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So there is a lot of metal out there. It's still WAY OUT THERE! Are we in danger of running out of iron on the earth? With current production and increased recycling we shouldn't have a problem for a very long time, if ever.
Is mars in danger of running out of iron at any time in the next thousand years?
Dook you assume we will go to the asteroids for there iron, Hardly, to the asteroid miner there are a lot more interesting materials to be found like all the platinum group metals, Titanium etc all of which can be found in very heavy concentrations.
But what really will open up space is to be able to use those 75% of Chondrite class of asteroids. There water and hydrocarbons will be able supply the fuel and furnish the ships that create a true space civilisation. And incidentally it will also allow us to be able to transport a lot of people to Mars.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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A true space civilization? What is with this crazy idea that we have to abandon the earth? This is it. The earth is where we were planted, where we grew, other than mars there is nothing else within possibility for settlement.
Space? You think masses of people are just going to abandon the earth to live in a ship in space? Why would anyone want to do such a thing?
Also manned exploration of even our own solar system is going to take a Star Trek type propulsion system which is about 1,000 years away if it's possible at all.
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A true space civilization? What is with this crazy idea that we have to abandon the earth? This is it. The earth is where we were planted, where we grew, other than mars there is nothing else within possibility for settlement.
A true space civilisation is where we are able to enter space and use its resources as we so desire. Who said anything about abandoning the Earth.
Mars is not as hospitable as the Earth but we still want to go there. We will have to live in Habitats until we actually change the whole planet so that it is not as dangerous to us as it currently is. But to that we need a lot of spacebourne resources. And we will need those resources to be able to move enough people to actually Colonize that Planet.
Space? You think masses of people are just going to abandon the Earth and live in a ship in space? Why would anyone want to do such a thing?
People will go where they want to if given a chance. But to be able to be given that chance we need a means to do so. But just using the Earth to launch all that we need is frankly too expensive. We need the resources of space to be able to do this.
And one question why did people leave there well known European existence to go and colonize the Americas. Frankly many reasons and so will it be for space.
Also manned exploration of even our solar system is going to take a Star Trek type propulsion system which is about 1,000 years if it's possible at all.
No what it needs is a nuclear powered engine or even if we can get it a fusion powered one. But we already have the nuclear one now actually we had it in the 1960s. Its not a case of new propulsion types but of fuel that is limiting our expansion into space. But as you have already noted 75% of all asteroids are chondrite classes and these are made up of between 20% to 80% water or similar. We can use those as fuel stations and so go where we need to. If we have Star Treks anti gravity then it would be easy to send things from Earth up and vice versa but we dont. So we have to use the only sensible recourse we use the materials already present. Zubrins Mars Direct already does. It is just a matter of doing the same elsewhere too.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Of course we will colonize the Asteroid belt, there enough resources there that we could build a society there. But, we would have to get a starter settlement there so that we could support the infrastructure to build a major settlement there. Which would probably take a while to do that. We build donut habitats that are a mile in diameter and mile wide and we could support a million people in the asteroid belt living off the asteroid and selling the surplus to other space endeavors or building deep space space ships. Of course it would probably take us sixty to eighty years to be able to put something like this together to do it, but it would come if we get serious about going into space. Although we may start out with fission, but we would have to upgrade to fusion, because fission would be too slow for what we would want to do. Fission would take six months or so to move around the Earth, Mars and Asteroid field. That would way to slow for our needs. We would need to be able to get that travel time down to a few weeks travel time, especially when we are moving people around. For that purpose, fusion would be absolutely necessary to get that travel time down to an acceptable time frame for traveling around in the solar system.
Larry,
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Whatever propulsion you use to make the round trip to the asteroid belt negates the benefit of whatever it is you try to bring back. You use more resources than you gain. Now you can use up martian hydrogen as fuel to go out and get heavy metal asteroids but when do we really think this is going to be necessary? All of this talk about mars running out of resources and leaving the earth to colonize space is so far in the future that it's pointless to even discuss at this time. If we ever do it the technology used will be far beyond our current understanding of physics.
And to Martian Republic: A million people living in the asteroid belt? That is complete nonsense.
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I think in the very distant future we will have a couple of stations in orbit, probably one each at the earth/moon lagrange points (L1 and L2). I'd expect the stations to be a spinning circular ring with many levels and tubes running to ship hangars at the center. I don't expect much of a base on the moon at all, maybe if we really come up with a need for helium-3 but other than that even in the future no one would want to leave the earth and live their life in a box, maybe for a lot of money and only for a short time.
