Asteroid Mining Buzzkill

Some stories about asteroid mining talk about millions, billions, or trillions in dollars, there for the taking.
This is my response.

[@JoinTheNoob]

The best video on this topic I've seen so far. It's what I allways guessed, but with numbers put behind it. Thanks alot!

[@thomaseubank1503]

Wrap a kevlar net around the asteroid, spin it until it expands, and you'll have yourself an O'Neill Cylinder.

[@JayVal90]

Astroid mining suffers from 2 fundamental problems. 1) we have more materials on Earth than in all of the astroid belt. 2) It’s almost certainly always going to be cheaper to dig deeper mines.

[@mostafamohammedahmed3404]

I mean they are some pretty rare stuff on asteroids that might be worthy It

[@mcamp9445]

@@mostafamohammedahmed3404like what?

[@aldenconsolver3428]

Another way of getting a small amount of platinum down to earth - break the object up into small pieces say a composite sphere with a average density of 8000 kg (using a disposable outer layer) entering a small angle to eat up as much energy as possible say 15 degrees aimed to impact into a a large body of relatively shallow water using a calculation from imperial college we may be able to land a metric ton producing a relatively small blast into the shallow water allowing the relatively easy recovery of the chunk. If this water is big enough that we can keep everything 5 km away we should be able to make money on the deal (obviously we will not be able to do this in the territorial of the US or the EU even if we can find the water body, the EPA would just take a sh*t . We could also just stack starship full of carbon fiber phenolic heat shields and do the same trick but I don't have those numbers handy. ) We could look at this also as being able to ship 3000 kg apollo heat shields in starship along with say 50 tons of deorbit fuel that would let us ship better than 30 heat shields and a metric ton of platinum in each we could actually really make money. Do you have a phone number for the plats? and for elon? And for a small time dictator who doesn't care about risks or pollution? Oh yeah, we also need to head hunt the bean counters from DeBeers. It is really handy that platinum doesn't melt until 1700C

[@EagerSpace]

You need very good trajectory control to make that happen. Get it wrong and you're dropping a kinetic energy weapon over land someplace.

[@evil0sheep]

Great video, but you're spending all your time dismantling the idea of mining asteroids to return the asteroids to earth, which is a concept I see a lot in pop media but not one that I've seen a lot of serious futurists discuss. The promise of deep space ISRU is not that you could compete with the price of precious metals on Earth (since as you explored this is a losing game), but rather can you supply raw materials in deep space for cheaper than it costs to lift them into orbit and get them to the markets where they can be used? Like yes mining platinum to send to earth is dumb but there are much more interesting questions you can ask. For example, if we want an extended presence on the Moon we will need tons of nitrogen and carbon to make earthlike atmospheres and to grow plants. There is no nitrogen and carbon on the moon to speak of, so how about a comparison on getting nitrogen and carbon to the lunar surface from Earth vs Mars vs Asteroids? Or if world governments get together to build a mega telescope at the Earth-Sun L2, what is the best source of the aluminum and/or iron you need to do that? Or what about the most economical source of silicon to make huge solar arrays in cislunar space? Whats the best source or thorium for nuclear reactors in LEO? Or what if we want to build an O'Neill cylinder on an Earth-Moon or Earth-Mars cycler to support space tourism and interplanetary transit, what is the best source of the raw materials you need to do that based on the cost of getting those raw materials onto the cycler orbit from wherever they come from? I think these are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself about asteroid mining (or about lunar or martian mining) if you want to try to understand what a deep space economy would actually look like. Picking on the idea of returning space materials to earth is kindof attacking a strawman IMO.

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks for the reply... If we assume that we are going back to LEO, we just need to consider the cost to get to the asteroids and back. The main belt asteroids generally require a delta v of about 6000 m/s to get there (and the same to get back), though there are a few that are

[@evil0sheep]

