You often hear people say we can’t go on mining minerals as one day they will run out. i understand we have things such as ‘known reserves”. there must also be vast quantities of “unknown as yet reserves”.

Plus we have stuff that is diffuse in the earth, and sea for that matter, which one day we may have the technology to extract on a profitable basis. and then there is recycling.

so my question is….are we “running out” of any particular resource?

Helium comes to mind as one where scientists are concerned.

ChrispenEvan said:

You often hear people say we can’t go on mining minerals as one day they will run out. i understand we have things such as ‘known reserves”. there must also be vast quantities of “unknown as yet reserves”.

Plus we have stuff that is diffuse in the earth, and sea for that matter, which one day we may have the technology to extract on a profitable basis. and then there is recycling.

so my question is….are we “running out” of any particular resource?

Helium comes to mind as one where scientists are concerned.

I think it is best to think in practical, relative terms rather than absolute. When the easily sourced parts of element X are depleted, the element becomes more expensive relative to other things, and so other options become more appealing. It’s not that something really runs out: it just becomes impractical economically to persist with it.

Example: if we continued to use uranium at the current rate and in the current way, then we would expect to deplete the easily mined uranium deposits within 300 years, including those we have not discovered yet (obviously, this is based on models and estimates.) So, what then? Well if you really wanted it you could dig deeper, or separate it from common soil, or take it from the oceans, but the reality is you probably wouldn’t bother.

and in 300 years you’ll probably have an alternative anyway.

this is in relation to mining asteroids for use on earth. seems to be the idea that we are running out so asteroid mining will become viable, and the timeframe is a few decades. i can see space mining being viable for stuff used in space but not shipped back to the surface of earth.

ChrispenEvan said:

and in 300 years you’ll probably have an alternative anyway.

this is in relation to mining asteroids for use on earth. seems to be the idea that we are running out so asteroid mining will become viable, and the timeframe is a few decades. i can see space mining being viable for stuff used in space but not shipped back to the surface of earth.

Although I think that is probably mainly correct, I think there is some potential for shipping platinum group elements from near earth asteroids. This is not because they are “running out” per se but because they fetch a high price per kg and are in high abundance on some asteroids.

i had heard about the platinum lot. and helium 3 from the Moon?

ChrispenEvan said:

i had heard about the platinum lot. and helium 3 from the Moon?

I think that helium 3 from the moon thing is a bit speculative. IF nuclear fusion using He-3 ever became a viable power source on earth, then maybe.

Just to give some BOTE OOMEs for the platinum business…

If you can ship platinum to the earth’s surface for under $30 million per tonne then you are in business.

Using Chinese or Indian launchers, you can get hardware to LEO for $5 million per tonne. If you are patient and use ion rocketry, you can get the hardware from earth surface to an LEO surface for maybe $20 million dollars per tonne.

You would need to select a NEA with both PGEs and some kind of ice, preferably water ice, which do exist.

So on surface you would need the power equipment (presumably solar or nuclear), mining equipment, refining equipment, and some means of making small rockets so that you can send the platinum back to earth with enough shielding to prevent it from vaporising in the atmosphere … you can let it melt but you don’t want it to vaporise. I say make the rockets because you sure as shit don’t want to be taking those rockets with you, you want to make it from local materials and send a continual supply back.

So the question becomes; can we design X tonnes of hardware for this purpose to send to a NEA that can over time send at least X times 1.5 tonnes of platinum back to earth?

To my mind it is a big engineering problem but the numbers are basically promising.

Would asteriods contain rare Earth minerals or are the specific to Earth being named rare Earth minerals

I also wonder how much of a rare resource you’d need to find on an asteroid to make it no longer rare

The rare earth elements are generally rare in the universe and people sometimes raise the possibility of REE mining on roids but a) they don’t exist in great abundance on asteroids and b) they aren’t expensive. Rare earth oxides are now under 30 bucks a kilo, mainly.

dv said:

The rare earth elements are generally rare in the universe and people sometimes raise the possibility of REE mining on roids but a) they don’t exist in great abundance on asteroids and b) they aren’t expensive. Rare earth oxides are now under 30 bucks a kilo, mainly.

Is that due to low demand or does a little bit go a long way

Cymek said:

I also wonder how much of a rare resource you’d need to find on an asteroid to make it no longer rare

It is more a matter of what rate can you ship it back to earth.

The total market for platinum at current prices is about 200 tonnes per year. A single small NEA can contain more platinum than will ever be used by earth for a thousand years but that doesn’t mean anything if you can only send back 10 tonnes per year.

If it really did turn out to be an easy matter to do this kind of mining then someone would have to do the maths … if the costs of this operation were such that you could produce at (for example) 10 million dollars per tonne, then presumably you would ramp up production to some point that maximised your profit.

Cymek said:

dv said:

The rare earth elements are generally rare in the universe and people sometimes raise the possibility of REE mining on roids but a) they don’t exist in great abundance on asteroids and b) they aren’t expensive. Rare earth oxides are now under 30 bucks a kilo, mainly.