About this time we might have a completely terraformed mars and ships would travel back and forth between the earth and mars. Mars would need to have one space station in orbit to service arriving and departing ships but I still see no reason for asteroid mining.
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Speaking of colonizing Mars, I recently heard a wonderful idea off SpaceDaily.com. Create a hole 45k deep at Mars' lowest region, the atmosphere would then drain into this pit creating about 1 full bar of atmospheric pressure making a much more effecient greenhouse in no time. Any thoughts?
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Uh, digging a hole 45k deep is not a wonderful idea.
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Whatever propulsion you use to make the round trip to the asteroid belt negates the benefit of whatever it is you try to bring back. You use more resources than you gain. Now you can use up martian hydrogen as fuel to go out and get heavy metal asteroids but when do we really think this is going to be necessary? All of this talk about mars running out of resources and leaving the earth to colonize space is so far in the future that it's pointless to even discuss at this time. If we ever do it the technology used will be far beyond our current understanding of physics.
And to Martian Republic: A million people living in the asteroid belt? That is complete nonsense.
Dook the benefit you gain by utilising asteroidal water as a fuel source is that you can send a tanker to a fuel stop fill up its fuel tanks and carry enough back to Earth to do the same mission 12 times. Soon we have a lot of fuel for other purposes in usable areas and a means to start collecting asteroidal materials for other purposes like building and or missions to Mars.
And Dook if they go the way of space colonies like oNeill cylinders etc then it wont be 1 million it will be 70 trillion people that can live very well on materials available in the asteroids.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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I think in the very distant future we will have a couple of stations in orbit, probably one each at the earth/moon lagrange points (L1 and L2). I'd expect the stations to be a spinning circular ring with many levels and tubes running to ship hangars at the center. I don't expect much of a base on the moon at all, maybe if we really come up with a need for helium-3 but other than that even in the future no one would want to leave the earth and live their life in a box, maybe for a lot of money and only for a short time.
About this time we might have a completely terraformed mars and ships would travel back and forth between the earth and mars. Mars would need to have one space station in orbit to service arriving and departing ships but I still see no reason for asteroid mining.
What will you terraform mars with if not material from the asteroid belts. Remember Phobos and Deimos are just captured asteroids.
How will we create these ships to go between Mars and Earth. How will we make our spacestations.
So you think people in space will be in a box but they will be living in large O'Neill type colonies. Strange that ???
Asteroidal and lunar material will be needed for us to build anything of any substantial size in space. We either go that way or wait for someone to invent antigravity. Even then it only will increase the likehood of people staying in space as they will no longer need to spin habitats as they will be able to control gravity.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Uh, digging a hole 45k deep is not a wonderful idea.
*Is such a thing even possible to begin with? ???
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Dook the benefit you gain by utilising asteroidal water as a fuel source is that you can send a tanker to a fuel stop fill up its fuel tanks and carry enough back to Earth to do the same mission 12 times.
And Dook if they go the way of space colonies like oNeill cylinders etc then it wont be 1 million it will be 70 trillion people that can live very well on materials available in the asteroids.
You're saying use some kind of cycler ship to bring resources (water) from the asteroid belt back to the earth. Maybe one of our orbit specialists can tell us if there even is such a thing as a cycler orbit between the two.
But are we running out of water on the earth? It seems to me that we have plenty. And mars seems to have a great deal of it so again...Why go to the asteroids?
70 trillion people in the asteroid belt. You just want more people, is that it? You want more humans in existence? It doesn't matter what their quality of life is or where they are as long as they are. Like we are competing with some alien race as to who has the most people. There couldn't possibly be a reason to have that many humans in the asteroid belt. Why would anyone move their family from the earth or terraformed mars into a cylinder?
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Whatever propulsion you use to make the round trip to the asteroid belt negates the benefit of whatever it is you try to bring back. You use more resources than you gain. Now you can use up martian hydrogen as fuel to go out and get heavy metal asteroids but when do we really think this is going to be necessary? All of this talk about mars running out of resources and leaving the earth to colonize space is so far in the future that it's pointless to even discuss at this time. If we ever do it the technology used will be far beyond our current understanding of physics.
And to Martian Republic: A million people living in the asteroid belt? That is complete nonsense.
