Lawmakers try to cut NASA off at the knees

[Colonel Olrik]

Just drop the asteroid somewhere on Earth's surface. Problem solved and I can think of a few good candidate places for the landing, which would go as an extra bonus.


About the space elevator, I'm not aware of a material feasible to massproduce and that can endure the imense shearing and normal stresses caused by the weight of a cable several thousands Km of length, not to mention an added cargo. The five years time period sounds like a fairy tale.

[SirNitram]

Just drop the asteroid somewhere on Earth's surface. Problem solved and I can think of a few good candidate places for the landing, which would go as an extra bonus.

Heeeee.

About the space elevator, I'm not aware of a material feasible to massproduce and that can endure the imense shearing and normal stresses caused by the weight of a cable several thousands Km of length, not to mention an added cargo. The five years time period sounds like a fairy tale.

They claim carbon nanotubes woven into a fiber will do the trick, but again, I'm not holding my breath until the line is up and the little crawlers they have are confirmed to hit top and then bottom in a controlled manner.

[RedImperator]

Find me a way to get that much metal out of the ground for the same price, and we'll discuss how 'fantastic' the prices I quoted are. Anyway, I know exactly how to drop teh prices: Commercial Saturn V's, a space elevator of any size, etc.

That's not the point. The market isn't demanding that much metal all at the same time, so it's pointless to say, "Find me a way to get that much metal out of the ground". That's why an asteroid would cause the price to crash. At any rate, I doubt there's a private company anywhere on Earth which could afford to risk investing $50 or $100 billion in a project like this. You're talking about a staggeringly enormous investment that could be wasted by a rocket blowing up on the launch pad or a misplaced decimal point in a computer somewhere.

The only way I can see anyone undertaking a project like this is if it's done the same way a lot of the big dams out west were built: private investors with lots and lots of low-interest, long-term government loans backing them up. And that's if the technology is available to get the stuff to the ground easily.

[Darth Wong]

Find me a way to get that much metal out of the ground for the same price, and we'll discuss how 'fantastic' the prices I quoted are. Anyway, I know exactly how to drop teh prices: Commercial Saturn V's, a space elevator of any size, etc.

Aren't you assuming it won't cost anything to extract the metal from the asteroid? Even if we assume that some sort of capture or interception has already been performed, why would mining material out of a large asteroid be so much cheaper than mining it out of the ground?

[Colonel Olrik]

They claim carbon nanotubes woven into a fiber will do the trick, but again, I'm not holding my breath until the line is up and the little crawlers they have are confirmed to hit top and then bottom in a controlled manner.

Those composites have been under study for decades now, and they can indeed have the desired characteristics. The problem is mass producing the material and effectively building the cable. As far as I can tell, it still must involve an inane quantity of money. Unless they've discovered one of the Holy Graals of engineering.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Mining, haha...the costs would exceed the benefits by a pretty huge factor, I imagine.

Then you've not crunched the numbers.

The cost to go out to a NEO and drag it to orbit is projected at somewhere between 50 and 100 billion.

The market price of the iron, nickel, and cobalt in a Iron-Nickel asteroid a mere kilometer to a side is nine trillion. Unless we've suddenly found a huge, inexhaustable supply of those elements, it's not a waste.

Hell, I can knock off lots from the costs if Highwire actually makes the damn elevator. The idea that 'dur, the market will pursue everything that makes a profit instead of just doing the same thing cheaper' is silly.

Do those costs include all the research and development needed to design the spacecraft, the mining system, the methods used to transport the ores back to Earth, the methods required to reliably process it in space? Do they also include the incrastructure costs required to assemble this vehicle (in orbit, requiring a lot of launches at $3000 - $10000 per pound of payload,) and the cost of getting the fuel up there (assuming we start 'dry' rather than refining volatiles from the moon . . . which is an entirely different story)? Do they involve the extensive training required to produce a crew of highly technical people?

Yes, NEO asteroid mining is a cool idea. Yes, a suitable asteroid will yield trillions of dollars of ore (well, up to the point the market crashes thanks to the influx of metals.) Except, the cost per unit of refined metal from an asteroid will be substantially greater than iron dug up from the Earth. And it is liable to stay that way for decades at the minimum.

