New Mars Forums

Doing that I guess you could get at all the metals you wanted, if they were there.

So, what would you do with Mercury?  I know it is off topic.  Perhaps you could start a new one.  Mercury, in it's present orbit, translated into artificial habitat(s)?

If forced to bet, I guess I would agree.  I still don't know why the ice is not dirty.  Maybe it just looks bright relative to the surroundings.  But we are likely to get a better view soon.

Alright, since you mentioned human transport, I guess I would consider the following:
A ground effect hover craft composed of helicopter blades 1 or 2.
and a skirt around the circumference.

The blade(s) being the top, the skirt being the sides, and the ground being the bottom of a pressurized containment.

If you used roton powered blades, then the engines on the blades could be canted to exhaust into the pressurized chamber.

I believe that a hovercraft does not need as smooth a road, and can in fact have a pretty fast horizontal speed.

But I would not restrict it to ground travel, if possible, it might have a higher speed where it could actually fly, say to get over a large obstacle.  But that mode would not be as energy efficient I presume.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 … Muam4_na70

http://www.space.com/24288-strange-meta … ssion.html

I guess that where I might prefer Ceres, is that I suppose that a metal chunk would dig into the surface, and perhaps it would be convenient to access it there.

If a Nuclear Fission rocket were the method of transport Earth<>Ceres, then Ceres offers water for that.  So Ceres may provide protection to miners.

If the Crust of Ceres is not too thick and the impacting object were of the correct size, then it might dig into the ice, and indeed melt a pocket in the ice, which may or may not be convenient.

Using special suits, that environment might be decent for humans to work the object and extract materials from it.  They would be protected from radiation, and their suits would experience 0 degrees Centigrade as the temperature.  A degree of pressurization would be experienced but not that much.

To go to small objects and mine them in place would take away those protections.

But 16 Psyche may have a residual magnetic field which might give radiation protection.  But it may not have much water for nuclear propulsion, so then propulsion would have to be solar of some kind I suppose.

Vesta, might be pretty good.  It has hydrated minerals, and it would be easier to reach it's core than Ceres, but there would be a lot of digging before the mother load was reached.  It would be an interesting world to build an extensive city inside of.

But I see Ceres as the starter, and the hub of an Asteroid mining operation.

Starting small with guided impacts, making money and building a treasury, and then moving additional operations to 16 Psyche and Vesta and so on as economically viable.

Imagine turning 16 Psyche into a hollow world with many chambers.

I looked at the video Tom supplied, it said this:

You provided this on another thread Spacenut.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl … ew-408356/

So, I am wondering if these two systems actually work, to what degree they would compete, and to what degree they would be symbiotic?

I am thinking symbiosis.  At first, the air breather might be able to bring up a fuel and oxidizer tank, to clip onto a upper stage that Falcon Heavy has lofted, and perhaps that could do a Moon mission?

Later, if Skylon works, perhaps using air breathing engines on the Heavy Lifter?

I am thinking about the cost reductions.  If SpaceX can reuse the boosters that is one big cost reduction, but if later versions (Much later) could be partially air breathing, then a updated version could lift even larger paylodes I would think.

Alright I have broken my promise to not play topper anymore about Ceres on this thread since you have not updated it.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen … story.html

Time for me to speculate, and probably be wrong to a degree.  I just want to see how close I can get with limited information.  We can see what really is later, I hope.

I have been wondering how dirt could "Float on glaciers".

Pumice raft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumice_raft

We think that Ceres could not have volcanism now.  I might try to argue without much evidence that the solar wind might magnetically excite ferrite materials in the core and make enough heat for eruptive activity, but I am not going to push that much further.

If pumice were part of the dirt crust, and it were to dry out exposed to sunlight and vacuum, then the pores inside of it might constitute "Vacuum Balloons".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship

However, since I don't want a beating I will back away from the word pumice, and substitute in for it the word porous soil particles which also might have "Vacuum Balloons" in their "VOIDS" . 