Is that due to low demand or does a little bit go a long way

It is that low due to increased production in China, mainly.

I mean space mining is not fundamentally different from earth mining, economically. Yes, the development of successful asteroid mines could push down some commodity prices, but the same thing happens when new resources are found on earth.

I wonder and you’d certainly not want any margin of error if you could put an NEO into an Earth orbit or even “control” land it on Earth. I imagine the majority of the cost of space mining is the equipment needed to operate in the vacuum of space, once on Earth is would be pretty easy (relatively speaking) just to crack it open. Probably not a good idea due to something going wrong or a deliberate action

as you produced more platinum the need for it would accelerate as new products were made from it

wookiemeister said:

as you produced more platinum the need for it would accelerate as new products were made from it

Yes I wonder about that, I asked a question many years ago on SSSF, about what elements, ores, etc which are rare would be a better replacement for what we use now if they weren’t rare and expensive to use.

Also would radioactive decay work on asteroids to heat them up

have a two man ship fly to the target asteroid being shielded by a thick yet light polyethylene capsule, it’s basically the life support vehicle , mining equipment and the engines

they land and start processing straight away

you are using humans rather than robots because it’s cheaper and more effective

the platinum is made into a thick shell to protect the crew for the flight back

the mining equipment is dumped on the asteroid , some of the polyethylene is dumped there to and the platinum protected capsule and engines travel back to earth

the platinum shell is remoulded in earth orbit and dropped to earth via heat resistant ball

• I think there is some potential for shipping platinum group elements from near earth asteroids. This is not because they are “running out” per se but because they fetch a high price per kg and are in high abundance on some asteroids.

Wouldn’t going out and bringing back tonnes of the stuff reduce the price and make the economics of it less favourable?

furious said:

• I think there is some potential for shipping platinum group elements from near earth asteroids. This is not because they are “running out” per se but because they fetch a high price per kg and are in high abundance on some asteroids.

Wouldn’t going out and bringing back tonnes of the stuff reduce the price and make the economics of it less favourable?

no you could drip feed it into the existing market

When they mean mining asteroids is it just breaking off chunks and shipping them back to Earth / Earth orbit for processing or do they actual mean processing them into usuable ores and possibly turning them into actual materials, if so it would make more sense to use asteroid mining to directly build spacecraft hulls.

Cymek said:

When they mean mining asteroids is it just breaking off chunks and shipping them back to Earth / Earth orbit for processing or do they actual mean processing them into usuable ores and possibly turning them into actual materials, if so it would make more sense to use asteroid mining to directly build spacecraft hulls.

you’d process the material directly on the asteroid and ship the pure product back using it as a shield to protect humans from space radiation

Cymek said:

When they mean mining asteroids is it just breaking off chunks and shipping them back to Earth / Earth orbit for processing or do they actual mean processing them into usuable ores and possibly turning them into actual materials, if so it would make more sense to use asteroid mining to directly build spacecraft hulls.

have a two man ship fly to the target asteroid being shielded by a thick yet light polyethylene capsule, it’s basically the life support vehicle , mining equipment and the engines

they land and start processing straight away

you are using humans rather than robots because it’s cheaper and more effective

the platinum is made into a thick shell to protect the crew for the flight back

the mining equipment is dumped on the asteroid , some of the polyethylene is dumped there to and the platinum protected capsule and engines travel back to earth

furious said:

• I think there is some potential for shipping platinum group elements from near earth asteroids. This is not because they are “running out” per se but because they fetch a high price per kg and are in high abundance on some asteroids.

Wouldn’t going out and bringing back tonnes of the stuff reduce the price and make the economics of it less favourable?

No. Known reserves would already been factored in to the market price.

• No. Known reserves would already been factored in to the market price.

How do they include the reserves on asteroids in that factoring if they don’t know before spending the money to send out their exploration and/or mining equipment?

Witty Rejoinder said:

No. Known reserves would already been factored in to the market price.

ie. What affects market prices is the discovery of new reserves either on Earth or on asteroids. Actually mining and bringing back the minerals won’t affect anything.

> so my question is….are we “running out” of any particular resource?

I have a copy of the book “the limits to growth” from 1974, which claimed that we were going to run out of resources very quickly, eg. we should have run out of gold ages ago. About ten years ago I went through that book again with the then known reserves, and the only thing in that book that we were in danger of running out of within 100 years was oil. Oil is also the only mineral resource that we currently need to go offshore to mine. Oil is actually a bit difficult to recycle.

Helium is at risk because it’s a byproduct of natural gas.

you would want to refine them as much as possible in space. to get them onto the earth’s surface you have to slow them enough so as not to burn them up, and prevent them making a big hole. the more mass the more difficult and costly it would be to land them.

• ie. What affects market prices is the discovery of new reserves either on Earth or on asteroids. Actually mining and bringing back the minerals won’t affect anything.

Price is affected by supply not potential supply…

we would be mining asteroids when it would be economically viable. that’s really all that is important.

you could bring back, say, 10 000 tonnes of the stuff. stockpile it and have a long term return on investment.

furious said:

• ie. What affects market prices is the discovery of new reserves either on Earth or on asteroids. Actually mining and bringing back the minerals won’t affect anything.