As far as the technology that we need to do this being too far into the future and so that makes it pointless to discuss the possibility to do it. I do not agree with you on that. Number one if we don't make long range plans to do things like this in space and go about the business of making it happen, then your probably right it won't happen. But, I believe in having an aggressive space program that generates new technologies, generates new businesses and great large scale employment for large number of people. So if I had my way, we could be only forty or sixty years away from being in a position of making those decisions of building colonies. I believe that we should build small colony or city on moon with an industrial base in a twenty year time frame. That we should build a bigger city on Mars in forty to fifty year time frame. I also support developing ship that can fly to Mars in one week or less from Earth and that we would probably need 200 ships that can fly between the Earth, Moon and Mars. That not counting any space station that we might need.
When we start building things on this level, we will be going Moon, Mars and the Asteroid belt too. Then we will be building major homestead sites in all three places. So both mining the Asteroids and the moon for resources and setting up manufacturing sites along with farming would make it dune deal. At that point there would be trade going on between them so they could trade different products. Now admittedly it would take sixty years or more to actually bring this about and we will probably have to upgrade our plans every five to ten years as new technology comes on line, but the basic plan would stay the same. I admit it will take us thirty to forty years to put that infrastructure in place to accomplish something like this or be in a position to plan to put something like this in place.
But, I'm fifty four years old. I remember the Cuba Missile Crises and I even remember Ike and the 1960 Kennedy Nixon Debates. We commit 40 years or so to a major space initiative and we will have a major portion of this opening up of space and colonizing of both the Moon, Mars and even the prospect of setting up colonies in the Asteroid belt. It generally take about one generation to build something major like the rail roads or highway system. But, to do what we are talking about doing will probably take three generation to do it. Now if I have my way, I won’t be here to see it completed, because I will probably be 124 or older when it completed, but that life.
Larry,
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You're saying use some kind of cycler ship to bring resources (water) from the asteroid belt back to the earth. Maybe one of our orbit specialists can tell us if there even is such a thing as a cycler orbit between the two.
Dook do you even know that Asteroids form into classes and these classes are based where they roughly can be found in the solar system. A cycler orbit is where we use as limited amount of power as possible to increase fuel efficiency. The use of cyclers was proposed by even the likes of Buzz Aldrin to allow efficient transport between the Earth and Mars for this to work you have to actually enter the asteroid belt. But we dont need cyclers to get resources from the asteroids but we do need is fuel. And we can get it from the asteroids.
http://www.spacer.com/news/tourism-02b.html]Cyclers as proposed by Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrins proposal on cyclers.
But are we running out of water on the Earth? It seems to me that we have plenty. And mars seems to have a great deal of it so again...why go to the asteroids?
Where is this water? Easy its on the planet so is it useful to provide fuel for spacecraft oh thats easy, No.
it is only useful when you can get it to the spacecraft and at over 1000$ US dollars a pound then it frankly is too expensive. And to get it from Mars costs a lot more it has the added pain of needing it to be processed. And a Nuclear Rocket the best power source we have at present for any decent powered manned craft would need a lot of it tons actually. So if we can get it from the asteroids and those dark regions of the Moon then we have a lot more cheaper spaceflight and a chance to get to Mars sooner. A rocket must carry ALL its fuel up with it may need and any capacity left is what we call the payload. In space as we are not fighting atmosphere and as strong gravity forces we can get a lot more out of a pound of fuel. So fuel from Asteroids/Moon is a very very attractive idea in fact it is the only way to go.
70 trillion people in the asteroid belt. You just want more people, is that it? You want more humans in existence? It doesnt matter what their qualitity of life is or where they are as long as they are.
People need a space to grow and be able to have children and live in an enviroment that is a great place to live where there medical needs and all reasonable needs are met. Like most western countries are now. So on Earth there is just not enough resources to go around unless the western countries take a severe cut in there lifestyles. And even then its a dicey thing. No what I want is for everyone to be able to live as lords and enjoy all the benefits that Science and medicine are able to give and have children in the security that they will not starve to death or have to sell themselves to get a little food in for there pain and diseased wracked bodies.
Like we are competing with some alien race as to who has the most people. There couldn't possibly be a reason to have that many humans in the asteroid belt. Why would anyone move their family from the earth or a terraformed mars into a cylinder?
Ah but if you read my post you will note I said there is cpacity for 70 Trillion people to be kept in very very good lifestyles, not that there will ever be that many people but then again im not a psychic so who knows. And so who is going to terraform Mars, People. How are they going to get there, Cylinders (with engines). What are they going to live in when they get there. Habitats (read cylinders).
