Instapundit had a link to Popular Mechanics about some new technology being developed. The link to the Popular Mechanics story is: How to Mine an Asteroid.
Now all this very interesting, but it begs a question. How can this be made more cost effective?
I had a small thought about that. In hundreds of Science Fiction books, there are what is called Asteroid Miners and Asteroid Minig companies. Where Miners in small ships go out and started to disassemble the asteroid in situ. While it makes for good writing and plot elements, until such time as mining space ship technology becomes affordable, any type of space mining will be done either by Governments or large private corporations.
So I was thinking to myself, "Self, what if a specially designed satellite was to dock with an asteroid, anchor itself to same, then using an Ion drive similar to the New Horizons Spacecraft, to slowly add acceleration to the asteroid to bring it to a moon capture orbit. The asteroid would be put on a trajectory that will allow it to be captured by the moons gravitational pull. From there the asteroid could be broken up, shaped into a re-entry shape and have a spray on heat shield attached, then sent to earth for use in our industries."
That really is the thought I told myself.
But what would we need to make it happen?
One of the largest obstacle I see is how to properly anchor to the asteroid through it center of mass so any thrust applied to it would make it go in a straight line. Plus to keep the original costs down, the return trip of the asteroid would take several years before it would enter the moons gravity. Any attempt to make the trip quicker would in my opinion be dangerous and much more expensive. Faster acceleration means more thrust, which an Ion drive cannot provide, plus steering and attitude control under slow thrust can be achieved with smaller Ion thrusters also anchored to the asteroid or mounted to the main engine similar to RCS thrusters on spacecraft. However as I stated before the problem will be ensuring the engine thrusters assembly is anchored at the proper place so the main line of thrust passes through the center of mass of the asteroid.
There are other problems, from political, to safety and other things. But I will stop here to let you do some of your own research if you desire.
Space is our destiny, I don't feel that we are destined to be constrained here on this one planet. There is so much to learn and explore, we should make the leap even though it can be frightening.
The Replica Prop Forum
Very cool site I am also a member of
1 comment:
Jow about -
The initial trajectory to be established need not be all that accurate, nor would fiddling course corrections during the long journey. Keep it within the plane of Earth's orbit and to pass through it at within, say, 750000 miles: when it gets anywhere near that, THEN establish more accuracy by sending extra hardware (another big nudge to throw it out of fall-into-Sun travel, multiple small thrusters to be mounted on the surface, etc.).
Yeah, the initial thrust from its established position will still take a heck of a lot of calculation and fairish precision (think of how to do a "bank shot" if its natural position/orbit plus thrust will have it cross Earth's orbit when the Earth is on the other side of the Sun...) but even my pulled-out-of-the-air 750000 range should be easier that shooting for a 125000 range, with or without all the hardware for mid-flight course correction.
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