this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Futurology

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Do you believe that miningoperation on asteroids are possible? Or not? Why?

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[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 7 points 8 months ago

Absolutely possible. Whether it's likely any time soon is the real question. There are three types of bodies we could mine valuable materials from. The main ones would be in the various collection points in the solar system (the asteroid belt and the Trojan points of large bodies, mainly Jupiter but even Earth has some "trash" in its Lagrange points). The other two would be either NEO that pass close to the Earth, or comets that make rarer visits.

The problem with the asteroid belt and gas planet Trojans is the sheer distance involved, especially for manned mining but even for real time remote work. Perhaps with AI-guided machines, but we're not there yet.

The problem with the nearer ones is how to either bring such things into a slower orbit, or to mine within the window where they are near the Earth.

The actual mining of bodies in space is one we can solve, once we figure out the above. Just getting to the Moon requires days and a Mars shot 2 years one way with our "primitive" and limited thrust chemical rockets.