[kojikun]

isn't NASA's annual budget 25 billion?

[MKSheppard]

but usually, humans near machines tend to cause problems, and in these conditions, those problems spell d-e-a-t-h.

We had those same problems mining gold during the Gold Rush
and laying the railroads across the continent, and we still did it,
body count be damned! Staying out of going into space because....
GASP! people might DIE doing it, is just stupid, kind of like us waiting
for technology to allow us to lay a transcontinental railroad with zero
deaths.

31 people were killed doing the trans-alaskan pipeline...now, why should
I care if 40 people die building an infrastructure on the moon that will
benefit humanity in the long run?

[MKSheppard]

At any rate, I doubt there's a private company anywhere on Earth which could afford to risk investing $50 or $100 billion in a project like this. You're talking about a staggeringly enormous investment that could be wasted by a rocket blowing up on the launch pad or a misplaced decimal point in a computer somewhere.

Holy fucking shit, we did just that; wasted a shitload of money on speculative
ventures....on railroads in the 1860s! And we created a nation doing so.

[Colonel Olrik]

but usually, humans near machines tend to cause problems, and in these conditions, those problems spell d-e-a-t-h.

We had those same problems mining gold during the Gold Rush
and laying the railroads across the continent, and we still did it,
body count be damned! Staying out of going into space because....
GASP! people might DIE doing it, is just stupid, kind of like us waiting
for technology to allow us to lay a transcontinental railroad with zero
deaths.

31 people were killed doing the trans-alaskan pipeline...now, why should
I care if 40 people die building an infrastructure on the moon that will
benefit humanity in the long run?

There's a world of difference between the death of an expendable and cheap workforce, like the one available in those projects, and the death of the very especialized, expensive and rare workers needed in a space project.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'm sure if such space projects did go underway, those people on the project would know full well what risk they are taking and would still do it, because it would be the greatest possible adventure and job to date. Astronauts are made very well aware that they could all die, but the risk is very acceptable to them.

[MKSheppard]

There's a world of difference between the death of an expendable and cheap workforce, like the one available in those projects, and the death of the very especialized, expensive and rare workers needed in a space project.

How are they specialized? The only ones who are specialized are the pilots,
everyone else is about as specialized as a deep sea diver, what with the
problems of pressure suits, and oxygen mixes, and we of course lose
divers every year due to all kinds of causes.

[Colonel Olrik]

How are they specialized? The only ones who are specialized are the pilots,
everyone else is about as specialized as a deep sea diver, what with the
problems of pressure suits, and oxygen mixes, and we of course lose
divers every year due to all kinds of causes.

They must endure and pass the physical tests. You can't send random emmigrant x up there. In such an environment everything depends of machinery and electronics, they must be trained to operate them. They must also be handsomely paid. All together, a single tragic accident like the one that happened in Brazil a while back could prove too costly.

[MKSheppard]

They must endure and pass the physical tests. You can't send random emmigrant x up there. In such an environment everything depends of machinery and electronics, they must be trained to operate them.

Sort of like moron boy band members or millionares?

The physical tests are stupid too, they're jsut afraid of the bad
PR of someone croaking in orbit versus their actual usefulness.

[RedImperator]

At any rate, I doubt there's a private company anywhere on Earth which could afford to risk investing $50 or $100 billion in a project like this. You're talking about a staggeringly enormous investment that could be wasted by a rocket blowing up on the launch pad or a misplaced decimal point in a computer somewhere.

Holy fucking shit, we did just that; wasted a shitload of money on speculative
ventures....on railroads in the 1860s! And we created a nation doing so.

Railroads were proven technology by the 1860s. Nobody had any doubts that a transcontinental railroad would work; the only doubt was whether it would generate enough revenue to compensate for the cost of building it. And while the costs were high, they don't even approach the cost of hauling in a single asteroid and mining it, even adjusted for inflation. There was no single point of failure on that project that could have sunk the whole thing save getting over the Sierra Nevada, and for that we had dynamite and cheap disposable labor. And the only way the transcontinental railroad got built anyway was with massive government subsidies in the form of dirt cheap land for the right-of-way and in the case of the first line, direct government investment.

No corporation anywhere on the planet is going to risk $100 billion dollars of its own money on a high risk project that might not turn a profit for decades when for that price they could open dozens of new mines on Earth. Asteroid mining has a shitload of potential, but the technology isn't there yet.