Price is affected by supply not potential supply…

No. Prices over time are dependent on known reserves through the futures market.

What about mining resources because we need them for expansion regardless of market prices, lets say they are in huge abundance but are also in high demand. Do we continue the current method of stiffling / slowing down extraction for profit maximisation or continue at highest possible extraction with profit secondary as they benefit humankind

• No. Prices over time are dependent on known reserves through the futures market.

The government dumps gold onto the market, price goes down – even though known reserves didn’t change. Oil producers withhold production, price goes up – even though known reserves didn’t change. Someone dumps several tonnes of platinum onto the market from an asteroid mine, price will go down. It is just simple supply and demand economics…

• continue at highest possible extraction with profit secondary as they benefit humankind

I can’t see that in the foreseeable future…

furious said:

• continue at highest possible extraction with profit secondary as they benefit humankind

I can’t see that in the foreseeable future…

Me either

furious said:

• No. Prices over time are dependent on known reserves through the futures market.

The government dumps gold onto the market, price goes down – even though known reserves didn’t change. Oil producers withhold production, price goes up – even though known reserves didn’t change. Someone dumps several tonnes of platinum onto the market from an asteroid mine, price will go down. It is just simple supply and demand economics…

These are short term price fluctuations due to new information coming to the market. New potential supplies act in the same way.

eg. The futures market has the 10 year price of oil at $100 per barrel.. A new reserve is found that can be bought to the market within 10 years at a price of $80 per barrel. This new information will have an immediate effect on the market price today, not only when the actual reserves are brought to market.

I wonder how much of a rare resource (Earthly context) you’d need to dump on the market to crash the price, eg, you find the planet of Voga and make gold far less rare

Cymek said:

I wonder how much of a rare resource (Earthly context) you’d need to dump on the market to crash the price, eg, you find the planet of Voga and make gold far less rare

IIRC the Russians did it with silver a while ago. Some yank was trying to buy lots and lots of silver for some reason, presumably to control the market, but the Russians dumped shedloads on the market and crashed the price.

Cymek said:

What about mining resources because we need them for expansion regardless of market prices, lets say they are in huge abundance but are also in high demand. Do we continue the current method of stiffling / slowing down extraction for profit maximisation or continue at highest possible extraction with profit secondary as they benefit humankind

The advent of space mining won’t change anything with regard to this. Mining will continue to operate under market conditions.

pommiejohn said:

Cymek said:

I wonder how much of a rare resource (Earthly context) you’d need to dump on the market to crash the price, eg, you find the planet of Voga and make gold far less rare

IIRC the Russians did it with silver a while ago. Some yank was trying to buy lots and lots of silver for some reason, presumably to control the market, but the Russians dumped shedloads on the market and crashed the price.

surely that would have made it even easier for the American to buy the silver.

wookiemeister said:

you are using humans rather than robots because it’s cheaper and more effective

No.

“Wouldn’t going out and bringing back tonnes of the stuff reduce the price and make the economics of it less favourable?”

You could make a similar comment regarding the commencement of an earthbound mine.

“When they mean mining asteroids is it just breaking off chunks and shipping them back to Earth / Earth orbit for processing or do they actual mean processing them into usuable ores and possibly turning them into actual materials, if so it would make more sense to use asteroid mining to directly build spacecraft hulls.”

They usually mean refining it. Sending ore back would greatly add to the propulsion costs.

furious said:

• No. Prices over time are dependent on known reserves through the futures market.

The government dumps gold onto the market, price goes down – even though known reserves didn’t change. Oil producers withhold production, price goes up – even though known reserves didn’t change. Someone dumps several tonnes of platinum onto the market from an asteroid mine, price will go down. It is just simple supply and demand economics…

I was listening to parliament as I wheeled off the north bound expressway and pulled up at the Wynnum Rd lights.
There were cars and trucks and B-Doubles and utes, some of them were brand new with 20 years life in them.
Above were two long haul four engine planes with wheels down lazily lining up runway 5 at Brisbane Airport while further up an interstate flight was heading south.
I could barely hear Adam Bandt talking about the carbon free world just round the corner above the noise.

20 years?

ITFDD they should not be on the road that long

There’d be a lot of 1995 vehicles on the road right now, well in Qld anyway.
There’s some difference between Qld and NSW re roadworthiness but I cant remember.

Peak Warming Man said:

There’d be a lot of 1995 vehicles on the road right now, well in Qld anyway.
There’s some difference between Qld and NSW re roadworthiness but I cant remember.

Blinkers.

OCDC said:

Peak Warming Man said:

There’d be a lot of 1995 vehicles on the road right now, well in Qld anyway.
There’s some difference between Qld and NSW re roadworthiness but I cant remember.

Blinkers.

Blinkers are indicative.

so are tafficators. i miss thumping the B pillar.

ChrispenEvan said:

so are tafficators. i miss thumping the B pillar.

