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94 points JPLeRouzic | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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krunck ◴[] No.44380402[source]
The comment by Benjamin Stockton on the article page is spot-on:

>I just wonder if humanity’s adventurous nature is leading us away from a proper focus on the sustainability of our civilization, our specie, and our fragile planetary environment?

But we still need spaceflight at least for planetary defense against asteroids, mining asteroids(so we don't have to mine Earth), etc.

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sorcerer-mar ◴[] No.44380447[source]
What resources are on asteroids that justify the energy expenditure to get from space and back? Can't be many of them...
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JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.44380783[source]
> What resources are on asteroids that justify the energy expenditure to get from space and back?

With chemical rockets, not much.

With "a propellant-less propulsion propulsion system such as solar sails or electric sails," bringing water (propellant) to low-earth orbit starts making sense [1], as does mining platinum, but only if "the quantity of platinum from space would substitute an equal quantity of terrestrial platinum," i.e. moving heavy industry off the Earth's surface [1].

Given asteroid-mining profitability is dominated by "the throughput rate, which depends on the mining process," it's possibly to see a path to certain rare-earth minerals becoming profitable to mine in space if environmental controls on Earth are tightened while constant-thrust propulsion technologies advance.

[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.03836

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sorcerer-mar ◴[] No.44381257[source]
Just skimmed but does this answer the question of getting to and from the surface of earth? Or are we just stockpiling platinum in LEO for some reason?
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JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.44381337[source]
> does this answer the question of getting to and from the surface of earth?

Yes. (Deöbiting from LEO is cheap, like 90 m/s for the Space Shuttle, because you can use the atmosphere.)

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sorcerer-mar ◴[] No.44381642[source]
… Presumably the problem is mostly getting up…? Is the plan to just drop hunks of platinum or do we need to put reentry vehicles up there?
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1. randallsquared ◴[] No.44383073{3}[source]
With a relatively small initial investment, you can build reentry vehicles out of the asteroid, depending on the specific composition.
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2. pfdietz ◴[] No.44383776[source]
Or, just fashion the metal into ingots that are coated with an ablator (carbon, say) and allow them to enter as artificial meteorites. Suitably sized they will hit the ground at reasonable speed and can be dug up.
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3. Teever ◴[] No.44384525[source]
Even better than carbon use an ablative made out of olivine that can sequester CO2 as it ablates.

That way by offloading mining and refining into space to prevent the damage that these activities incur on earth you're also undoing damage to Earth from past human activities.