Strange metal Asteroid targeted in far out mission

rickymouse
I am more of a conservative, thinking need and cost effectiveness should be considered strongly.

O and it comes down to right and left BS.

Sorry but sometimes we have to make a giant leap into the unknown.

reply to post by crazyewok


Then you must know that they are finding new ways to do things in the last year or so. These rare metals will always be needed for some applications but many changes will be coming.

There are rock piles around everywhere that have rare metals in them in old mining areas around here. These could be processed to gain some rare earth metals. Right now their metals make them problematic to the environment, it would be better to look at old mine ores for these things.

rickymouse

Then you must know that they are finding new ways to do things in the last year or so. These rare metals will always be needed for some applications but many changes will be coming.

Its just not that simple.


Sorry but you obviously have no vision or imagination. It why the UK and USA education is so dismal.

Sorry but I get frustrated by this Meh attitude.

reply to post by lostbook


Many meteorites that have fallen to earth and now reside in museums are metallic. Meteorites are probably originally asteroids. A good proportion of their number are metal. The hope some day is to corral them and bring them in to be harvested.

rickymouse

JadeStar

rickymouse I don't think we need to colonize mars or step on the moon again though. the chances of anyone surviving long is slim.

You could not be more wrong.

Give me one really good reason why we NEED to spend so much money to colonize mars or step on the moon again.

Well let's see, just off the top of my head:

1. There's over 7 billion people on this planet, and it's only going up. Soon there will be no room for us all, and even sooner there will be not enough food to go around.

2. If we all live on one planet, anything from an asteroid to a [insert random doomsday scenario here] could wipe us all out. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

3. We're explorers. We've explored just about everything on this planet. Time to move on.

4. Energy. Eventually we will exhaust all the natural resources of this planet. Sure we could find alternate forms of energy, but any way you look at it, we will still, at some point (sooner than later) need to mine for resources on other planets, moons, or even stars.

And that's just off the top of my head. The list goes on and on.

rickymouse

JadeStar

rickymouse I don't think we need to colonize mars or step on the moon again though. the chances of anyone surviving long is slim.

You could not be more wrong.

Give me one really good reason why we NEED to spend so much money to colonize mars or step on the moon again.

I'll give you 7 billion reasons....and next year it will be more than that. 10 years from now much more than that.

The human race, stuck on this third rock from the sun.......in which so many different things that can happen (and have happened in the past) that could wipe us all out.

Unless we are also somewhere else off of this rock.

Then there is the fact that after a certain point, there is no way we can sustain an ever increase population. Something will finally give and fail, unless we start leaving our nest here.

Sure, we could sit here and go on and on about how it all needs to be "cost effective". Or that there needs to be something their that we desperately need.

But that's the no brainer about it. There IS something their and many other places that we DO need.

It's called: room.

We need more room to expand and propagate. Every single living organism here on Earth does it: procreate and propagate. The human race isn't any different.

We need to start NOW. Not 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, etc, from now. But NOW.

Now before we become way too over populated. Now before we use up to many resources. And NOW before something terrible catches us by surprise and wipes us all out.

Unless of course you hate the human race and would not mind seeing it's demise.

We need to explore. We need to expand. We need to innovate. The "let someone else do it.." attitude will only lead to one outcome: Someone else doing it The US is still on top (Barely) and the only way to stay on top is to keep moving and building up on our technological achievements. If we sit and wallow in current success(es) someone else will take the reigns.

Rare Earths are very important, however, China owns about 95% of the world's rare Earth mines. Asteroids are full of rare Earth's and other minerals so it only makes sense that we should mine them before someone else does; namely, China. Doing so will boost the economy like WW2 did or even the Cold War. The signs are there, people just need to see them.

reply to post by eriktheawful


For a trillion dollars, a thousand times that of the cost of the last mars rover, we could get a colony of twenty people on mars that would require constant shipments of food and supplies there. The yearly maintenance and expansion after that would be about a billion a year.

Now that cost would have to go straight to our national debt.

Be sensible you guys, this is not a cheap endeavor.

rickymouse
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

For a trillion dollars, a thousand times that of the cost of the last mars rover, we could get a colony of twenty people on mars that would require constant shipments of food and supplies there. The yearly maintenance and expansion after that would be about a billion a year.

Now that cost would have to go straight to our national debt.

Be sensible you guys, this is not a cheap endeavor.

