Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 12:46:35

It seems for the Discussions about Space Elevators that for Space elevators to be vastly cheaper then other methods to get mass to orbit either they need a very fast way to deliver the mass to orbit or they need a way to get the resources to build the elevator cheaply to space. An asteroid with a high carbon percentage in an orbit close to earth could be the solution. Does anyone know of any such asteroid? What asteroid prospecting missions are there currently? What ones are planned?

Hop · 2004-11-26 23:14:25

Here is a nice close carbonaceous chondrite:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0209 … 20919.html
1998 KY26
has 0.984 AU perihelion, 1.48 apohelion and a 1.37 year period

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 23:30:46

Here is a nice close carbonaceous chondrite:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap0209 … 20919.html
1998 KY26
has 0.984 AU perihelion, 1.48 apohelion and a 1.37 year period

Sounds like a good target. Apperntly it is water rich to.

Sounds like a good target. Apparently it is water rich too. I was thinking if you had a factory in space continuously producing CNT cords or pipes you bring some carbon from earth and supply the rest by asteroids. Clearly since Ion thrusters are slow you will initially start with a low percentage of the carbon produced in space but as more money is invested in such mining operations the cost of the carbon in space will come down thus making space elevators economical.

BWhite · 2004-11-26 23:31:49

Great place to set down a research base. What is the relative velocity compared to Earth?

800,000 km is rather close if we can match velocities.

= = =

Sorry, should have googled first:

The asteroid 1998 KY26 was discovered by Tom Gehrels on the night of May 28, 1998 (UT) during a routine scanning session. Although appearing as a small dot on the screen like any other asteroid, this near-Earth asteroid has some interesting properties. First, it passed close enough to the Earth for radar observations to be taken. From light curve measurements, its rotation period was calculated to be 10.7 minutes - the fastest rotating asteroid known. In fact, it is the fastest known rotating body in the solar system! Also, because of its orbit, this asteroid is the most accessible to spacecraft among those asteroids with well known orbits. As of 2002 July 28, 1998 KY26 was still the most accessible (lowest DeltaV = 3.9 km/s) asteroid among those NEOs with well-determined orbits.

http://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/1998k … 8ky26.html

= = =

More:

http://www.geocities.com/zlipanov/selec … ...26.html

Look at that map! Land on 1998 KY26 and hop off closer to Mars!

Cool!

Edited By BWhite on 1101533892

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 23:42:23

Great place to set down a research base. What is the relative velocity compared to Earth?

The base could be bigger then the asteroid. The asteroid is only 20 m in diameter. If it had an engine it could toe the asteroid to earth.

John Creighton · 2004-11-26 23:44:10

Look at that map! Land on 1998 KY26 and hop off closer to Mars!
Cool!

:up: :up:

1998 KY26's color and radar reflectivity showed similarities to carbonaceous chondrites, primordial meteorites which formed during the origin of the solar system, and unlike any rocks formed on Earth. They contain complex organic compounds as well as 10 percent to 20 percent water. Some carbonaceous chondrites contain amino acids and nucleic acids, which are the building blocks of proteins and DNA, and hence, are of interest to scientists trying to unravel the origins of life.
The solar system is thought to contain about 10 million asteroids this small in orbits that cross Earth's, and about 1 billion in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. However, only a few dozen of these tiny asteroids have ever been found and, until now, hardly anything was known about the nature of these objects.

http://www.geocities.com/zlipanov/selec … ...26.html

Hop · 2004-11-27 01:19:10

One of the problems is lack of knowledge. Most asteroid data pages give wild guesstimates of a size range for various asteroids. They can measure the asteroid's magnitude (brightness) and then give one estimate if the asteroid is dark (low albedo) and another if it reflects a lot of light (high albedo).
The WISE mission may gives us more info on asteroids
http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/]http://wi … keley.edu/
Hopefully it will tell us the size of each asteroid. Given an asteroid's size and magnitude, it's albedo can be inferred.
Once the albedo is known, good guesses can be made if a particular asteroid is metallic, stoney, carbonaceous chondrite, etc.
I believe this will be a very large step towards making exploitation of NEO resources possible.

Hop · 2004-11-27 01:33:32

More:
http://www.geocities.com/zlipanov/selec … ...26.html
Look at that map! Land on 1998 KY26 and hop off closer to Mars!
Cool!

There is a problem though: Not only does the asteroid have to be at the right place, it must at the right place at the right time.

There are cycler orbits that regularly fly both Earth and Mars. Buzz Aldrin has designed one that passes by both Earth and Mars each synodic period (about 2 & 1/7 years). The "castle" would be be well stocked with radiation shielding, food, air (maybe even self sustaining closed ecology life support systems). Then when the castle is in the neighborhood of either Earth or Mars a much less massive "taxi" can be sent to the planet (or from the planet to the castle). However Aldrin cyclers demand a lot of delta vee from their taxis since it passes Mars with a relative velocity of about 12 km a second.

Then there are two types of cyclers that pass by the planets somewhat less frequently but still regularly. Niehoff VISIT 3 passes by the earth every 3 years and Mars every 7.5 years. Niehoff VISIT 1 earth every 5 years and Mars 3.75 years.

I talk about nudging asteroids into Niehoff cycler orbits on this page:
http://www.clowder.net/hop/railroad/sch … sched.html

patrick · 2004-11-27 06:21:51

If the pipeline only weighs 1000 tons you could get it all there in about 12 shuttle launches.

John Creighton · 2004-11-27 11:02:09

If the pipeline only weighs 1000 tons you could get it all there in about 12 shuttle launches.

Try to post in the right discussion.

John Creighton · 2004-11-27 11:42:47

The WISE mission may gives us more info on asteroids
http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/]http://wi … keley.edu/
Hopefully it will tell us the size of each asteroid. Given an asteroid's size and magnitude, it's albedo can be inferred.
Once the albedo is known, good guesses can be made if a particular asteroid is metallic, stoney, carbonaceous chondrite, etc.
I believe this will be a very large step towards making exploitation of NEO resources possible.

On the website I didn't notice any comments about using it on asteroids. I am sure it could but it might not be a priority to the scientist.

edit: Oh wait is this what you ment? http://wise.ssl.berkeley.edu/2mass.html … 2mass.html
If they map every two microns I am sure the will see alot of asteroids.

http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/galle … html]2MASS Atlas Image Gallery: Solar System Objects

ERRORIST · 2004-11-27 22:34:35

Try to post in the right discussion.

I did!

RobS · 2004-11-30 17:38:55

Hop, your clowder.net excell spreadsheet is really incredible! I love it! Thanks! Too bad you can't add Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Juno; it'd be interesting to see them as well.

-- RobS

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#1 2004-11-26 12:46:35

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#2 2004-11-26 23:14:25

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#3 2004-11-26 23:30:46

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#4 2004-11-26 23:31:49

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#5 2004-11-26 23:42:23

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#6 2004-11-26 23:44:10

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#7 2004-11-27 01:19:10

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#8 2004-11-27 01:33:32

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#9 2004-11-27 06:21:51

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#10 2004-11-27 11:02:09

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#11 2004-11-27 11:42:47

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#12 2004-11-27 22:34:35

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

#13 2004-11-30 17:38:55

Re: Carbon and Asteroid Prospectors - Economical Production in Space

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