Discussion The next 100 years..

[T.Neo]

Actually it is harder than mining more than 3.9 kilometers under Johannesburg (apparently they're looking at extending Mponeng mine to 4.5 kilometers depth).

Because you have to change your velocity by over 10 000 m/s to get there.

You have to work in space.

And then you have to get back to Earth.

All with stuff that has to have its velocity changed by over 10 000 m/s.

And that's difficult.

 

[fsci123]

We have propulsion systems that can do it... And if you look at current rates for tellurium, platinum, and rhenium all of which could help produce advanced parts that could help power the worlds economies... Rhenium is used to make low-corrosion-high-temperature alloys...
Tellurium is used to enhance the absorption of solar panels... Platinum is a very efficient catalyst...

Rhenium is mined ~~40tons/year with a peak price of $2000(Even though Wikipedia said $10000)
Tellurium is mined at ~~115tons/year with a peak price of $150
Platinum is mined at ~~133tons/year with a peak price of $3000

Now keep in mind that these prices will increase as demand goes up...

So in the long run one would be able to use a space craft to carry chunks of semi refined asteroid to earth where it could be refined and baked into valuable objects...

 

[T.Neo]

Of course we have engines that can do it, we have engines that can go to Pluto, that does not mean that it is economically viable.

Do you know how difficult it would be to mine just a tenth of the yearly production rate of any of those metals from an asteroid?

Dragging ore back to Earth unrefined is even worse, because you need to ship more mass, and more mass means more propellant... means bigger engines... means more power... means more mass... means more propellant... etc

 

[fsci123]

Of course we have engines that can do it, we have engines that can go to Pluto, that does not mean that it is economically viable.

Do you know how difficult it would be to mine just a tenth of the yearly production rate of any of those metals from an asteroid?

Dragging ore back to Earth unrefined is even worse, because you need to ship more mass, and more mass means more propellant... means bigger engines... means more power... means more mass... means more propellant... etc

A ship full of people has a lot of mass... The ship I'm working on and I see as the most economical is 50% solar panel by weight... And only a few percent vasmir... I don't know much about planetary formation but I can say that the material of interest could be in veins or be embedded in Rock like a splinter in a fat mans foot... I do see that your main argument against the ideal is that you find the materials for the vessel to be expensive...

In the future we may be able to build such craft in bulk using automata just like we do with cars... I do see that launch cost are super expensive...

Such a cargo craft could be a cycler it could arrive by the asteroid pick up materials from a mining station then fire thrusters for earth rendevous... When very close to earth the craft fires the pods containg material to earth where it slings back to the asteroid to start the cycle again...

 

[RGClark]

Some articles optimistic about asteroid mining:

Asteroid Mining.
http://chview.nova.org/station/ast-mine.htm

Gold rush in space?
Thursday, July 22, 1999 Published at 17:54 GMT 18:54 UK
By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/401227.stm

The Technical and Economic Feasibility of Mining the Near-Earth Asteroids.
M J Sonter
Presented at 49th IAF Congress, Sept 28 - Oct 2, 1998, Melbourne, Australia
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/...lity_of_mining_the_near_earth_asteriods.shtml

And here's one skeptical about the possibility:

Monday, February 06, 2006
The Great Asteroid Mining Con.
http://ronaldbrak.blogspot.com/2006/02/great-asteroid-mining-con.html

Keep in mind I'm only envisioning this if the price to orbit can be brought down to the $100/kg range. Note also as Robert Heinlein said, once you get to orbit you're half-way to anywhere in the solar system. So getting to the asteroids should be roughly twice as expensive, though you'll probably need orbital refueling stations to make the trips to the asteroids this inexpensive.
Say getting from the asteroids is about the same cost, ca. $200 per kg of payload, $16/oz. Again undoubtedly you'll need refueling stations on the asteroids for this, but observations show the asteroids contain a great deal of water which can be used for propellant.
Because of that $16 per oz. transport cost back to Earth you probably want to do the refining on the asteroid and only send back the precious metals, platinum, gold, etc.
About why do this when there are mine fields on Earth, see this story about one of the richest gold mines on Earth:

Peru, the Curse of the Incan Gold, October 2005.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/peru404/

The story discusses the political difficulties of this mine but I'm concerned about the financial value of the mine here. The mine opened in 1994 and now extends over an area of 60 square miles. Over the approx. 10 year time from 1994 to when this story aired in 2005 it produced $7 billion worth of gold. That's about $700 million a year. At that rate it would take 30,000 years to amount to the value of an asteroid's precious metal content.
Note this mine extends over an area of 60 square miles. Even if you took 100 years to mine the 1 mile wide asteroid you would still produce over two orders of magnitude more than what this mine has produced per year.


Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah. But if we are already very deep in the hypothetical assumptions, what if we could defecate Gold and other rare minerals, why should we then bother going into space?

You are maybe seeing this from another point of view there. I am engineer, or at least thinking like one. If you say "How great would the world be if spaceflight would cost only $100 per kg", I will not applaud, but wonder how we should ever really get there and can we really do this. Dreams are great. But even better are those dreams that you make reality.

 

[T.Neo]

The ship I'm working on and I see as the most economical is 50% solar panel by weight... And only a few percent vasmir...

You can include solar panel mass as part of the propulsion system mass, if it is a solar-electric spacecraft... power for the rest of the ship systems will likely only be a small percentage of the total power produced by the panels.

I don't know much about planetary formation but I can say that the material of interest could be in veins or be embedded in Rock like a splinter in a fat mans foot...

Your analogy makes no sense and is filled with Squick.

Why would it be in veins?

There is no reason for it to be in veins, there is no hydrological action to concentrate the minerals, there likely isn't even volcanic activity in most cases.

In the future we may be able to build such craft in bulk using automata just like we do with cars... I do see that launch cost are super expensive...

A space vehicle is not a car. A space vehicle has to do far more for what it is, than a car does.

Even if you could "mass produce" spacecraft, it doesn't suddenly make launch costs go away.

When very close to earth the craft fires the pods containg material to earth where it slings back to the asteroid to start the cycle again...

A cycler is only of interest because it alleviates the need to accelerate and decelerate the habitat for each trip between destinations.

Rock/iridium/gold/whatever doesn't need a habitation module, but it does need to be, in itself, accelerated to Earth and decelerated once it arrives. The same goes for the processing equipment that needs to be sent to the asteroid beforehand.

Even if you took 100 years to mine the 1 mile wide asteroid you would still produce over two orders of magnitude more than what this mine has produced per year.

I think the difficulty of mining such a large object is underestimated here. It's literally like demolishing a mountain, although in microgravity.

 

[RGClark]

Yeah. But if we are already very deep in the hypothetical assumptions, what if we could defecate Gold and other rare minerals, why should we then bother going into space?
You are maybe seeing this from another point of view there. I am engineer, or at least thinking like one. If you say "How great would the world be if spaceflight would cost only $100 per kg", I will not applaud, but wonder how we should ever really get there and can we really do this. Dreams are great. But even better are those dreams that you make reality.

The $100/kg number was not arbitrary. As I mentioned before, by solving the X-33/VentureStar's tank overweight problems (there are several ways of doing this) and switching to kerosene fuel, then you can increase the payload to orbit approx. 6 times. Then this improves the original predicted $1,000/kg to only around $160/kg. See here:

Newsgroups: sci.space.policy, sci.astro, sci.physics, sci.space.history
From: Robert Clark <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:04:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: A kerosene-fueled X-33 as a single stage to orbit vehicle.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.space.history/msg/fa960a091aec01c8

I was thinking then that with further incremental advancement and mass production you could bring it down even below $100 per kg. However, reading over some earlier posts on the question I was reminded there is a more definitive reason for thinking the price per kilo to orbit can be reduced this low.
Using SSTO's has been criticized on the grounds that you can loft more payload to orbit with staging. However here is a very key point:

Even if you want to increase your payload to orbit by using staging you are still better off using a staging method where each individual stage is SSTO-capable.