[MKSheppard]

Railroads were proven technology by the 1860s. Nobody had any doubts that a transcontinental railroad would work; the only doubt was whether it would generate enough revenue to compensate for the cost of building it.

Wow, building space capsules and heavy lift boosters are proven technology; and of course, we have doubts whether or not it would
generate enough revenue, so why the fuck should we let that stop
us?

[RedImperator]

Railroads were proven technology by the 1860s. Nobody had any doubts that a transcontinental railroad would work; the only doubt was whether it would generate enough revenue to compensate for the cost of building it.

Wow, building space capsules and heavy lift boosters are proven technology; and of course, we have doubts whether or not it would
generate enough revenue, so why the fuck should we let that stop
us?

So what proven technology do we have that will move a trillion ton space rock into Earth orbit and get the metal to the ground for less than the price of that metal on the commodities market?

[Crayz9000]

So what proven technology do we have that will move a trillion ton space rock into Earth orbit and get the metal to the ground for less than the price of that metal on the commodities market?

Put a fusion rocket on the asteroid and steer it into an orbit that'll land it in the Gobi Desert, maybe?

[RedImperator]

So what proven technology do we have that will move a trillion ton space rock into Earth orbit and get the metal to the ground for less than the price of that metal on the commodities market?

Put a fusion rocket on the asteroid and steer it into an orbit that'll land it in the Gobi Desert, maybe?

Forgetting for a moment that no fusion rockets exist, how do you land the thing without making a giant crater and doing all the other bad things that happen when asteroids hit, as well as blowing all your metals into the stratosphere?

[Crayz9000]

Forgetting for a moment that no fusion rockets exist, how do you land the thing without making a giant crater and doing all the other bad things that happen when asteroids hit, as well as blowing all your metals into the stratosphere?

Why, of course, you invert the output of the deflector dish aboard the shuttle, producing timed tetryon bursts that will cause Earth's magnetic field to slow the asteroid's fall to a snail's pace.

Failing that, you run like hell.

[MKSheppard]

So what proven technology do we have that will move a trillion ton space rock into Earth orbit and get the metal to the ground for less than the price of that metal on the commodities market?

Can we say "blast furnaces" on the asteroid? melt and manfuacture steel
and other stuff on site in zero gravity, and assemble it into spaceships
there, you'd be able to make some really big ass ships there, I'm talking
1,000+ ton ships for the fraction the cost it would to ship everything up
by heavy booster.

[RedImperator]

Fine, great idea. But before we can do that, we have to learn HOW to do it. It's a pretty big leap from building parts on the ground and assembling them in orbit, the way we do now, to refining raw ore into spaceship parts in orbit.

[MKSheppard]

Fine, great idea. But before we can do that, we have to learn HOW to do it. It's a pretty big leap from building parts on the ground and assembling them in orbit, the way we do now, to refining raw ore into spaceship parts in orbit.

We have the technology, it's just that we lack the will to do it; Although
an asteroid in a stable location would be an iffy proposition. You'd have
to travel really really far to get there. A far much better bet with our
limited propulsion tech at the moment, is to go for the moon and
set up manufacturing there; 1/6th gravity is still a hell of a lot better
than 1 gee for moving big ass shit into orbit, and as we delve further into
the solar systme; we can use the moon as a refuelling stop, as we
can mine and manufacture fuel on the moon then shoot it into orbit with
mass drivers for the big ships to use to boost to wherever we want 'em

[Icehawk]

isn't NASA's annual budget 25 billion?

Lol, its about 15 billion actually, If it were 25 billion NASA would have been flying a fleet of VentureStars right now instead of the Shuttle and the ISS would have been completed this year like it was originally planned.

[MKSheppard]

Lol, its about 15 billion actually, If it were 25 billion NASA would have been flying a fleet of VentureStars right now instead of the Shuttle and the ISS would have been completed this year like it was originally planned.

Wow....not to rip on mike, but what a shining example of the government
doing what private industry won't!

We need to recreate the 1860s railroad boom, by offering significant economic incenitives; like say sole rights to a area of the moon larger than
Texas, and of course, offering to pay for the insurance on these flights.