So if the world wide glacier below does exhibit tectonic subduction, perhaps the soil is too light to be sucked below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subduction

In the picture I have just seen, it looks like the "Crust" could be fairly thick, and if so, and if porous, may be like a winter coat, providing some thermal insulation.

http://www.solstation.com/stars/ceres.htm

Although classified as carbonaceous, Ceres reflects roughly 10 percent of the sunlight that strikes it ("albedo") and so is not as dark as other low-density asteroids called carbonaceous chondrites, which have albedos of around three to five percent. While exposed water ice would not be stable at the surface of Ceres at its relatively close distance to the Sun, water and ammonia do appear to be bound up in crustal minerals on the asteroid's surface. That Ceres has not lost these volatile components from destructive impacts suggests that the asteroid may be a surviving protoplanet from the formation of the Solar System. (More discussion is available from the Planetary Society.)

Water and ammonia do appear to be bound up in crustal minerals on the asteroid's surface.  So, maybe an Ammonia/Water/Salt ocean at the bottom of the ice where somehow this porous material can form, and be pulled up by upwelling warmer ice?

The white spot?  I am guessing a hole exposing clean ice?  Why would the ice be clean?  Cryo-Volcanism?  I guess maybe the ice would be clean?  Something else?

Perhaps it would be too heavy, but I wonder about a model air plane internal combustion engine or some chemical drive.

After all, I think I have read about very small drones on Earth.

Perhaps after they get the mentioned electric version perfected.

Same stuff, video included.
http://www.space.com/28360-nasa-mars-he … drone.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

As an example, an article I read indicated that it is possible that most or all the gold we have mined on Earth could have come from a single asteroid strike.  (All other earlier gold having sunk to the Earths core).

And some dialog in the below mentioned movie is exactly on as far as I am concerned.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sherlock_H … of_Shadows

Gold is manifested in the human mind, an illusion, which works, because almost everyone believes in it.  Which is pretty funny.

So, two approaches, maybe more.  That's fine with me.

Were talking apples and oranges Tom.

You want to use a heavy brute force method, which has some strengths, I think.

I am looking for a minimum solution with a lightweight construction which might more likely get humans to be able to live on Ceres more early and often.

So, I claim that what I proposed is easier to do.  But the cost of that is some risk.  Honestly I also would need to figure out how you plan to have massive weight of rails, and those rails on top of a layer of ice.  I am not saying it is not possible, but I have reservations.

Visualize a spinning balloon, of relatively light weight materials, filled with O2 and N2.  Instead of a gondola, it would have a tube which extends downward from it.  The habitat tunnels, being a network would have a tube in the chamber the extends upward into the chamber.  The balloon tube surrounds the top of the tunnel tube which is a smaller diameter.  The space between the two and surround the two can be a liquid, first proposal is that it be water.  The cave above is filled with CO2 which being heavier will displace the spinning floating habitat ideally in a null value +/- some variations. 

Then the rather small hovercraft function formed by the two joining tubes may be able to handle the +/- variation.

I am thinking construction about the character of an airliner.  Strong but light.  Just enough so that people can maintain health.

Later on if they have the engineering smarts that are needed and the construction materials for it, they can try to approach what you intend.

Of course on a segway, I can say that we hope that the gravitation of Mars will be sufficient for human health, but we don't have a firm confirmation on that.  So the design I have suggested here would be adaptable for Mars perhaps, whereas the design you have proposed I think would be too heavy.  But we are talking Ceres, so fine continue.  I do like to know what your plans are on this.

Ok nice ideas, supported with math.  At one point you cite metal wheels on rails for your bearings.  Not impossible.

I am not indicating that there is something wrong with your plan.  I am just indicating that this is what your communication has said to me about bearings.

For my part, I would dispense with trying to convey sunlight into such an apparatus, but would put it somewhat deeper, perhaps even allowing more than 1 bar of pressure (More floatation in CO2).  I would perhaps include house plants of value using artificial light.

As for agriculture, of course there would be methods previously discussed not too different than solutions for Mars or the Moon.  Again, only one persons view.  You are quite welcome to share further how you would do things.