Is that some Welsh thing?

english. trafficators are those little arm indicators that used to flip up from the centre door pillar. that pillar is the b pillar. the one by the windscreen is the a pillar and the rear one the c pillar. you sometimes had to thump the pillar from the inside to get them to work.

ChrispenEvan said:

english. trafficators are those little arm indicators that used to flip up from the centre door pillar. that pillar is the b pillar. the one by the windscreen is the a pillar and the rear one the c pillar. you sometimes had to thump the pillar from the inside to get them to work.

Yes, but you said tafficators

i was responding to this from PWM

Blinkers are indicative.

And I was making an ethnic joke

Either way it is going to be expensive, if they can only return a ton at a time then that ton has to pay the costs of returning it and more. If they go for economies of scale and return an asteroids worth they are going to retain a monopoly or cartel behaviour and release it slowly over time for the same reason, otherwise they will depress the market.

ahhhh i see now.

;-)

AwesomeO said:

Either way it is going to be expensive, if they can only return a ton at a time then that ton has to pay the costs of returning it and more. If they go for economies of scale and return an asteroids worth they are going to retain a monopoly or cartel behaviour and release it slowly over time for the same reason, otherwise they will depress the market.

Not sure what you mean. The plan would be to set up an operation that would send it back in medium sized loads over a long period.

dv said:

AwesomeO said:

Either way it is going to be expensive, if they can only return a ton at a time then that ton has to pay the costs of returning it and more. If they go for economies of scale and return an asteroids worth they are going to retain a monopoly or cartel behaviour and release it slowly over time for the same reason, otherwise they will depress the market.

Not sure what you mean. The plan would be to set up an operation that would send it back in medium sized loads over a long period.

Or a one off that returns a lot which they trickle onto the market. Multiple flights would over time cost more. There are any amount of variations do I can’t see how you can decide on “the plan would”…

the difficult part is getting that mass down onto the earth’s surface. you don’t want a couple of thousand tonnes re-entering the atmosphere without some control as to at what speed. smaller loads would be easier.

It all depends on whether governments choose to regulate space mining or not. At one extreme you could have private companies controlling huge supplies and on the other individual countries might see fit to competitively tender out mining to ensure a steady supply of the minerals in question.

ChrispenEvan said:

the difficult part is getting that mass down onto the earth’s surface. you don’t want a couple of thousand tonnes re-entering the atmosphere without some control as to at what speed. smaller loads would be easier.

I imagine they would go for high value loads where even a relatively small amount would depress the markets if released at once.

yes, platinum etc, has been discussed. even so you still need enough to make a profit and you need it to be plentiful enough that setting up a mine on an asteroid will pay.

ChrispenEvan said:

yes, platinum etc, has been discussed. even so you still need enough to make a profit and you need it to be plentiful enough that setting up a mine on an asteroid will pay.

you can bet that will happen in the future, on what time scale I have no idea, but maybe hundreds or thousands of years for some ones that are beginning to run out

All available resources would have an estimated scale of how much there is on Earth

AwesomeO said:

dv said:

AwesomeO said:

Either way it is going to be expensive, if they can only return a ton at a time then that ton has to pay the costs of returning it and more. If they go for economies of scale and return an asteroids worth they are going to retain a monopoly or cartel behaviour and release it slowly over time for the same reason, otherwise they will depress the market.

Not sure what you mean. The plan would be to set up an operation that would send it back in medium sized loads over a long period.

Or a one off that returns a lot which they trickle onto the market. Multiple flights would over time cost more. There are any amount of variations do I can’t see how you can decide on “the plan would”…

Very well. The plan I’ve laid out above only involves one set of set up missions, after which the shipments are sent back using rocketry built in situ from local materials. You don’t, under the plan I’ve laid out, continue to send missions for each shipment.

dv said:

ChrispenEvan said:

english. trafficators are those little arm indicators that used to flip up from the centre door pillar. that pillar is the b pillar. the one by the windscreen is the a pillar and the rear one the c pillar. you sometimes had to thump the pillar from the inside to get them to work.

Yes, but you said tafficators

snort

:)

that’s right MV, laugh at me. your worse than donald trump!!!

It is funny, before now, and I mean right now, I have never thought about the possibility of using a redirected asteroid as a weapon of war.

the moon is a harsh mistress

sorta.

dv said:

It is funny, before now, and I mean right now, I have never thought about the possibility of using a redirected asteroid as a weapon of war.

I have,

bump

one that including calculations breaks up conveniently into twenty or more pieces as it enters earths atmosphere

spreading themselves over the middle east in just the right configuration

it’s easier to send two men to an asteroid

they can deal with machinery breakdown and repair better than any existing robot because they are more versatile

if water could be harvested all the better

you’d need to be able to simulate gravity and have good shielding

the cheap polyethylene shielding would be left on the asteroid and platinum reformed into the shielding for the spacecraft

you could use Mercury driven ion engines

it’s virtually useless on earth , metal refineries create tonnes of the stuff

wookiemeister said:

it’s easier to send two men to an asteroid

they can deal with machinery breakdown and repair better than any existing robot because they are more versatile

if water could be harvested all the better

you’d need to be able to simulate gravity and have good shielding

the cheap polyethylene shielding would be left on the asteroid and platinum reformed into the shielding for the spacecraft

—-

pfft. You underestimate robotic evolution. By the time we need to mine an asteroid robots will be far more advanced.

