Is anyone concerned about moon mining?

N

Niveka

New Member
Once private companies start mining the moon the price of silver & gold is likely to drop dramatically. Is anyone else worried about this?
 
So much for the saying "silver price is going to the moon", if the moon is going to push the price back down.
 
Apparently some large object is going to crash into the earth so there is no need to worry about it :)
 
Credit Crunch said:
Cost to mine gold on planet earth, $US 1,200 / oz

Cost to mine gold on the moon and send it back to earth..... $US god-only-knows / oz.
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We'll just drag the moon closer to Earth in order to shorten the distance, which will cut transportation costs dramatically.. :)
 
Lenny85 said:
Gatito Bandito said:
We'll just drag the moon closer to Earth in order to shorten the distance, which will cut transportation costs dramatically.. :)
Click to expand...


'Today, it costs $10,000 to put a pound of payload in Earth orbit'
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/astp.html_prt.htm
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Obviously we'll first use the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator to break it up into smaller bits first.. :rolleyes:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z40AsPaktzw

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z40AsPaktzw[/youtube]
 
Asteroid mining is the way to go.

Send out an autonomous tug, deploy a lightsail and eventually you should be able to get it within a reasonable distance of Earth for economical resource extraction.

Asteroid Resources

A typical Earth-approaching asteroid comes close to Earth, but also travels out to the inner regions of the asteroid belt. Sailing ships offer the most economical method of recovering resources from asteroids or short-period comets. If a 2-km ship was assigned to bring a resource load from such an asteroid to Earth, the load mass can trade off against trip time.

As an example case, with a 2-km ship, a return load of 160 tons takes about five years, based on numerical simulation. Allowing for maintenance and the outbound trip, a ship could return with 160 tons about every seven years. Three ships could be linked to carry 500-ton loads in the same time. Rendezvous trajectories to Apollo, Amor, and Aten class asteroids can often be done in as little as three months.

Mined material could be brought to Earth orbit for use as structural material, manufacturing stock, and inert shielding of orbital facilities for long-term habitation. Cost of transportation for resources to Earth orbit when operating with the large loads is estimated to be less than $400/kg, which is two orders of magnitude less than the cost of delivery by an expendable launch vehicle.

Asteroid/Comet Deflection

A sailing ship can deflect an asteroid or comet by pulling it, using a bridle which attaches to physical poles embedded at the rotational poles of the body. Deflecting a small body is a challenge dependent upon navigational capability. Before towing begins, the body should have a navigational package installed which may include transponders, celestial navigation, and multi-spacecraft positioning, similar to GPS but on a solar-system scale. As an example, a 0.1 m/s velocity uncertainty leads to a positional uncertainty of roughly 16 Mm (2.5 Earth radii) 5 years in the future. Bad navigation at the start of towing could increase the risk of collision instead of reducing it.

As a simpler alternative, the sail(s) could pull on a single attach structure imbedded at a pole. This could induce some precession in the towed body, but probably not enough to interfere with the deflection operation. Two sails with independent tow lines could be used, one anchored at each pole, which would reduce or eliminate the precession.

The towing forces are sufficiently low that comets and 'rubble pile' asteroids could be deflected if sufficiently long rods are driven into the bodies to anchor the tow lines.

A 2-km sailing ship can deflect a 10-m asteroid by 20 Mm (3 Earth radii) with an action time of 1 month. A 100-m asteroid requires four 2-km ships, or one 4-km ship, pulling for 12 months to achieve the same deflection. Deflecting a 1000-m asteroid (2 billion tons) by 20 Mm in 5 years requires a team of about 43 4-km ships, or 173 2-km ships.

http://sail.quarkweb.com/voyages.htm#resources
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Credit Crunch said:
Cost to mine gold on planet earth, $US 1,200 / oz

Cost to mine gold on the moon and send it back to earth..... $US god-only-knows / oz.
Click to expand...
This is it. It would be ridiculously expensive even though it is technically feasible.

The Apollo program was costing more than 4% of the entire U.S. federal budget by the mid 60s, and that was just to get 12 people onto the Moon and a few others into Lunar orbit. These days you might be able to do it with robotics, but it's still going to be incredibly expensive.
 
Credit Crunch said:
Cost to mine gold on planet earth, $US 1,200 / oz

Cost to mine gold on the moon and send it back to earth..... $US god-only-knows / oz.
Click to expand...



It be worse then skyrocket prices!

Don't know about the cost of returning something from the moon but we know how much it costs to get something just into Earth's orbit -


"Today, it costs $10,000 to put a pound of payload in Earth orbit. NASA's goal is to reduce the cost of getting to space to hundreds of dollars per pound within 25 years and tens of dollars per pound within 40 years."

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/astp.html_prt.htm


That is just getting something in one way trip into Earth's orbit.

I take it that means in my lifetime I will NOT have to worry about Moon mining devaluing my stack.
 
rara200284 said:
So being aware of this moon mining, how can we make money from it? Who do I need to invest in???
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No need to be in a rush you will have around a 100 years to do your research before the first yard of moon dirt is dozed up,and if the US epa gets involved make that 200 years or never.
 
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