Talk:Economics of extraterrestrial resource extraction

Delete this redirect

This redirect should be deleted because it redirects to Asteroid mining and not Colonization of Mars or Colonization of the Moon, articles that deal with competing concepts of extraterrestrial resource use. It was actually used for two off topic links, one in each of the colonization articles, in an apparent attempt to snare readers who are interested in the economic problem of colonizing Mars and in self sufficiency on the moon and bring them to the asteroid mining article. - Fartherred (talk) 05:53, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

These links to this redirect have now been removed. I also removed a link to this redirect in the Space habitat article and replaced it with a more reasonably located link to Asteroid mining. This redirect is not useful because there is no article that matches well the topic that the redirect describes and there are at least three articles that could equally claim to be the proper target of the redirect:

• Asteroid mining#Economics
• Colonization of the Moon#Economic development
• Colonization of Mars#Economics

Unless someone wants to turn this redirect into an article treating the whole range of Economics of extraterrestrial resource extraction, this redirect should be deleted to avoid confusion. - Fartherred (talk) 19:05, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Interesting point, in that extraterrestrial resources may be gathered from multiple non-Earth planetary/asteroidal/cometary bodies. Hard to tell where any serious resources will be gathered by humans first.

But I believe that the NASA plans for an asteroid retrieval mission are likely far ahead of any other for collection of a serious quantity of mass of extraterrestrial material. So it seems to me that the asteroid article would seem to be the best one to redirect to until someone creates a primary article on the broader economic topic, covering all three types of bodies. Moreover, with the significant gravity wells at both the Moon and Mars, it is quite likely that the earliest significant resource extraction will be on the low-gravity near-Earth asteroids. In fact, I believe there are a couple of private firms pursuing the latter, in the nearer term, than any of the outfits are even aspirationally hoping for Moon or Mars colonization. So I'm thinking the redirect is not that bad at present. N2e (talk) 03:24, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

There is no chance that the NASA mission to an asteroid will be anywhere close to economic. It is planned as another astronaut glorification program. As NASA grinds scores of billions of dollars into dust, the contractors involved do not complain as long as they get their cut. After the shouting about such a successful mission is over what will we have? A hundred ton rock in lunar orbit, a couple hundred kilograms of rock and dust brought to Earth, bragging rights for having sent four to six astronauts to a piece of asteroid, and a few hundred billion dollars greater national debt. The space launch system is just as much if not more of a money pit than the space shuttle was. NASA's plans seem to fail an economic test because of insisting in every case that a crew of astronauts be involved immediately at a minimum of a million dollars a day per each. There have been proposals for robotic industry on the moon. They simply have not got much funding. How much funding will ARM get? It is still up in the air with people who influence NASA saying things like “I don’t understand what a boulder does for us in terms of helping us get to Mars,” here. When NASA can be cured of its fixation with sending people up on big rockets into microgravity environments, then tell me that there is some likelihood of economic activity resulting from a NASA asteroid mission. Meanwhile, the Yutu rover made progress in exploring the economic potential of the moon. While the article is in the self-published category, references in it are good. It may be that China is not so seriously affected by the astronaut glorification fixation and will actually make some economic progress. Even if you were correct that asteroids will provide the first economic return, that would not put economic return from the moon and Mars out of the category. While my opinion as self-published on lunarpedia may not impress you, your opinion that the only economic return from extraterrestrial space worth considering comes from asteroids does not impress me. Wikipedia is not here to promote your personal point of view. - Fartherred (talk) 07:02, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with you that the US agency NASA will not do anything, nor even aim for doing anything, that is economic. But I've seen nothing that indicates that the US government would keep other US spacecraft, or the spacecraft of other countries, from visiting such an asteroid in Lunar orbit. My point was only that it would seem, according to current plans of various government and commercial organizations, that it somewhat more likely that any tests/prototyping/etc. trying to aim for any productive use would likely be with asteroids before Moon and Mars; although that could obviously change depending on who decides to do what with their resources.

So I continue to believe that the best place to cover that topic on Wikipedia is probably in the Asteroid mining article, and not the Moon or Mars colonization articles, at least for now. Once their are some better sources and someone wants to create an article in the article space, that would seem to be better yet. N2e (talk) 23:03, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

__Economic advantages of the moon

(according to PERMANENT)Lunar mining equipment will need modifications in design to account for low gravity and vacuum. These changes are manageable. Asteroid mining will require something very different.

