Solar System Asteroid belt mining

[Phenix]

Hello,

I am so excited and thinking that lots people are looking forward to make business out of Space resources AND only on Asteroids.

My vision about a viable business starter is based having an International Mining Company that would have a funds from all Earth's Nations (no discrimination).

Build on Earth's orbit a mobile factory complex will be having the following modules :

- Mining modules
- Minerals sperator modules
- Gaz separator modules
- Rafinery modules
- Foundry modules
- Metal factory modules
- Ceramics factory modules
- Electronics factory modules
- Machinery factory modules
- Robotic factory modules
- Tug factory module
- Telecommunications factory modules
- Prefab construction kits factory modules
- Space navigation computers factory modules
- Mass drive engine factory modules
- Repair facility modules
- Energy cells and solar panels modules
- Ice warehouse modules
- Raw minerals warehouse modules
- Raw metal warehouse modules
- Rocks warehouse modules
- Prefab metal warehouse modules
- Prefab ceramics warehouse modules
- Solar sails modules
- Telecommunications modules
- Mass drive engine modules
- Tugs hangar module
- Shipyard module

The complex is fully automated. When operational, the complex will move toward the nearest asteroid and mine it, transform its resources and builds other automated machinery.

Step by step, the complex will arrive at the Asteroid belt with lots of modules and machinery. The resources collected and refined will serve the purpose of spacecraft constructions.

The primary mission of those cargo class spacecrafts are to transit refined resources and prefab parts manufactured by the mobile factory complex for the Earth's spaceport construction.

Business will start once the cargo class spacecrafts will come to Earth for the market refined resources issued from the mobile factory complex.

There is really no need to extract minerals from Luna !


Thanks

[Boxy]

What of Mark Pardo's business plan, where we go out, pluck one of the closer (and mineral-rich) asteroids, tow it to Earth orbit, and build it over here with human labor? Eros, for example, is theorized to have more gold, silver, platinum, aluminum, and many other precious minerals than can be extracted from the Earth's crust. Even one asteroid tugged into Earth orbit would revolutionize the minerals industry.

The problem with automation in particular is that it's subject to so much possibility of failure. As Prado has mentioned in his book/website, humans are much more flexible than robots and automated flight programs, and numerous (expensive) programs have failed because of programming errors and tiny component failures.

Basically, any business plan involved in harvesting asteroid materials will have to have KISS as its main principle -- Keep It Simple, Stupid.

[Phenix]

My choice would go on creating and building such complex by mindkind at the Earth's orbit at its early stage with already huge risk for human life. No life is worth the value of any construction.... I am not a Pharaon :D but I am so glad to see how pharaonic work can be realized by genious.

How many projects were ended because of human's death ?

You think that a KISS would embrass the whole project... Oh man, business main driver is based on ambition. Lets go for ambitious project and if it fails, learn, adapt, and lets do it better next time... that's where mankind excels.

Exploitation is far more dangerous than creating and building.

[Phenix]

I would like to hear what Mark Prado has to say on the topic.

[Mark Prado]

Well, since you asked ... :)

First of all, regarding the top of the first method, yes, this should be open to investment from all countries, not an American thing. These forums tend to have more Americans than anybody else and there is often a lot of talk about what America should do, etc., so I'd rather head that off at the pass, and it's good to have people like Phenix coming forward with this perspective to reinforce this.

Regarding the equipment to send out, we must focus on near Earth objects for the reasons covered on the website's section 3 on Transportation, and we must be practical about the feasible mix of automation, teleoperation, and possible human presence.

As for specifically which equipment to use, that is a vast topic to open up, and could be split into many threads, but we do need to start with a list. Then we can decide how much materials processing of each sort of material would we do on-site, and what we'd send back to the industry in Earth orbit. That's section 4 (Industry) as well as part of section 1 (Asteroids near Earth and their resources).

Remember, this won't be sustainable without selling things to a market, so we can also work on the list of products and services. Sections 5 and 6. Anything to add to the lists there would be interesting.

[Phenix]

Mark,

Thanks a lot for your comment, I thought that I was alone in the dark on that thread :).

I will contribute as much as I can.

Manuel