No need to worry about a huge payload to simulate gravity, not so much need to worry about radiation.

tauto said:

wookiemeister said:

it’s easier to send two men to an asteroid

they can deal with machinery breakdown and repair better than any existing robot because they are more versatile

if water could be harvested all the better

you’d need to be able to simulate gravity and have good shielding

the cheap polyethylene shielding would be left on the asteroid and platinum reformed into the shielding for the spacecraft

—-

pfft. You underestimate robotic evolution. By the time we need to mine an asteroid robots will be far more advanced.

No need to worry about a huge payload to simulate gravity, not so much need to worry about radiation.

It is a huge overhead to send people.

Talking about mining asteroids (which are mostly rock by the way), one figure mentioned in a meeting a few days ago was that the cost to put something into space is never less than $10,000 per kg.

mollwollfumble said:

Talking about mining asteroids (which are mostly rock by the way), one figure mentioned in a meeting a few days ago was that the cost to put something into space is never less than $10,000 per kg.

They used to publish world mineral reserves. It can’t be found anywhere any more.

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Talking about mining asteroids (which are mostly rock by the way), one figure mentioned in a meeting a few days ago was that the cost to put something into space is never less than $10,000 per kg.

They used to publish world mineral reserves. It can’t be found anywhere any more.

See my post ID at 805602 for a discussion of the economics.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

mollwollfumble said:

Talking about mining asteroids (which are mostly rock by the way), one figure mentioned in a meeting a few days ago was that the cost to put something into space is never less than $10,000 per kg.

They used to publish world mineral reserves. It can’t be found anywhere any more.

See my post ID at 805602 for a discussion of the economics.

This one
dv said:

Just to give some BOTE OOMEs for the platinum business…

If you can ship platinum to the earth’s surface for under $30 million per tonne then you are in business.

Using Chinese or Indian launchers, you can get hardware to LEO for $5 million per tonne. If you are patient and use ion rocketry, you can get the hardware from earth surface to an LEO surface for maybe $20 million dollars per tonne.

You would need to select a NEA with both PGEs and some kind of ice, preferably water ice, which do exist.

So on surface you would need the power equipment (presumably solar or nuclear), mining equipment, refining equipment, and some means of making small rockets so that you can send the platinum back to earth with enough shielding to prevent it from vaporising in the atmosphere … you can let it melt but you don’t want it to vaporise. I say make the rockets because you sure as shit don’t want to be taking those rockets with you, you want to make it from local materials and send a continual supply back.

So the question becomes; can we design X tonnes of hardware for this purpose to send to a NEA that can over time send at least X times 1.5 tonnes of platinum back to earth?

To my mind it is a big engineering problem but the numbers are basically promising.

> If you can ship platinum to the earth’s surface for under $30 million per tonne then you are in business.
Have you had a look at the concentration in meteorites? Let’s see:
“siderites containing about 16% of nickel yielded about 119 parts per million of platinum”. That’s high. It’s similar to the concentration of platinum in high grade ores mined on Earth. On Earth, platinum is also found in association with nickel.

Look out for other rare metals in asteroids as well, it’d be interesting to see how much palladium, bismuth, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium and osmium is there. There should be some unusual isotopes kicking around, too.

well in the end it was the Spanish that started mining the asteroid belt and making squillions

the British then intercepted these Spanish vessels and plundered them , sending their hulks crashing into the dark depths of the outer solar system

space warfare as we know it started with the asteroid wars with nationalised space companies laying claim to various asteroids

wookiemeister said:

space warfare as we know it started with the asteroid wars with nationalised space companies laying claim to various asteroids

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

AwesomeO said:

wookiemeister said:

space warfare as we know it started with the asteroid wars with nationalised space companies laying claim to various asteroids

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

first you need to see the object and try to plot a course with a dumb missile ( most likely impossible)

if you had a smart missile it could be too far away or gone by the time you could launch and hope to see it

if there’s something valuable inboard it will be lost

lasers maybe but shielding would protect you

I would say they would try to creep up on the mining operation itself

mining might be disguised as such to prevent attacks

decoy asteroids to act as honey pots

ships might have cloaking devices

drones could be sent in to test and examine asteroid fields for ambush weaponary

a skirmish would be fought using robots not humans

wookiemeister said:

AwesomeO said:

wookiemeister said:

space warfare as we know it started with the asteroid wars with nationalised space companies laying claim to various asteroids

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

first you need to see the object and try to plot a course with a dumb missile ( most likely impossible)

if you had a smart missile it could be too far away or gone by the time you could launch and hope to see it

if there’s something valuable inboard it will be lost

lasers maybe but shielding would protect you

I would say they would try to creep up on the mining operation itself

mining might be disguised as such to prevent attacks

decoy asteroids to act as honey pots

Why not just shoot at it?