My example is that if a front end loader on an asteroid manages somehow to get a load of regolith to stay in the bucket long enough to move it to a spaceship hold, then when it dumps the load into the hold the load will bounce around and start drifting out of the hold for lack of gravity to hold it down. While there will need to be considerable redesign to adapt Earth mining equipment to the moon, basic principals will transfer.

(according to SSERVI) Carle Pieters, an NLSI team member, said that new data from the moon though not complete indicate geologic processes that concentrate and separate minerals.

She also said it is likely that in 20- to 50-years valuable resources from the moon will be important. (from SPACE.COM) So it seems that there is something valuable on the moon.

As of 24 August 2012 The Office of the Chief Technologist in assessment of the Robotic Asteroid Prospector project said that "The expected outcomes of this project include: ... Design concepts for the microgravity and vacuum prospecting, extraction, and ore processing system."

(In other words, they do not know how it will be done yet.)

Included in three disciplines that are enablers for asteroid mining is "Time-flexible trajectory analysis and mission design."

(This seems to mean that whenever there is mining equipment available to launch, an asteroid from a list will be available as a target. So the mining of asteroids will not consistently occur on one particular asteroid, but on an asteroid that is currently convenient to reach and all the mining equipment will need to be hauled out for each new mining assignment.)

In contrast on the moon mining equipment will stay in one place and be used over and over. Products will be shipped out any hour of the day any day of the year, 24/7.

Above N2e provided a link to the gravity well article for the benefit of those who do not know what that means. Here are some specifics: the depth of the lunar gravity well is a little less than 2400 meters per second escape velocity, about 0.8 kilowatt hours per kilogram, or according to our Colonization of the Moon article, $0.16 for the energy to launch a kilogram of cargo into orbit with a mass driver. Since means of catching at their destination the kilogram sized chunks shot out of a mass driver have not been adequately specified, I offer links to conceptual descriptions of transportation system from the lunar surface: Lunar Rocket-sled to Orbit Eddy Current Brake to Orbit. These links are not suitable for inclusion in an article, but people with sufficient technical knowledge should be able to recognize the potential value of the transportation concepts.

__Conclusion

On the one hand we have asteroid mining with the promise of equipment of unspecified concept promised to be ready rather quickly once we know what must be produced, coupled with unavoidable transportation delays of significantly more than a year between repeat trip opportunities to any particular asteroid; and hours delay in radio signals to control any remotely operated equipment to work with asteroid material whose properties are currently known only in a general way.

On the other hand we have moon mining which is understood well enough to know that there are some problems. Decades of exploration and partially self replicating machine development are hoped to result in mining and transportation systems that can put a range of products into cis-lunar space at reasonable cost on order without a couple of years waiting for each order.

I do not see at all that asteroid mining is the only means extraterrestrial resource extraction worth considering. If anyone would consider putting asteroid mining or moon mining development stocks in their retirement fund, it would be evidence that they are not competent to handle their own affairs. But, for WP articles, if this page cannot be deleted it should be a DAB page. - Fartherred (talk) 08:45, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately, the discussion has been derailed by uncivil comments you made at Talk:Space_habitat#An_off-topic_link. I have fully responded to your uncivil comments on that Talk page. I have also commented on the event on your Talk page. In short, I think Wikipedia will be improved much more quickly if you get back to discussing the content, and not the contributor; and this is especially so if you are being uncivil toward editors with whom you disagree on this page.

I think there is substantial agreement on several aspects of the discussion on this Talk page. But we will less easily talk about that with the behavioral issue going on on the side. YMMV. Cheers. N2e (talk) 12:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Economics of extraterrestrial resource extraction

There is a large volume of good source material in a 395-page report just published by the IAA, called Space Mineral Resources: A Global Assessment of the Challenges and Opportunities. I have a copy of the report, but have only skimmed it to this point.

A full citation for the work (which I have prepared for my own use later) is: <ref name=iaa2015> {{cite book |editor1-last=Dula |editor1-first=Arthur M. |editor2-last=Zhenjun|editor2-first=Zhang |title='Space Mineral Resources: A Global Assessment of the Challenges and Opportunities |date=2015 |publisher=International Academy of Astronautics |location=Paris, France |isbn=978-2-917761-37-3 |pages=395 |url=https://TBD |accessdate=18 July 2015 |format=pdf }}</ref> I have not yet found a non-embargoed URL for the book availability to wiki-editors. Perhaps will be on google scholar in a few months. Cheers. N2e (talk) 05:09, 18 July 2015 (UTC)