What, is aeroponics too complex for you to ponder? Do you really think we'd have a colony somewhere and not think to design it to be self-sufficient? Do you really think we'd not have an agro-building (or many of them) to grow the food there? Do you really think we'd not extract water we know is on somewhere like Mars and use that source there? Why would we need to keep sending the colonists foodstuffs? The initial set-up would of course require multiple shipments of equipment, water, and food stocks. You kind of need all of that before you can reproduce more of it. Duh.
Do you bother to think about these already mulled over logistics before you type?

16 Psyche is my favorite Asteroid.

It's near solid Iron with dimensions of 240×185×145 kilometers.

Hollow her out lengthwise, possibly leaving wall thickness around 20km, put some spin on it for 'artificial' gravity on the inside, and you've got an armored habitat that could take nuclear missile hits all day long.

give it a counter-rotational copper core, and you've got a primitive electrical generator that creates it's own EM field like Earth's to shield against all that nasty radiation that probably wouldn't make it past hull thickness of 20 km anyway.

Throw some future fancy engines on it, and you can go places.

Coat it with an icy shell of water ice from the Oort belt and you've added even more shielding plus water supplies.
Coat it in Enough Carbon and you've stealthed yourself to some extent too.

No, it wouldn't be an easy project, but, it'd be a great armored vault dreadnaught platform for exploring the galaxy if we could develop some science fictiony engines enough to move it around.
Something this size could house Millions of people.

In addition there's lots other sizable rocks can be done the same, but not made out of near solid Iron.

reply to post by Nyiah


Sure we could do that. It would cost a lot of money to transport everything up there and assemble the structures for a colony to live there. Look how much the space station cost, about one hundred and fifty billion dollars. That only holds a six man crew and it does not produce hardly any of it's own food.

It is not whether it can be done, it is whether it can be afforded by a country with such a big national runaway debt. If this country had a bigger industrial base of industry, it would be more possible, a consumer based economy is not adequate.

Maybe the UK can do this, they have more liquid assets they can sell, like the crown jewels and their gold.

reply to post by crazyewok


You must be a NASA worker . The Radiation problem is real but any trip would be a one way trip if you could make it alive .With out our Magneto Sphere to protect you CME ejections would impact your voyage . There is no way you could have enough oxygen and food to live long enough to get resupplied or get back or ship materials back . We still have not explored all of earth above sea level and especially below .
A real Zombie Attack ( science fiction ) would be more likely that going to Mars and live .

reply to post by rickymouse


Sorry you are so worried about the cost of things. But be of good cheer:

It's mostly private companies that are taking the idea of colonization much more seriously than any government.

So you need not worry about your tax dollars and how they are being spent.

Those companies will decide how they want to spend their money. If they want to try to establish a self sustaining colony on Mars, with their money......who are you to dictate otherwise?

My goodness, if everyone thought like you are thinking, the human race would never have gotten anywhere or progressed as far as we have.

I am very happy to see that there are those out there that have a sense of adventure, and a sense of wanting to help the betterment and expansion of humankind..........and not everyone is a miser pinching pennies

crazyewok

JadeStar
Planetary Resources, Inc need to get one of their spectrometers on that mission to look for precious metals

What I would give to invest £1000 on them.

Unfortunately their financial model sucks.

Public takes the risk in kick-starter with no reward and the billion airs use that money to become trillionairs..........

edit on 15-1-2014 by crazyewok because: (no reason given)

They're right around the corner from where I live.

Want me to walk out front with a picket sign in a one woman protest?

rickymouse

JadeStar

rickymouse I don't think we need to colonize mars or step on the moon again though. the chances of anyone surviving long is slim.

You could not be more wrong.

Give me one really good reason why we NEED to spend so much money to colonize mars or step on the moon again.

Survival.

rickymouse

Junkheap

rickymouse
Give me one really good reason why we NEED to spend so much money to colonize mars or step on the moon again.

Eventually, guaranteed 100% extinction if we take too long.

It is practices like building rockets and other things that we really don't need to have that is causing the risk of extinction

Wrong.

If we were building rockets at that level we'd be living a real life Star Trek right now.

This planet spends most of its money on two major things: Weapons and Entertainment.

Space exploration and development are far down the list of things we spend money on. NASA's budget is less than 0.5% of the federal budget. At its height in the glory days of Apollo it accounted for 4%.

And think about it for one moment, what better way to learn how to live together on a planet which is becoming increasingly inhospitable and with dwindling resources and a growing population than learning how to live in confined spaces on planets that are wholly inhospitable with even LESS resources.