AwesomeO said:

wookiemeister said:

space warfare as we know it started with the asteroid wars with nationalised space companies laying claim to various asteroids

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

how would the recoil affect the firing object?

pirates robbing the platinum freighters would quickly be able to buy more advanced equipment and bribe people to find out the where and whens of the freighter.

young men with no career advance or decent wages would most likely join the Pirates

if they found metal of some worth on Venus you’d see a colony rapidly being built in the clouds

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

wookiemeister said:

space warfare as we know it started with the asteroid wars with nationalised space companies laying claim to various asteroids

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

how would the recoil affect the firing object?

You could easily have recoilless,or just physics, a space vehicles mass will absorb and damp the recoil and just need a minor course correction. The vehicle isn’t going to go flying off in the opposite direction.

recoil would depend on the weapon, some have none, the mass of the projectile compared to the mass of the weapon platform.

you would be better off with high powered lasers. invisible.

AwesomeO said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

how would the recoil affect the firing object?

You could easily have recoilless,or just physics, a space vehicles mass will absorb and damp the recoil and just need a minor course correction. The vehicle isn’t going to go flying off in the opposite direction.

i was thinking more that the weapon would have to be centred on the craft otherwise it would need course correction, using up precious time to get a second shot off

AwesomeO said:

wookiemeister said:

AwesomeO said:

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

first you need to see the object and try to plot a course with a dumb missile ( most likely impossible)

if you had a smart missile it could be too far away or gone by the time you could launch and hope to see it

if there’s something valuable inboard it will be lost

lasers maybe but shielding would protect you

I would say they would try to creep up on the mining operation itself

mining might be disguised as such to prevent attacks

decoy asteroids to act as honey pots

Why not just shoot at it?

harder than might be possible

has pockets , gravitational fields would throw a projectile off course

if it’s moving and evading at high speed it would be hard

an ambush would be easier but hard if you have kamikaze drones sniffing around before hand

ChrispenEvan said:

recoil would depend on the weapon, some have none, the mass of the projectile compared to the mass of the weapon platform.

Can we at least throw the speed of the projectile in there :)

ChrispenEvan said:

you would be better off with high powered lasers. invisible.

but sharks would die in space…

not starsharks.

ChrispenEvan said:

you would be better off with high powered lasers. invisible.

I am thinking of cost. If you are talking about space wars as wookie was doing, and in competition for mining, if you assume there will be conflict, instead of frigging about with expensive lasers, a bullet will suffice, the ballistics is easily calculated. And the target is fragile with no wasted space, you will always hit something important.

But because the targets are so fragile and the means to destroy or disable them so cheap and easy I expect an gentlemens agreement will arise, otherwise it is just zero sum.

space freighters might be a coal colour to minimise visual identification

you’d need radar absorbing material

quantum entanglement Comms as used in submarines of the Royal Navy would be just as essential in space

sibeen said:

ChrispenEvan said:

recoil would depend on the weapon, some have none, the mass of the projectile compared to the mass of the weapon platform.

Can we at least throw the speed of the projectile in there :)

if we are talking high velocity rifles, something like a 22 long round maxes out at about 370m/sec

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

how would the recoil affect the firing object?

You could easily have recoilless,or just physics, a space vehicles mass will absorb and damp the recoil and just need a minor course correction. The vehicle isn’t going to go flying off in the opposite direction.

i was thinking more that the weapon would have to be centred on the craft otherwise it would need course correction, using up precious time to get a second shot off

Eh? All you need is a couple of servos to aim? Why have it centred at all.

polyethylene spaceships would be naturally bullet proof

AwesomeO said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

You could easily have recoilless,or just physics, a space vehicles mass will absorb and damp the recoil and just need a minor course correction. The vehicle isn’t going to go flying off in the opposite direction.

i was thinking more that the weapon would have to be centred on the craft otherwise it would need course correction, using up precious time to get a second shot off

Eh? All you need is a couple of servos to aim? Why have it centred at all.

if it is off centre, any recoil would rotate it away from the target

when under attack as the ship course corrects , the only clue you might get between radar lick ons would be the heat signature of correction jets

small tumblers simulating these jets would be tossed over board to confuse a hunter killer craft

I think you’re all wrong. Rather than get into wars over infinite space resources it would be simpler to just to move on and find another source of your own. Economics will depend on transport costs. Transport costs will be lower with one massive ship making one journey than smaller ships going back and forth.

the other thing is this

the muzzle flash would expose you to attack as well

I’d say most likely would be missiles tossed over board that activate away from the ship

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

wookiemeister said:

space warfare as we know it started with the asteroid wars with nationalised space companies laying claim to various asteroids

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

how would the recoil affect the firing object?

Uses it’s own propulsion like a cruise missile, you just push it out on an arm and release and fire.
It acquires a star for guidance, goes to a predetermined vector coordinate in a predefined quadrant then searches a specific subspace frequency for final navigational and targeting information.
If no instructions are received it switches off propulsion system and goes into hibernation mode, for centuries if need be.
A small sliver of thorium keeps vital functions and passive listening ticking over while in dark mode.
Great and terrible things.

soooo, we are going to have space wars without the armour? but weapons? i’m sure armour would come into it and if these craft are built off earth then getting out of a gravity well wont be a consideration.