I'm referring to the staging method that uses parallel staging in concert with cross-feed fueling. These two techniques together are known to increase your payload to orbit over the usual method of staging with just an upper stage placed above a first stage.
And even if you are already using parallel staging, by using cross-feed fueling you can still increase your payload. For instance SpaceX found it could increase its payload with the Falcon Heavy using cross-feed fueling by 50% over that of the original Falcon 9 Heavy.
So to get greater payload with the VentureStar, use two copies of them attached together firing in parallel at the start, with one of them peeling off and returning to the launch site after staging altitude is reached, and the other continuing on to orbit with the payload.
This method of staging using two copies of the same stage firing in parallel is called "bimese" staging. I'm estimating it would cost approx. twice as much to launch this combo, but the key fact is the amount of payload you could carry would be more than 3 times as much.
So then the cost to orbit would be 2/3 as much, or in the range of $100 per kilo.


Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

The $100/kg number was not arbitrary. As I mentioned before, by solving the X-33/VentureStar's tank overweight problems (there are several ways of doing this) and switching to kerosene fuel, then you can increase the payload to orbit approx. 6 times. Then this improves the original predicted $1,000/kg to only around $160/kg. See here:

There comes the fun: If there are several known ways of doing all that, why does nobody make it? Assuming there is no world-wide conspiracy hindering good engineering, why is it then so hard to get even below $5000 per kg?

Maybe it is because what you call solutions, is just alternative ways to find one solution maybe. And every engineering solution adds more problems. Dreaming is no replacement for proper engineering. There are problems that don't just go away if you just wait long enough.

Switching to Kerosene and LOX BTW, will not make a SSTO more feasible. The up to 5% performance gains at the lowest atmosphere layers are burned quickly at the upper part, where pure vacuum specific impulse counts.

But hey, why I am telling you that, you are the SSTO apostle here, you should know the math well enough to know what the ascent equation is, and why the Trident 2 study did not reveal a performance gain by mass flow, but just the expected gravity loss reduction by reduced burn time.

And if I see just one more self-reference of you here, I will dereference you without type-checking. Have you never learned how to work scientific?

 

[C3PO]

This is what happens when you disregard engineering as a part of science.

Let's say we find some new tech that can reduce cost.
Tech#1: 1/2 cost
Tech#2: 1/4 cost

Combining them will not automatically reduce cost to 1/8. Most likely engineering problems due to the combination will eat into the savings.

OK, this is hyper-simplified, and put like this it's obvious to anyone above the age of 12. But in my experience people in management have a problem understanding why the results from one project can't be replicated in a different project. And when you start multiplying estimated savings, it's easy to end up with a utopian dream project.

 

[RGClark]

And if I see just one more self-reference of you here, I will dereference you without type-checking. Have you never learned how to work scientific?

You asked the same question I already answered in this same thread. I gave the same answer.

Bob Clark

 

[Keatah]

T.Neo's comment sounds quite realistic to me. There is nothing 'materialistic' to gain from spaceflight (no diamonds from moon, no gold from Mars), and very few people care about expanding our knowledge, unless they have a direct benefit from it.

Absolutely correct and true! There currently is no material benefit (anymore) to be gained from spaceflight.

Unmanned spaceflight may help to answer questions like mineral compositions of celestial bodies, or how big the universe is, or things like that. It also provides pretty pictures of nebulae and galaxies and planets. Things like that.

 

[Urwumpe]

There could also be in-situ production of many components needed in spaceflight, which would be cheaper than hauling the raw materials to Earth, produce something and send it to the place needed.

It is all a matter of logistics.

 

[C3PO]

I saw a TV program today that reminded me of this thread.

It was about the STS and how it was going to help NASA get to Mars. I didn't catch the age of the show but Glenn was in training for STS-95 so it had to be close to October '98.

In the show it was stated that the shuttles would soon be used to assemble the ISS, and that it would take around 5 years. As you may know Zarya was launched in November '98 followed by Unity in December the same year.

That made me think about how wrong NASA could be about the timeline, only a year or two from starting orbital assembly. It doesn't give much credence to a bunch of space enthusiasts like us guessing how far we'll get in the next 100 years.

I'm certainly not going to stop dreaming about ways we could colonize space, but I do realize it's still only wishful thinking. We'll get there when we get there, but most likely not in my lifetime. Not unless we see some drastic developments in the area of manned space flight.

 

[thetraceur]

Optimistic vision.

2013: SpaceShip Two begins commercial flight.

2014: Bigelow's space station is launched.