But what is proposed for space colonies is actually a better place to live than Mars it will have Earth standard Gravity and atmosphere and a lot of room. It will have good food and unlimited resources and power and complete radiation protection. Now I have a question for you Dook if the Asteroids give this why should we send people to Mars where they would be living in the modern equivalent of slums for space and with a lot of things affecting them. And it will take at least a 1000 years for us to Terraform Mars. So why colonise Mars if we use your arquements Dook ???
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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I also support developing ship that can fly to Mars in one week or less from Earth...
Maybe you could enlighten us on how this ship works?
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And to get it from Mars costs a lot more it has the added pain of needing it to be processed.
And a Nuclear Rocket the best power source we have at present for any decent powered manned craft would need a lot of it tons actually. So if we can get it from the asteroids and those dark regions of the Moon then we have a lot more cheaper spaceflight and a chance to get to Mars sooner. A rocket must carry ALL its fuel up with it may need and any capacity left is what we call the payload. In space as we are not fighting atmosphere and as strong gravity forces we can get a lot more out of a pound of fuel. So fuel from Asteroids/Moon is a very very attractive idea in fact it is the only way to go.
People need a space to grow and be able to have children and live in an enviroment that is a great place to live where there medical needs and all reasonable needs are met. Like most western countries are now. So on Earth there is just not enough resources to go around unless the western countries take a severe cut in there lifestyles. And even then its a dicey thing. No what I want is for everyone to be able to live as lords and enjoy all the benefits that Science and medicine are able to give and have children in the security that they will not starve to death or have to sell themselves to get a little food in for there pain and diseased wracked bodies.
So why colonise Mars if we use your arquements Dook ???
Processed? You mean, melted. So you are saying it's easier to have a ship go from mars all the way out to the asteroid belt, land, fill up with asteroid water, fly back, then I assume it just dumps the water onto mars from orbit? I fail to see how that's efficient or easier.
We won't need asteroid anything, EVER! The only reason we should ever go there is for science.
Europes population has been creeping along for many years. There are plenty of resources to go around without anyone taking a cut out of their lifestyle.
The problem with poor countries lies with the parents who have children that they and the community cannot support and provide for.
I don't believe we will colonize mars until it is terraformed.
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I also support developing ship that can fly to Mars in one week or less from Earth...
Maybe you could enlighten us on how this ship works?
With present technology, we have no way to build a ship that could travel between the Earth and Mars. As a base line, let use a on "G" excelerate as our goal for the ship that we want to build for going between Earth and Mars. We want our manned flight to excelerate to half-way point between the Earth and Mars and Decelerate to a Mars orbit for the other have of the trip. Now our unmanned freighter can go a little bit slower maybe six month to save on fuel and would be a little bit more economical. Now this eliminates Chemical rockets as a possible energy source and even nuclear fission does not have enough kick to it to meet our desired goal of being able to go to Mars in one week. That means that we are going to have to develop a power source that delivers higher energy return like fusion or something like that. That also means that we are going to have to refine helium/hydrogen in space to supply our space ships that are traveling between Earth and Mars. Since we would have to develop the technology to do that, it will probably be either second or third generation deep space space ship. It would probably take twenty years to develop the technology and build the infrastructure in space to be able to run an operation like that. So for us to build something like this, will be no quick fix, but, we would have to planned and run out in a long term plan of around forty years time frame.
But, once we develop a space ship that can do that, it would solve a lot of our space health problem that we would run into like bone loss, radiation sickness, cataracts in eyes, etc.
Larry,
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If you wanted to colonize our solar system then, it comes down to resources, meaning space vessels and the material resources to build them and maintain them. Firstly, I would build on the moon a small human base with a larger robotic procesiing and manufacturing facility to assembly a material processing vessel to go to the asteroid belt to mine and process minerals. The second move would be developing an outpost on Mars in a primary, secondary and teritary locations for the future three cities on Mars for colonization and settlement. Once the material processing vessel is full with processed supplies and group of remote cargo vessels would approach and load the cargo bound for Mars and Earth space ( earth , orbit or moon ) Mars supplies would bring the outposts the supplies required to build larger settlements. Earth space would receive the minerals required for processing into ship fabrications. With the additional processed minerals , larger vessels can be constructed for human settlement to begin on Mars and work forward.
This is the only rapid way to expand into space and reducing the costs for the massive project from earth based resources.
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Uh, digging a hole 45k deep is not a wonderful idea.
*Is such a thing even possible to begin with?