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

i was thinking more that the weapon would have to be centred on the craft otherwise it would need course correction, using up precious time to get a second shot off

Eh? All you need is a couple of servos to aim? Why have it centred at all.

if it is off centre, any recoil would rotate it away from the target

If not recoilless which is very easy to do, it would shift the vehicle slightly, very slightly which is why the servo, to re aim the weapon.

A bullet coming out one end won’t send the vehicle going off in an opposite direction with an equal ummmm I want to say force but pedants patrol these waters.

Peak Warming Man said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

Would be an interesting proposition war in space. The weaponry would be so cheap, all you need is a remote controlled high velocity rifle and the target so expensive and fragile I would think it would be in every ones best interest not to go there. Fight the battle elsewhere.

how would the recoil affect the firing object?

Uses it’s own propulsion like a cruise missile, you just push it out on an arm and release and fire.
It acquires a star for guidance, goes to a predetermined vector coordinate in a predefined quadrant then searches a specific subspace frequency for final navigational and targeting information.
If no instructions are received it switches off propulsion system and goes into hibernation mode, for centuries if need be.
A small sliver of thorium keeps vital functions and passive listening ticking over while in dark mode.
Great and terrible things.

thorium?… no dilithium crystals?…

party_pants said:

I think you’re all wrong. Rather than get into wars over infinite space resources it would be simpler to just to move on and find another source of your own. Economics will depend on transport costs. Transport costs will be lower with one massive ship making one journey than smaller ships going back and forth.

if that were true then no wars would happen – wars are always about resources , dressed up as moral imperatives , religion, ideology

if we are fighting over resources here we will be fighting over them in space

ChrispenEvan said:

soooo, we are going to have space wars without the armour? but weapons? i’m sure armour would come into it and if these craft are built off earth then getting out of a gravity well wont be a consideration.

that’s why you have plastic spaceships , light weight , bullet proof

it is force but F=MA, so the F is = but the M and A are different for projectile and platform. sibeen will correct me if i am wrong like the pedantic bastard he is.

shooting shells in space will require correctional jets from your space ship

the enemy will see these correctional jets and fire upon that position or assumed position

wookiemeister said:

party_pants said:

I think you’re all wrong. Rather than get into wars over infinite space resources it would be simpler to just to move on and find another source of your own. Economics will depend on transport costs. Transport costs will be lower with one massive ship making one journey than smaller ships going back and forth.

if that were true then no wars would happen – wars are always about resources , dressed up as moral imperatives , religion, ideology

if we are fighting over resources here we will be fighting over them in space

pfft…
wars are always about religion , dressed up as moral imperatives ,resources , ideology

didn’t anyone get a nostalgic tear when i mentioned starshark?

wookiemeister said:

party_pants said:

I think you’re all wrong. Rather than get into wars over infinite space resources it would be simpler to just to move on and find another source of your own. Economics will depend on transport costs. Transport costs will be lower with one massive ship making one journey than smaller ships going back and forth.

if that were true then no wars would happen – wars are always about resources , dressed up as moral imperatives , religion, ideology

if we are fighting over resources here we will be fighting over them in space

The fundamental premise is that resources are limited, it is the foundation of economics and by extensions politics and military strategy. Given convenient and practical space travel to other star systems, the scarcity factor drops away.

space wars will most likely be fought very much like submarine warfare

targets hard to see/ acquire

I can see wookie world is starting up, I should clarify I was talking near future. If you want to go far into the future where ships are made from materials they mine themselves then I see engines strapped to entire asteroids with a control centre burrowed inside.

That may happen in the far far future, in the meantime, as per my original post, the cost of offence compared to defence is so out of kilter it will be like a MAD doctrine.

if asteroid mining is possible then it would mean human travel to other parts of the solar system is possible

new people , new markets , licences to mine given out , or new separate States declared that pay no taxes to Terran masters

AwesomeO said:

I can see wookie world is starting up, I should clarify I was talking near future. If you want to go far into the future where ships are made from materials they mine themselves then I see engines strapped to entire asteroids with a control centre burrowed inside.

That may happen in the far far future, in the meantime, as per my original post, the cost of offence compared to defence is so out of kilter it will be like a MAD doctrine.

it’s harder to find the target in space , especially if it’s cloaked deliberately

moving entire asteroids will take too much energy unless you can vapourise the asteroid itself to act as reaction material

an asteroid would be easily seen in an asteroid mining war

unmanned vessels carrying millions of dollars of booty would be hijacked at some point by someone

wookiemeister said:

AwesomeO said:

I can see wookie world is starting up, I should clarify I was talking near future. If you want to go far into the future where ships are made from materials they mine themselves then I see engines strapped to entire asteroids with a control centre burrowed inside.