2015: Space Adventure sends the first "tourists" around the backside of the Moon.
( More info:http://www.spaceadventures.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=lunar.welcome )

2016: Nasa begin using their new space craft which can be used for manned exploration of asteroids and Mars.

2017: Space Tourism is growing and Virgin Galactic has revealed concept work of SpaceShipThree which will take tourists on a point to point travel around the world by doing the travel outside the atmosphere on a big suborbital path.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipThree"]SpaceShipThree - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

The russian "CSS" station is launched in orbit for commercial use.

Space Adventure is getting more customers for their trips around the Moon.

SpaceShipTwo flights are going down in cost as more and more people purchase tickets.

Other companies are entering the Suborbital market.

2018: JAXA is speeding up in innovation, preparing for a future manned lunar mission.

2020: Space tourism has grown very much and plans for veichles capable of reaching LEO is being planned.

2022: Virgin Galactic's development of SS3 is coming to an end and the first point to point flights are being conducted. This triggers a more sped up innovation due to competition between companies.

2023: NASA is working hard on development of manned exploration of an nearby Asteroid.

2024: Space Adventure and Bigelow Aerospace begin plans on putting a commercial base on the Moon within 10 years.

2025: First human landing on an Asteroid, the world marvels. NASA's budget is increasing.

2027: First Commercial space craft capable of taking tourists to LEO and also to one of the 4 commercial stations in Orbit.

2029: NASA is working hard on putting the first man on Mars, they have lot's of expectations since the manned asteroid mission in 2025.

2030: Japan becomes the second country to land astrounauts on the Moon, discussion on building a permanent manned lunar base for study is being held.

2033: China becomes the third country to put humans on the Moon.

2035: NASA with help from ESA land the first humans on Mars. Big achievement for humanity.

2037: Orbital and Lunar ( Around the moon ) tourism is growing. 8 commercial Space stations is in LEO.

2040: Bigelow Aerospace launches their first commercial lunar base module.

2043: NASA is considering a manned mission to Jupiter and its moons. ( 2001 coming true!!1111!) Concepts for a deep space veichle capable for long missions is being worked through.

2047: Bigelow completes the worlds first lunar settlement. Commercial trips to the lunar surface begins for the first time later that year.

2050: JAXA completes their Lunar outpost, many experiments are conducted there.

2051: NASA begins building a Deep space space craft capable of reaching the Jovian system and also conducting missions taking many years.

2053: Space tourism has grown extremely much and much bigger space stations capable of sustaining Artificial Gravity by a centrifuge is being built.

Point to point-sub orbital flights are now competing with regular flights within the atmosphere.

2058: NASA launches the worlds first manned mission to Jupiter using a deep space veichle:





( Real Concept from NASA, here if you want to read more: http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/2005/TM-2005-213559.pdf )

2060: There now exists 4 lunar settlements, 16 stations in LEO. Space Tourism/travel is now affordable to the every day man. One lunar settlement built by Virgin Galactic and Bigelow is housing 24 people. Manned Mars missions have been conducted by USA/Europe, Japan and China, and plans for a Mars outpost is in the works.

2064: NASA's deep space veichle have arrived at Jupiter, spectacular images are being sent back to Earth.




2070: First Mars outpost built. Trips to Lunar outposts/hotels/bases are increasing rapidly. The majority of travel around Earth are conducted outside the Atmosphere.

2078: Construction of a small lunar "city" has begun. The lunar city will have the capable of sustaining a population of 350 people. Traffic between Earth and the Moon will increase dramaticly. Studies of mining the Moon for Helium 3 will begin then.





2086: Lunar city completed. 3 martian outposts exist now. Lunar travel is increasing rapidly with the completion of the Lunar city.

2090: NASA, ESA and JAXA emerge to become a united Space administration, they now work on manned mission to the outer Solar system.

2098: A population of 820 people live and study on the Moon.

2100: First human born off the Earth.

 

[T.Neo]

I propose the culimation of achievement of the space programs of all humanity in the year 2111:

Or alternately, the most capable vehicle in the solar system in the year 2111: :dry:

:facepalm:

 

[Unstung]

Hm, I wonder if anybody posted this before (didn't check the pages in between):
SPACE.com: "DARPA Lays Out Tech for 100-Year Starship Program"
I doubt it would happen. Where have we gone in the past 40 years?

