth?

Mankind faces many serious challenges in the decades ahead. The rapidly growing commercial space industry offers solutions.

Los Angeles Times
Show threadSpaceflight 🚀Sep 24, 2023

#MiningTechnology 📆 September 13, 2023 The #economic potential of extracting raw #minerals from #space for use on Earth or for #InSpaceManufacturing is infinite. The #asteroid ☄️ database Asterank has estimated the resource values for asteroids tracked by #NASA. It claims that the ten closest and most cost-effective #asteroids to mine from #Earth contain around $1.5trn 💰 of natural #resources in today’s economy, which is equivalent to the current annual value of the entire global 🌍 #mining ⚒️ industry.
The current level of investment 💵 into #SpaceExploration and the potential exhaustion of Earth’s resources mean that #AsteroidMining is more of an inevitability than a possibility. https://www.mining-technology.com/comment/asteroid-mining-resource-rich-developing-economies/

#AsteroidMining

What asteroid mining will mean for resource-rich developing economies

The extraction of valuable minerals from our solar system is the most hotly contested aspect of the race to exploit space.

Mining Technology
Show threadTom RitchfordSep 24, 2023
@spaceflight Our problems on Earth are due to excessive waste, not lack of resources.
Show threadSpaceflight 🚀Sep 24, 2023
@TomSwirly https://www.un.org/en/land-natural-resources-conflict
Land, Natural Resources and Conflict: From Curse to Opportunity. An UN-EU Partnership in action

Show threadTom RitchfordSep 25, 2023

@spaceflight I have actually seen that link before: it in no way refutes what I said.

The biggest threat facing the planet today is excessive waste, of which CO2 is just the most prominent part.

None of this rocketeering is going to fix that problem; indeed, while rocket fuel is usually hydrogen, the energy used to make the fuel is mostly fossil fuels, so it makes the problem worse.

Show threadSpaceflight 🚀Sep 25, 2023
@TomSwirly sure, it's about "reducing pollution of both the air and water on Earth" https://techhub.social/@spaceflight/110995393486355382 . Green hydrogen would be the best https://techhub.social/@spaceflight/109382305150918036 or alternatively @isecdotorg
Spaceflight 🚀 (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image #LAtimes 📆 Sept. 4, 2022 "Two #asteroids in the belt between #Mars and #Jupiter 🪐 have more #iron, #nickel and #cobalt than exists on #Earth. Ultimately these products could be not only #mined ⛏️ but also #processed in #space, reducing #pollution of both the #air and #water on #Earth" https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-04/commercialization-space-earth "Both #NEAs have surfaces with 85% #metal such as iron and nickel and 15% silicate material, which is basically #rock" https://news.arizona.edu/story/mini-psyches-give-insights-mysterious-metal-rich-near-earth-asteroids Picture: #RASSOR on #Ceres https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prototype-d%27excavateur-de-la-NASA--RASSOR.jpg #AsteroidMining #SpaceMining #SpaceRobot

TechHub
Show threadTom Ritchford

@spaceflight @isecdotorg

I have been reading articles about exploiting the asteroid belt for over fifty years now. During that time we have spent an astonishingly large amount of energy on rocketry, but haven't manufactured even one useful thing from off-world materials.

Also during that time, we went from threat to our climate being distant, to it being almost certain disaster looming in our faces.

1/

Sep 26, 2023 at 7:05amWeb
Show threadTom RitchfordSep 26, 2023

@spaceflight @isecdotorg
Space travel is an excuse, so people can continue their compulsive consumption and compulsive waste, but tell themselves, "The magical space technology will fix everything!"

What we are doing is like a man not leaving his burning house because he is online, planning a retirement fund for his great-great-grandchildren.

Show threadSpaceflight 🚀Sep 26, 2023
@TomSwirly how do you define progress ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress#Measuring_progress
Progress - Wikipedia

Show threadTom RitchfordSep 26, 2023

@spaceflight This is not germane to the matter at hand.

Some huge, amorphous, poorly-defined concept like "progress" is not useful in dealing with this critical problem: "How do we not decimate the biosphere, and with it, humanity?"