“According to the Chemical and Engineering News organization in 2018, less than one milligram of mined asteroid material has been successfully returned to Earth. However, when you consider that asteroids were discovered in 1801, the first crewed heavier-than-air flight was in 1903, and here in 2022 we are planning on going to the Moon and on to Mars, my faith in human ingenuity informed by science and engineering tells me we will be able to successfully mine asteroids in the next 25 years.” – Patrick Suermann, Dean, Executive Vice President, Provost, School of Architecture at Texas A&M University
“DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) was a NASA space mission (with additional support from the Italian Space Agency), aimed at testing a method of planetary defense, designed to assess how much a spacecraft impact deflects an asteroid by hitting the asteroid head-on. Launched on 24 November 2021 collided on 26 September 2022. It was considered a success.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Asteroid_Redirection_Test)
Obviously, mining the asteroids will take planning.
Obviously, it will take money.
Obviously, it will REQUIRE innovation and invention.
But we’ve done it before. Let me put it into perspective:
It’s been 1300 years since Vikings from Eurasia reached Vinland.
Central and South America had advanced civilizations from 3000 BC until the final collapse of the Aztecs in the 1520’s. (https://www.thoughtco.com/top-ancient-american-civilizations-169511)
There were several ascendant Native American civilizations between the Rockies and the East Coast, ranging from the Comanche to the Ojibwe and of, course, the Haudenosaunee (we know them by a rather dry name, the Iroquois, from whom the fledgling United States coopted parts of its Constitution).
So, from 3000 BC to 2000 AD; five thousand years, there were several extant, advanced civilizations on Earth. (There were dozens on the African continent, on the South American continent, and of course, China has had advanced sciences and culture since 1500 BC. There are, of course countless other ancient civilizations.
But, space travel, after its joyous infancy as fireworks invented in China, was an offshoot of Western Civilization ignited as it was by the work in Europe of Goddard and countless others during World War II.
It’s about time the Space Age’s childhood and early adolescence matures. Perhaps, rather than brief explorations of the Moon, Mars, surveys of other planets, and a bit of peeking around the neighborhood, it’s time to move out of Mom and Dad’s place and get down to the serious business of making the Solar System the Home of Humanity.
Launching spacecraft from the depths of Earth’s gravity well is incredibly expensive and a real waste of resources – plus it limits WHO can get into space. Thus far, NASA is the only organization that has landed Humans on the Moon. Fabulous programs in Russia and China ARE aiming to do that, but haven’t yet. The biggest advance in the US is that NASA has competition, primarily from SpaceX…Blue Origin CAN get people up there, but haven’t actually made it “into space” yet. SpaceX sends astronauts, cosmonauts, and guest astronauts from several countries – at the same time excluding Chinese taikonauts…[Editorial Insertion: What were the idiots thinking? “Let’s be rude to China because we’re so fabulous and they’re so stupid they’ll NEVER figure out how to get into space!!! Cause Western Science is SOOOOOOOOO much more advanced! We’ll rule in Space FOR-EVAHHHHHHH! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!”
We’re screwed and now at odds with a China that has absolutely NO REASON to cooperate with us on deepening our knowledge of living in space and exploring the Solar System. We WILL rue the day we decided to make space an extension of America and Europe. Even India has pulled out of the ISS with the intent of building its OWN space station…
The only way that will happen is if we start to mine the asteroids. To mine the asteroids, we need to start sharing technology and techniques.
And:
Instead of trying to shoot spacecraft from Florida or Baikonur or Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center – we need to land several robotic craft on a near-miss asteroid that will cross Earth’s orbit in a relatively short period. It can assemble a small, habitable station and ALL OF US can send Astro/cosmo/taiko-nauts there and initiate mining operations. Better yet, how about Elon Musk sponsoring a landing on such as asteroid with the makings of a BOTH a robotic and crewed station that can begin experiments on mining. If there’s wealth there, so much the better, but this would be primarily a Test Of Concept. Maybe even use organic garbage crashed there to 3D print bioplastic parts for a habitat? Who would live there? By preference, maybe it could go like this:
“An American, a Russian, a Huaren, and a Bharata landed on an asteroid…”
Resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_asteroid_close_approaches_to_Earth, https://www.pharostribune.com/news/local_news/article_7fcd3ea5-3c14-533f-a8d5-9bf629922f34.html, https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/04/29/like-asteroid-mining-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/, https://www.nps.gov/wrbr/learn/historyculture/theroadtothefirstflight.htm, https://hackaday.com/2019/03/27/extraterrestrial-excavation-digging-holes-on-other-worlds/, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/every-small-worlds-mission , https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/dangerous-asteroids-comets-that-threaten-earth-can-be-exploited-71660051735227.html, https://spacenews.com/asteroid-mining-startup-astroforge-to-launch-first-missions-this-year-2/ ; https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/astroforge-aims-to-succeed-where-other-asteroid-mining-companies-have-failed/; DART Mission: https://europeanastrofest.com/planetary-science-the-dart-mission/
Image: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A2D5/production/_114558614_hls-eva-apr2020.jpg
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