 

[Victor_D]

Too much pessimism in this thread. I am a guarded optimist - yes, all that other people here said about general public being ignorant and unsupportive is true and all they said about the costs associated with space travel is also true. Still, it's hard for me to imagine a future where humanity decides to confine itself to Earth forever - that would be suicidal.

I believe that humanity will expand incrementally and that private initiative will eventually replace government investment as the main driving force behind this expansion.

Here's a rough timeline I use in my sci-fi ideas/stories:

2020-2030:
- Skylon or similar project (finally) succeeds in making access to LEO cheaper
- commercial heavy-lift rockets become available. They're used to lift small commercial space stations and large satellites.
- commercial space stations as research laboratories (zero-g research in metallurgy, pharmaceuticals, biotech, physics...)
- the Chinese land on the Moon to demonstrate their maturity as a superpower (wild card, may or may not happen).

2030-2040:
- International lunar station becomes operational, as well as a number of privately-funded commercial stations tapping into the lunar tourism market.
- Manned mission to Mars, either inter-governmental or privately funded (or both).
- privately launched space probes, asteroid prospecting

2040-2050:
- environmental problems on Earth finally get out of hand, population crash in some third world nations, mostly in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Central Asia. Global economy goes down the toilet, which puts a break on space development.
(if you insist on your pessimism, you can stop reading here :hello: )
- a number of first world nations which have invested the most in energy efficiency, renewable resources, recycling, etc., lead the recovery: Europe, Japan, Russia, Brazil, America and China.
- people in these nations are painfully learning that the era of unrestrained consumerism is over. Quality finally wins over quantity.
- Strict population control becomes a prerequisite for assistance. Successor to the UN handles peacekeeping and reconstruction.

2050-2060:
- space renaissance driven by demand for space-manufactured materials, cutting-edge research, geoengineering and the search for exploitable resources. Governments invest in space as a form of stimulus.
- fusion power becomes available on Earth (in countries which can afford it).
- 2nd gen. SSTOs further reduce the cost of lifting mass to LEO.

2060-2070:
- limited lunar/asteroid mining kicks off (water, hydrocarbons, basic metals and construction materials for off-world consumption)
- solar sails heavily utilized
- the initial bases on Luna grow into permanently settled 'colonies'. Their population consists of engineers, scientists and other research workers.
- electromagnetic catapults/lunar elevators radically reduce the cost of mining, large manufacturing/assembly stations are constructed in the Lagrange points (L1, L2, L4, L5)
- first manned missions beyond Mars, possible landing on Mercury.

2070-2080:
- boom of asteroid mining (largely automated with some human presence).
- Mars bases expand into permanent colonies (most are privately funded). Once there is large enough population on Mars, its economy begins to develop independently.
- The length of productive human life in the most developed nations is greatly increased due to advances in medicine, gene therapy and cybernetics. Being 60 years old is now roughly equal to being forty in the early 21st century. As a consequence, population controls are becoming even more strict. One way to avoid them is to move off-world, since most colonies prefer looser regulations in order to attract skilled workers.
- manned exploration of Jupiter and Saturn systems, permanent outposts established
- He3 fusion becomes practical.

2080-2090:
- space elevator(s) on Earth further reduces the cost of space travel
- fusion drive becomes practical
- He3 mining on the Moon, Saturn (and possibly Uranus) accelerates colonization of these places
- terraforming projects on Mars start off
- mining bases on Mercury are established
- mild "brain drain" from Earth: an increasing number of educated, middle class professionals leave the homeworld for Mars and other places.

2090 and beyond:
- anti-matter production begins to fuel high-speed transportation within the Solar system
- "miraculous" technologies may become available
- although more than 99% of humans still live on Earth, off-world population is growing rapidly, mostly on Mars and Luna.
- interstellar probes are now a possibility, although the projected cost of such projects is still prohibitively high.

---

Too bad I won't be there to see the truly exciting things...

 

[fsci123]

Well I would like to say that there was realy no need for people to come to America... Europeans could have grown food by themselves... Would anybody tell me the reason why the Vikings attempted to put a colony on the new world and the later Europeans...

 

[Keatah]

All of that is wild-card stuff. Once better energy sources are available and politics removed, all that could happen and more!