As the saying goes: You don't appreciate what you have until you have less of it.

Innovation comes from doing new things or doing old things in new and different ways. Often this is as a result of external pressures. Usually, war, unfortunately.

Space represents such an environment where we'd have peaceful external pressures.

Innovation there could produce a lot in the way of things which help the environment: Closed-loop life support systems will make recycling materials and even human waste products more efficient. The need for better photovoltaic cells will both increase their efficiency and the mass production of them will bring down their price and increase their use in generating electricity cleanly. Beamed solar power from space based sources (satellites or the moon) could eliminate coal or nuclear power altogether.

I could go on and on. We're using plenty of space technology spinoffs right now to clean up the environment. One of the things used to help in the clean up of the Gulf Oil spill was developed for identifying biomarkers on other planets.

Additionally...

The view of the Earth from space did more for the environmental movement than anything prior. As such an increasingly global consciousness through things which give people hope such as missions to other places in the solar system and pictures of other worlds beyond it does more for your cause than all the 'race to the bottom' austerity and conservation one could dream up.

People have to WANT to be eco-friendly. You don't think seeing ourselves as Earthlings is valuable towards that end?

The most illogical thing we could be doing is -not- going into Space. The definition of idiocy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

If we don't conquer the challenge and use the resources we've been naturally given in our solar system then we will only succeed in fighting over dwindling resources and conquering each other until no one is left.

Lights out for planet Earth.

rickymouse
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

For a trillion dollars, a thousand times that of the cost of the last mars rover, we could get a colony of twenty people on mars that would require constant shipments of food and supplies there. The yearly maintenance and expansion after that would be about a billion a year.

Now that cost would have to go straight to our national debt.

Be sensible you guys, this is not a cheap endeavor.

Your figures are way off by several factors of 10. Clearly you have not read much on the subject.

I suggest you read about Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan for starters. It would cost NOWHERE near that.

50 billion dollars is a far cry from a trillion. Another 3 billion and you can build one of Buzz Aldrin's cyclers which does nothing but use the gravity and orbital motion of the Earth and Mars to constantly move people and supplies between them. No fuel necessary.

50 billion dollars is what a fleet of 25 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers cost to build. Priorities...

When we go to Mars we're going there to live off the land, grow our own food and make our own supplies via 3D printing and other emerging technologies from resources we mine in situ.

SimonPeter
reply to post by crazyewok

 

You must be a NASA worker . The Radiation problem is real but any trip would be a one way trip if you could make it alive .With out our Magneto Sphere to protect you CME ejections would impact your voyage . There is no way you could have enough oxygen and food to live long enough to get resupplied or get back or ship materials back . We still have not explored all of earth above sea level and especially below .
A real Zombie Attack ( science fiction ) would be more likely that going to Mars and live .

I am not a NASA worker yet....

But i've got this cool mug which only the Kepler Science team has, for something I did as a student.




#1 Zombies aren't real.

#2 The radiation threat is real but we know plenty about it after 40-50 years of sending things to Mars as well as the study of the effects of radiation on the ISS and on Earth. We know how much shielding the ship would need, what types of materials it would need to be made out of and we also know that a ship on the typical 2 year mission would need a "storm shelter" for CMEs. We also know when the Sun is more likely to emit a CME so a mission would be scheduled during a period of solar quiet.

#3 You seem to assume only NASA has studied this, dude, Russia, the ESA, plenty of private contractors, even India who has a probe on its way to Mars right now understands the radiation environment. None of this stuff is new. None of it is a showstopper either. Your own poop is a radiation shield. Did you know that?

#4 Radiation exposure dose is a matter of type of radiation and time of exposure. There are possible faster ways to Mars than a 2 year mission using something called a fusion pulse rocket (which could get humans to mars in a month).


I think you'd benefit from this video on how we may go to Mars. Yes it's aimed at kids but its also aimed at adults like you who know very little about it. And the dog is kinda cute

reply to post by lostbook


why not cooperation instead of competition? Where does this need come from to be better than other people that inhabit the same earth? it s highly dangerous to everybody and nothing more than bullying out of sociopathy

Dynamitrios
reply to post by lostbook

 

why not cooperation instead of competition?


Where does this need come from to be better than other people that inhabit the same earth? it s highly dangerous to everybody and nothing more than bullying out of sociopathy

What is your question in reference to? Most Mars missions that have been proposed HAVE been multinational cooperative efforts.