Is anything valuable in space?

[morteduzionism]

Is anything on the moon worth anything? Could we use moon stuff, or any other celestial body, to reduce our use of earthly resources?

Has anything of value been discovered?

[Sidus Preclarum]

Helium 3 on the moon, for exemple...

[Syron]

yeh, on the moon helium 3 is probably the most valuable thing as an efficient fuel for fusion reactors. IIRC, the Moon has higher levels of titanium so maybe that can be exploited.


Precious metals, water and iron exist all over the solar system. the only question is about developing space technology to make mining them cost effective.

[morteduzionism]

Precious metals, water and iron exist all over the solar system. the only question is about developing space technology to make mining them cost efficient.

that is the question

[Gary88]

you could always sell space rock on ebay but thats not exactly cost effective

[Syron]

that is the question

Yes well the problem is that that is a very difficult question to answer until you actually try it!

[morteduzionism]

Yes well the problem is that that is a very difficult question to answer until you actually try it!

I sort of posted a topic about this very thing in the ethos forum...

richard branson or someone will bring something back make another gagillion dollars and then govts will militarize space and shut it out...but at least we'll be out there...

you could always sell space rock on ebay but thats not exactly cost effective

does UPS Air pick up on the moon?

We could then mine them there and transports the metals down to Earth via cost effective means such as space elevators.

what is a space elevator?

[Gary88]

what try selling space rocks?

[Blau&Gruen]

H2O is maybe the most valuable thing out there.

[Big War Bird]

The costs involved of getting anything from space to the earth is well, astronomical.

[Juvenal]

Come now, expand your imaginations.

Space is where we have to go if we are to have any future as a species.

The Earth is too small and too connected for safety. Look at the record of mass extinctions in the fossil record. With humanity in the picture everything is happening at a million times the old speed. It is becoming ridiculously easy for us to wipe ourselves out of existence.

We need to expand into space and live there. All the power and materials we will ever need are there for the taking out among the asteroids and the kuiper belt.

The wider we are spread, the safer we are.

Don't worry about the cost of Earth to orbit travel. Our future is out of gravity wells entirely. We need to get largely self sustaining colonies out there - and the Moon is a good place to practice.

Also don't imagine that the NASA way is how we will do it. Once launch to orbit is cheap enough success can only come on a shoe-string and consequently with much lower safety standards than with government programmes.

When I was a child I thought this would all happen in my lifetime. Looks like I was wrong, but I still believe that our future is outwards and upwards.

[H_man]

One asteroid is worth several billion dollars in platinum, gold, and other precious metals. I believe space mining and colonies will begin in my lifetime, as there are already plans for theme parks, and trips to the moon by 2010. We will land on mars after the first successful colony on the moon, along with the completion of the first lunar manufacturing plant for the assembling of extraplanetal vehicles.

[Daovonnaex]

Pretty much all of the "hard" planets in the solar system are likely to be chock full of minerals. The asteroid belt contains large quantities of rare (on Earth) metals, such as iridium. It would not take a lot of energy to move large asteroids in Earth orbit. We could then mine them there and transports the metals down to Earth via cost effective means such as space elevators.

[Gary88]

cost effective means such as space elevators.

do you have any idea of the costs involved in that? or how technologically dificult it it (as of yet impossible)?

[Daovonnaex]

what is a space elevator?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

do you have any idea of the costs involved in that? or how technologically dificult it it (as of yet impossible)?

Currently, extremely expensive and very difficult. Twenty years for now is a different story, however.

[morteduzionism]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator


Currently, extremely expensive and very difficult. Twenty years for now is a different story, however.

space elevators...that doesn't look like something...practical...a long tube that stretches from the earth to space...

It'd probably make more sense to wrap the space...resources in some type of shuttle like thing and just throw them at the earth...literally

Is that possible? Didn't that old metal space shuttle simply fall into the ocean? Couldn't they put the space stuff in something like that and just drop it onto the earth?

*I have a degree in History(social sciences), so don't laugh at my ideas too hard...

[Daovonnaex]

space elevators...that doesn't look like something...practical...a long tube that stretches from the earth to space...

Carbon nanotube construction should make it feasible.

It'd probably make more sense to wrap the space...resources in some type of shuttle like thing and just throw them at the earth...literally

Yes, mass accelerators are one good way of doing it, especially with respect to any ferrous metals.

Is that possible? Didn't that old metal space shuttle simply fall into the ocean? Couldn't they put the space stuff in something like that and just drop it onto the earth?

Prior to the space shuttle (which is a piece of ****) and the now-retired Buran (improved soviet copy of the space shuttle), all space exploration was conducted with disposable rockets. The command module in US rockets always parachuted to sea, where the astronauts would be picked up by the US Navy. The USSR actually had its astronauts parachute out of their capsules initially, but later their capsules landed and were recovered as well.

*I have a degree in History(social sciences), so don't laugh at my ideas too hard...

This is your lucky day: I have no degrees whatsoever.

[chris_uk_83]

Actually there's already a masive mining operation going on on the moon. See the moon is made of meat, moon meat, and there's a moon meat mine on the moon. All the meat on the Earth is mined in the moon meat mine on the moon by the moon meat miners. You get there via the tunnel to the moon meat mine on the moon so it's cost effective to get the moon meat from the moon meat mine on the moon back to Earth.

Oh, and according to Physics World (the monthly publication from the institute of physics) carbon nanotubes won't work for space elevators because the cable would have to be so long that you'd get stress fractures at some point in it and it'd invariably break. Sorry. Just use the tunnel to the moon instead.

[Bootsiuv]

mmmm.....moon meat. Yum.

[Gary88]

Carbon nanotube construction should make it feasible.

yeah carbon nanotubes have already been used and they simply arent strong enough (new scientist did a big thing on this) the lengths involve mean the weight of the cable is far far far far far too great for it to take (its 300 miles to space) NASA hold competitions for people to manufacture devices to climbe nanotubes - essentially the space lifts themselves - and to be honest the results are bollocks the likelyhood of them getting good enough in our lifetime isnt great even if a cable could be manufactured. plus the difficulties of going higher just increase exponetially the higher up you get