Unofficial SSP10 team project Asteroid mining intro video

[MountAnalogue]

sorry but this isnt going to happen even by 2050. i wish it would but no space agency has the money to fund this

[MrC0MPUT3R]

One problem, asteroids aren't big enough to land on.

[EdwardHowellDesign]

@MrC0MPUT3R is this a problem or an advantage?

[MrC0MPUT3R]

@EdwardHowellDesign It's a problem to me because it means the workers will have no real gravity to prevent bone loss and other health problems.

[Techlur]

@MrC0MPUT3R Who says workers will do the job. We can simply launch probes to crash land into asteroids, spewing debree up into the air. We then collect the rocks, and mine them here :)

[MysterySessions]

@Techlur The answer is simple: robots. Semi-autonomous robotic miners and refineries which then launch materials back to Earth.

[MountAnalogue]

@MrC0MPUT3R

umm... asteroids can be the size of small planets... some are the size of germany

[evensgrey]

There is a serious legal problem for asteroid mining at this time: A standing treaty which prohibits national control or commercial exploitation of anything originating beyond Earth's atmosphere. In practice, once you got yourself set up with an asteroid mining operation, you're effectively immune to any nonsense any Earth government tries on you (and you'll win any war they start) but getting started is tricky.

[SuperDave619]

@evensgrey Not really tricky at all. If you're a corporation, then you have to register in a country. If you've invested a lot of money into the project of asteroids mining then Earth will say that you have the right because you spent the money, not the Earthlings. Essentially, this means you'll have to over look every aspect of collecting and refining and transportation to Earth. An asteroid contains trillions of dollars worth of metals.