New Mars Forums

Gold veins are formed on Earth due to Volcanic actions and hot springs and we believe a lot of it is due to small bacteria absorbing the gold particles and then dieing so concentrating the gold. If we find life on Mars it may be the case that we have the same result.

But in Space we find that there are asteroids with a very high loading of gold and if they have impacted on the Moon and possibly Mars it could mean that we can find localised impact events with a lot of material. Or we could just find an asteroid with a lot of metal in it. But gold as a reason to go to space is wrong it will be a benefit of looking but really wont pay for the missions. We have been discusing Platinum group metals which are worth a lot more and are desperatly needed down here.

To get to Mars with anything except flags and footprints needs major access to space. Unless we can get people interested in making access cheaper it wont matter we will be stuck permanently with super expensive goverment agencies and we the commen people will get no chance of going.

But when it comes down to it yes there are a lot of people involved in the mining on Earth but most of these people are in the support of the actual mine face/s. The actual Mine faces where the stuff is dug out of the ground usually have a few crew and thats all. But unlike Earth mining we are not digging for a mile underground just to find the seams that had been left by the meteor strike we are going into the meteor itself, the asteroid. Our platinum in South africa and Z|imbabwe is actually the result of an asteroid strike millions of years ago forming the seams of gold and platinum we mine today.

A possible thought we will be using a lot of ilemite or equivalent to create oxygen for the bases. If I remember is not one of the waste products from that a lot of Titanium oxide. Could we not use the Titanium oxide to create a heat shield to protect the dumb loads as they are dropped into the atmosphere. We are then using and creating another product that could be exported to LEO to save or make money.

It is true that the Carbonyll process is not used on Earth but that is for reasons that benefit operation in low atmosphere energy rich enviroments like the Moon and Asteroids etc. With the Carboyll process you need to control your manufacturing very carefully with no leakages of either heat or atmosphere into the facility. It is very hard to do this on Earth but not so in space.

Platinum has reached a price of $879 this is mainly due to shortages as a result of demand not able to meet our supply needs. This will not change and will get a lot lot worse as Platinum is too important to the Electrical and chemical industries and our supplies are running out. We cannot go to a hydrogen economy with the amounts of platinum available now. Dennis Wingo in his book Moonrush states that many platinum loaded asteroids will have collided with the Moon and due to the low gravity are intact. I sort of really doubted this but have since found out that this is very likely to have happened. This frankly means that there will be incredibly rich sources of platinum in incredibly concentrated form to be found.

We just have to have a means to actually get these deposits and develop a means to get them back here. It can be done right and with this make platinum a lot cheaper so allowing cheaper fuel celled cars.

I looked at the treaty that binds most space going nations in this case the Moon treaty. It does clearly state that no Nation may permanently claim any body in space. But it then goes and says that the resources of space are to be used for the Benefit of all mankind. Also any base made in space or on a body in space is national territory.

Apart from being a very weak treaty it does mean if we go to space to procure minerals like platinum so as to make available materials that reduce pollution then that is a benefit to all mankind and therefore is perfectly legitimate. And any base made so as to do so is the territory of the nation that does so make this base and cannot be interfered with.

But as has been previously noted the minerals that make up the Asteroids are very valuable especially when there are more PGMs than just platinum the rest can be mined purely to make money. And it is allowed when compared to the Moon treaty as it a side issue to the main purpose of the mining Platinum

It really all depends on what we use this platinum for. At the moment it is heavily used by the Chemical and Electronics industries and with other smaller uses in jewelery, transport, power production. Its uses are possibly infinite but with the current prices and with the likelehood of this increasing as our supplies get harder to reach and the need for it increases.

Unlike the USA many of the worlds countries have gone into the Kyoto agreement and have signed up to reducing not only there CO2 emmissions but many industries find that they must reduce other emmisions as well. This means and I note not including the Hydrogen fuel economy an increase in Platinum demand that is unsustainable at the present supplies. If we where to add Dennis Wingos and real experts hydrogen fuel celled cars then it may be that mining of Platinum to return to Earth may well be the first commercial enterprise away from Earth orbit.

It also makes sense to start on the Moon as it has benefits to going after the circling Aten class asteroids mostly to do with short communication and direct sight. Also the limited gravity available on the Moon improves the operation of Mineral extraction. Something that we will struggle with on an Asteroid. But we will go to the Asteroids sometime but probably supplied by a developed Lunar base in doing so.

The problem with all NEA class of asteroids is that they will hit Earth sometime and that is quite unacceptable.

So we wanted to try out mining asteroids well 2004 MN4 should be our first candidate. We have seen that our capabilities with magnetics has improved since O'Neills day and he had worked out the calculations to use mass drivers to move asteroids. But we can send a mission to this asteroid and useing its own mass move it.