Well digging a hole 45K deep would be a little moronic when you could use a succession of asteroid impacts to do the job for you. Let gravity do most of the work while creating an incredible heatsink at the same time.
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Processed? You mean, melted. So you are saying it's easier to have a ship go from mars all the way out to the asteroid belt, land, fill up with asteroid water, fly back, then I assume it just dumps the water onto mars from orbit? I fail to see how that's efficient or easier.
We won't need asteroid anything, EVER! The only reason we should ever go there is for science.
You believe we will use asteroidal water to terraform Mars when it has a lot more use as fuel.
The problem with both Earth and Mars is that they have gravity and an atmosphere. To provide fuel for the craft that ply the distances between needs tons at a time and at present launch prices of 1000$us a pound it is just too expensive. But with the asteroids we can simply send a craft to them it gets its own tanks topped up and fills up its hold and then goes to Mars or Earth and supplies the craft that travel between.
If there is a sudden need for more water on Mars to terraform it then its a good thing we have the Kuiper belt. Then we simply can put an engine on this either nuclear or mass driver and send it into our system to collide with Mars in a non habitated spot. Will take years to do it then but then again it will take at least a 1000 to terraform Mars.
And there is plenty to find in the Asteroids, dont worry we will go and we will do it to enrich ourselves.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Martian Republic: You say a fusion/helium/hydrogen powered space ship will be able to go from the earth to mars in one week? And we can probably develop the technology and build the infrastructure in space in only twenty or even forty years?
It's very likely that we won't even have fusion figured out in forty years!
How about we take our time, conduct science, experiment, learn, not break the bank, explore mars first, build a small base permanently manned with less than 10 crew, begin terraforming, make sure we are doing things the right way, then move in plants, then small animals, and finally way down the road when there is an oxygen atmosphere we can begin landing 10-20 settlers every few months.
That's the smart way. No crazy trips to asteroids. No massive expenditures that ruin our childrens future. And no star trek warp drive needed.
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Martian Republic: You say a fusion/helium/hydrogen powered space ship will be able to go from the earth to mars in one week? And we can probably develop the technology and build the infrastructure in space in only twenty or even forty years?
It's very likely that we won't even have fusion figured out in forty years!
How about we take our time, conduct science, experiment, learn, not break the bank, explore mars first, build a small base permanently manned with less than 10 crew, begin terraforming, make sure we are doing things the right way, then move in plants, then small animals, and finally way down the road when there is an oxygen atmosphere we can begin landing 10-20 settlers every few months.
That's the smart way. No crazy trips to asteroids. No massive expenditures that ruin our childrens future. And no star trek warp drive needed.
Dook it will be hundreds of years before there is an atmosphere that is breathable on Mars. If you dont want to start manned colonisation till then I can truly say that you will find it full of other countries settlers. And with a colonisation rate of only 10 to 20 people a year it frantically is not worth it. At that rate deaths by natural causes will cause your colony to fold.
In fact using the dictionary what you describe is not colonisation but settlement. Colonisation refers to large scale movement of people settlement is more appropiate for the numbers you wish to move.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Hundreds of years? Good, gives us time to do a lot of scientific exploration and make absolutely sure we are terraforming mars correctly.
What other countries? China might be the only one who could do it in the future but I'd bet that any serious effort by them would jump start the US's mars efforts. Also they are probably 50 years away from any serious ability to land a human on mars.
I said 10-20 every few months, not a year. Anyway I would expect the 10-20 people sent would be healthy young adults so the only death's would most likely be from accidents.
How do you plan to feed and provide oxygen for a mass of people who suddenly land on mars?
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Feeding and supplying the people who go to Mars is the point. We will need to develop the Infrastructure for these people and that means a large amount of Greenhouses and developing plants that are resistant to the radiation that Mars has and also thrive in poor light conditions. Other problems consist of how do we get enough energy to crack the soil to get the oxygen we need. You see power supply is a problem as well Mars gets a lot less sunlight as it is further away so we will need Nuclear or Fusion if developed to power the Bases.
And infrastructure is the point we can build it as long as we have materials and we have people to run it. So now we need people to build and make things or at the least control the hordes of robots doing the jobs.
Still it will need a lot of people to terraform a planet and we are talking tens of thousands. And until they are in place there will not be any terraforming.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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I would like to see, a third party of humans go to mars and tell the other nations to get lost coming to mars. Setup another human settlement and setup immigration policies and other regulations and not allow the nations of earth to formulate their land grab of mars.
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