We Will Never, Ever, Mine the Asteroid Belt

Re:We Will Never, Ever, Mine the Asteroid Belt by dwaltrip on Friday December 24, 2021 @03:43PM (#29677554)

If civilization ever expands off-surface in a major way, then there may be strong economic incentives to use material from the asteroid belt. Humans are exploratory and expansionary creatures at our core, so barring catastrophe it is only a matter of time. Once it is feasible, people will do it.

For a simple initial analysis, we can look at the energy requirements to move from the surface to LEO vs LEO to the asteroid belt. The delta-v needed to get from the Earth’s surface to LEO is at least 9.4 km/s [1]. Meanwhile, there are about 4,000 known main-belt asteroids reachable from LEO with a delta-v budget of 8 km/s or less [2].

Obviously, that isn’t the only factor, but it is one of the most fundamental factors.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00945...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We Will Never, Ever, Mine the Asteroid Belt by AtlasBarfed on Friday December 24, 2021 @05:47PM (#29678520)

Let's look at it from the perspective of a space-faring civ that arrives in a solar system, and you need resources.

Would you mine things in a big gravity well like Earth's and have to pay to get the resources out of the gravity well?

Or mine asteroids and low-G moons?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:We Will Never, Ever, Mine the Asteroid Belt by dwaltrip on Saturday December 25, 2021 @12:56AM (#29680846)

That is a nice way of putting it!

[ Parent | on HN ]