Asteroid Mining

[HopAlongBunny]

To use it to expand the ISS itself.

Possible. A very starry-eyed view would be for processing/manufacturing in space for space related "infrastructure".

[rvg]

Possible. A very starry-eyed view would be for processing/manufacturing in space for space related "infrastructure".

Space rock can be used to create hull space. Lots of hull space, can't have too much of that. Besides, hauling a whole asteroid down to Earth is wasteful, considering that 95% of it is likely to be garbage as far as Earth is concerned, but in space all that garbage can come in handy. Now, if you managed to find an asteroid made of solid gold, then yeah, down to Earth it goes. Barring that, might as well maximize the usefulness of those rocks.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Space rock can be used to create hull space. Lots of hull space, can't have too much of that. Besides, hauling a whole asteroid down to Earth is wasteful, considering that 95% of it is likely to be garbage as far as Earth is concerned, but in space all that garbage can come in handy. Now, if you managed to find an asteroid made of solid gold, then yeah, down to Earth it goes. Barring that, might as well maximize the usefulness of those rocks.

Rock isn't really that useful for orbiting space stations. It would be difficult to construct the proper architecture that is required to provide protection against micro meteorites. Big thick slab walls are actually not that great for high speed collisions.

[rvg]

Rock isn't really that useful for orbiting space stations. It would be difficult to construct the proper architecture that is required to provide protection against micro meteorites. Big thick slab walls are actually not that great for high speed collisions.

Rock has the advantage of being cheap and plentiful. Whatever damage occurs can be fixed with on hand materials.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Rock has the advantage of being cheap and plentiful. Whatever damage occurs can be fixed with on hand materials.

Not if the entire compartment gets destroyed every time a rock with the diameter of a dime hits it. Your notions of "cheap and plentiful" have no bearing on what needs to be done to survive space.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Even if this turns out to be a giant financial disaster, it will be important in advancing our extra-terrestrial capabilities. Sooner or later Humanity has to leave this rock, and its made a much harder goal because people are generally incapable (or unwilling) to look so far into the future.

Unless we somehow make a breakthrough in propulsion technology we won't be leaving the earth any time soon (~150yrs). Even if we had a ship that could constantly go 10% the speed of light, it would take nearly 2 days to reach Pluto.

[Noncommunist]

Unless we somehow make a breakthrough in propulsion technology we won't be leaving the earth any time soon (~150yrs). Even if we had a ship that could constantly go 10% the speed of light, it would take nearly 2 days to reach Pluto.

That said, we're still only a few days from the moon and a few months from Mars with everything we have now. So while the distances are certainly immense, I'd say that we could at least put a few bases down, perhaps get as far as our settlement of Antarctica.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

You're thinking small. If mankind is to endure for HUNDREDS of thousands of years, instead of the mere 10,000 or so years of written history we're at today, then we must find a way to go elsewhere. Its the ultimate holy grail of science and civilization. Staying on earth is like laying in your own coffin--sooner or later this planet won't be able to support life, whether its climate change, a rogue asteroid, nuclear war, or the sun burning out. Someone should be working on the route to space colonization at all times, in some capacity. Bravo to Cameron and Co. for having the fortitude to persue this in the face of blinding skepticism.

But if the time scale is hundreds of thousands of years then space colonization is not our most urgent problem--that would be ensuring nothing severe happens in the next couple hundred years.

But asteroid mining at least sounds like a reasonable project to restart the space age with...

[rvg]

Not if the entire compartment gets destroyed every time a rock with the diameter of a dime hits it.

This is a non-issue. Current hulls provide no more protection than rock would, all that matters is how thick the hull can be made.

Your notions of "cheap and plentiful" have no bearing on what needs to be done to survive space.

Sure they do. Lack of building materials and huge costs associated with transporting them are major impediments. Asteroids can help alleviate that problem.

[a completely inoffensive name]

This is a non-issue. Current hulls provide no more protection than rock would, all that matters is how thick the hull can be made.

That is simply not true and I am telling you that. Metals can be fabricated to have many multiple thin layers with space in between them. This may be better for micrometeorite protection because the impact usually liquifies the object that is crashing into the space station. The thin layer with gaps may ensure minimum damage because the liquified meteorite will not have the cohesion after the first few layers to puncture the other layers. This is something that simply can't be done with rock.