That may happen in the far far future, in the meantime, as per my original post, the cost of offence compared to defence is so out of kilter it will be like a MAD doctrine.

it’s harder to find the target in space , especially if it’s cloaked deliberately

moving entire asteroids will take too much energy unless you can vapourise the asteroid itself to act as reaction material

an asteroid would be easily seen in an asteroid mining war

Well if we are assuming a level of technology that makes warfare likely, I would see an asteroid as the equivalent of an aircraft carrier. Strap some engines to it and and you have a lot of material to absorb punishment.

stumpy_seahorse said:

Peak Warming Man said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

how would the recoil affect the firing object?

Uses it’s own propulsion like a cruise missile, you just push it out on an arm and release and fire.
It acquires a star for guidance, goes to a predetermined vector coordinate in a predefined quadrant then searches a specific subspace frequency for final navigational and targeting information.
If no instructions are received it switches off propulsion system and goes into hibernation mode, for centuries if need be.
A small sliver of thorium keeps vital functions and passive listening ticking over while in dark mode.
Great and terrible things.

thorium?… no dilithium crystals?…

Dilithium crystals are too expensive and almost unatainable now after a baby Android swallowed one at a mining colony on the Adani asteroid.
Through constant association the Adani androids developed a militant bug in their marx matrices maths dynamic link library and went on an indefinite work to rule.

AwesomeO said:

wookiemeister said:

AwesomeO said:

I can see wookie world is starting up, I should clarify I was talking near future. If you want to go far into the future where ships are made from materials they mine themselves then I see engines strapped to entire asteroids with a control centre burrowed inside.

That may happen in the far far future, in the meantime, as per my original post, the cost of offence compared to defence is so out of kilter it will be like a MAD doctrine.

it’s harder to find the target in space , especially if it’s cloaked deliberately

moving entire asteroids will take too much energy unless you can vapourise the asteroid itself to act as reaction material

an asteroid would be easily seen in an asteroid mining war

Well if we are assuming a level of technology that makes warfare likely, I would see an asteroid as the equivalent of an aircraft carrier. Strap some engines to it and and you have a lot of material to absorb punishment.

or just run it into your enemy, 911 style…

thing is with something with the mass of an asteroid you really can only go in one direction. it ain’t like the movies in space.

ChrispenEvan said:

thing is with something with the mass of an asteroid you really can only go in one direction. it ain’t like the movies in space.

True, but how far you gotta go? Like the Pacifc Campaign, the area is big but there are only a few important bits whose location will be well known.

you have no doubt read about how we get places in the solar system, gravity assists etc. that’s to save fuel. now an asteroid is thousands of tonnes so you need heaps of fuel to change its direction if you don’t want to take years to get anywhere. now the best option would be a mass driver. use a nuclear power plant to generate electricity and throw lumps of the asteroid in the opposite direction you want to go. it is still going to be a slow process getting anywhere and then matching orbit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

A mass driver or electromagnetic catapult is a proposed method of non-rocket spacelaunch which would use a linear motor to accelerate and catapult payloads up to high speeds. All existing and contemplated mass drivers use coils of wire energized by electricity to make electromagnets. Sequential firing of a row of electromagnets accelerates the payload along a path. After leaving the path, the payload continues to move due to momentum (at constant velocity, assuming lack of friction with the environment).

Although any device used to propel a ballistic payload is technically a mass driver, in this context a mass driver is essentially a coilgun that magnetically accelerates a package consisting of a magnetizable holder containing a payload. Once the payload has been accelerated, the two separate, and the holder is slowed and recycled for another payload.

Mass drivers can be used to propel spacecraft in three different ways: A large, ground-based mass driver could be used to launch spacecraft away from Earth, the Moon, or another body. A small mass driver could be on board a spacecraft, flinging pieces of material into space to propel itself. Another variation would have a massive facility on a moon or asteroid send projectiles to assist a distant craft.

Miniaturized mass drivers can also be used as weapons in a similar manner as classic firearms or cannon using chemical combustion. Hybrids between coilguns and railguns such as helical railguns are also possible

ChrispenEvan said:

you have no doubt read about how we get places in the solar system, gravity assists etc. that’s to save fuel. now an asteroid is thousands of tonnes so you need heaps of fuel to change its direction if you don’t want to take years to get anywhere. now the best option would be a mass driver. use a nuclear power plant to generate electricity and throw lumps of the asteroid in the opposite direction you want to go. it is still going to be a slow process getting anywhere and then matching orbit.

Or just mount weapons on the asteroid you want to defend.

Part of the problem in this little debate is we are all imagining different stages of development.

i haven’t been reading wookies so i don’t know if we have got into force fields yet. that’s a long way down the track. we really need BC to keep us grounded.

space terrorists could use asteroids to hit significant sites on earth

wookiemeister said:

space terrorists could use asteroids to hit significant sites on earth

Space freedom-fighters I think you’ll find.

wookiemeister said:

space terrorists could use asteroids to hit significant sites on earth

mollwollfumble said:

wookiemeister said:

space terrorists could use asteroids to hit significant sites on earth

Good one.

I didn’t guess the punch line.