Of course we have still to find out the composition of 2004 MN4 and it might well be it makes sense to try to capture it and see if we can make money from the venture by using its resources.

Still until we really know the composition of 2004MN4 we cant really decide what way is needed to deflect it. If its a collection of boulders held by weak gravity then it means any Nuclear device will simply create a shotgun effect for us.

I wonder what the makeup is of 2004 MN4 if it is a mineral or carbaceous carbonate class it may well be worth going to this asteroid and capturing it if possible. Or just give it a little shunt so it falls in the Sun.

So 2004 MN4 congratulations on volunteering on becoming the first asteroid to be a good candidate for deliberate intervention.

Seriously 1 in 300 chance of hitting and doing significant damage is bad. but it really should be noted that we have time to ensure that this event does not happen. At least we know about this one. with any luck with our skywatch program we will make sure we know all the threats.

Of course if you really wish a doomsday scenario how about the supervolcano called yellowstone going off. Probability only 99.9% and it goes off every 200,000 years the last time 240,000 years ago so well overdue. Effect probable man being sent back to the stone age.

The BBC have a Drama program called SuperVolcano due to be aired in the UK in January about this. It is from the same team that gave us space Odyssey and appears to be just as good. Of course it helps that most experts now believe that the last SuperVolcano nearly made Mankind extinct and is responsible for the reason Humans are so closely linked genetically that only could have happened if there was at one time only about 2000 humans around in a bottleneck scenario. This Volcanoe now makes up one of the straights of Sumatra.

So from a purely Human basis it means we should go to the Moon and Mars and stay why so that no super disaster can ever threaten the whole species. That is why the space sector and manned missions are so important.

We do have bird hunts over here mostly pheasant and common red grouse. It a staple of the large estates over here but is dieing out. We also have deer hunting but nothing like enough to keep the deer population down so we often have to cull them. And this basically is a systematic kill everyone that we find.

Why do we have this problem well its due to man having killed off all the predators. Actually we are considering seriously the reintroduction of wolves even with the likely consequences for sheep farmers, but we have to get the deer population back into balance.

But for foxes they do get into the chicken coops they gnaw there way in and they find our free range chickens a particular easy prey and so they do. They find the ground nesting ptarmigan and grouse easy prey too. In scotland before legislation banning it came out farmers used to use 1 dog to flush out the fox so it could be shot. Not like the English great hunts which are mostly ceremony. Now as a result it is more becoming more commen to trap and poison the fox as they do have to be controlled and who really has time to keep hunting foxes. Its not as if the fox that is found nowadays is actually a native species. It is in fact a species called the Swedish fox an introduced species and it has displaced and annihalated the British Fox.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-04z … Spacedaily article. Opinion space

Mr Bell gives his opinion on the state of the space race and how his views have been percieved and the trouble that it has given him.

I can understand how the failures and disapointments of the space industry do make a more cautious approach to any new plan. I can understand the frustration and how every new idea has holes in its planning and how the lack of real progress in manned COLONISATION of space seems to never end.

This article should be read as Mr Bell has been castigated on these forums before and this seems to be a response as to why he says what he says. And yes I have had a go at him too.

There are many simularities between Mars and Moon missions and it seems to me that the different space advocate groups tend to get hung up on the few differences.

some examples of simularity.
Both destinations could really do with a much better and cheaper launch capacity. Neither benefit from the continuation of the shuttle or even the ISS white elephant.

Both destinations need to have Industrial capacity designed that can be transported and set up to use insitu materials to make more capacity and to further missions.

Both destinations need a new style of spacesuit which is easier more flexible and easier to put on. Both destinations need the problems of the charged dust on there surface from becoming a real hindrance.

This is only an example of those things that really should be tackled together and the solution to one destinations problem will give hopefully a good solution to the other.

I have been giving the Moon treaty and the outer space treaty some serious thought, and this is what I have sort of come up with.

1) The Moon treaty is a dead treaty and as such can really be ignored, no one of worth ratified it.

2) The outer space treaty in its limitations and its expectations can and will be manipulated to a good degree while staying within the letter of the law but certainly not the spirit.
an example

The outer space treaty clearly states that no nation may claim a body in space. It does say though that space is for the use of all mankind and that any nations spacecraft etc may not be interfered with or that an experiment that could so do so must be stopped.

So if you are mining on the Moon for example you have the case that you are using space for the advancement of mankind. Your mine or area of mining could be classed as your property as it is what you are working on and as such no other state may interfere or obstruct the mining you are so doing.

Very simply expressed but it does tend to show that the outer space treaty is really only a set of principles which can really be ignored. So this means there are no real stops to exploitation of space resources apart from cost and will.