@@EagerSpace Thanks for the detailed reply! First off thats super interesting about Phobos and Deimos, I've never actually looked at the Martian moons through this lens. I would still argue that looking at LEO as the location of the raw materials market when trying to buzzkill asteroid mining is still kindof shooting fish in a barrel. LEO is, after all, the orbit that is the absolute easiest to get to from earth, and I think in general you would not want to build a lot of particularly large heavy structures there (save for maybe a space hotel that is easily accessible for space tourism or something). I think if you want to think seriously about the economics of getting materials in space you have to start with an analysis of what are the kinds of things humans are practically going to want to build in deep space, what consumables they will need, and what the orbital trajectories for those orbits will actually be. Where are the humans going to be and what are the things they need there? To explore a simple example of a semi-plausible interplanetary economy, lets imagine this situation: Somebody wants to build a hydrolox propellent depot at the EML-4 to support deep space exploration. EML-4 is a great place for spacecraft to top up the tank with hydrolox before journeying deep into space because there are stable orbits for the propellent depot and the delta-v to C3=0 is only 430 m/s. Given that, the logical place to make the hydrolox is on the moon, because theres water on the moon and the delta-v from the moon surface to EML-4 is only 2580 m/s compared to something like 13-14 km/s from the surface of earth (which for a good hydrolox engine like the RS-25 is a difference between your rocket being 44% fuel and 95% fuel respectively), so for a hydrolox market at EML-4 the economic case for making hydrolox on the moon is quite good, even though its quite a bit harder than making it on earth. So now lets presume that you want people on the moon to manage your mining operation and probably also at EML-4 to manage your propellent depot. Those people need food which means farms, and farms need lots of carbon and nitrogen to grow plants, and maybe you even want to also sell methane or hydrazine at your EML-4 propellent depot and you need nitrogen and carbon for that. You cant get those elements from the moon, but you can get them to EML-4 from the surface of Mars for a delta of ~7500 m/s vs the surface of earth for say 13500 m/s (which again, thanks to the exponential nature of the rocket equation is a propellent mass fraction of 80% vs 95% which is huge) So if we accept this suggestion that we could plausibly want human colonies on both the moon and mars in order to supply raw materials to EML-4 to fuel deep space missions and supply space farms then I would argue that EML-4 (or honestly EML-1 or EML-2 or even the lunar gateway's NRHO) is the logical place for heavy industry in space. If you wanted to build something big to send into deep space, that would probably be the place to do it. The cost of getting all the raw materials to LEO and then lifting the assembled structure to c3=0 from LEO could end up being drastically more expensive than building the same thing closer to earth's escape velocity, especially as the scale of the production increases. And when you start to look at supplying steel and other raw materials to EML-4 the economics of getting materials from deep space start to make a lot more sense. Your example delta-v from LEO to an asteroid was 4500m/s, but 3200 m/s is LEO to C3, and so getting to the same asteroid from EML-4 is only something like 1700m/s. Even round trip from EML-4 to the asteroid and back is only 1/4 the delta v of a one way trip from the surface of earth to EML-4. Whether or not this is competitive against the moons of earth and mars its hard to say, but I think thats a much more interesting question than looking at markets in LEO or particularly markets on the surface of the earth. If humans are ever going to reach beyond this star system we will need to make structures that can support a breeding population of humans plus the seeds of an entire ecosystem for many generations in deep space, and those things will need to be big. Even if we just want to support a colony on mars we will likely want a dozen or so huge spacecraft (like O'neill cylinder big) on earth-mars cyclers to make the multi-month journey comfortable without blowing up the cost. Building things like that in LEO is silly because you can get most of the materials you need to build it onto the final trajectory of the craft at far lower delta-v's by building it at an earth-moon lagrange point and sourcing materials from deep outside earths gravity well. Anyway thats my argument. I do generally agree that asteroid mining is super overhyped and generally not a solution to any near future problems, but I think the idea that humans will *never* want to mine asteroids is short sighted. I would argue that the most important observation about the economics of deep space commodities markets is that price is exponential in both delta-v (from where the commodity is sourced to where it is used), as well as the specific impulse of the engines that push it there, and that means that creative solutions to sourcing and transporting raw materials can have huuuge impact on the price to market in the right circumstances, even if the cost of mining and refining is much higher. So basically I would argue that imagining that LEO or the surface of the earth as the only place where commodities will be used generally misses the point of space mining entirely. Let me know what you think. I love the videos you make about space, and I would really encourage you to take another look at this topic from the perspective of making things in deep space which are intended to stay in deep space as part of a broader deep-space economy.

[@EagerSpace]

@@evil0sheep Just as quick note - remember that if you are talking about shipping lunar materials into orbit, you very likely need to ship your transport back to the surface, and unfortunately that's going to cost you the same amount of delta-v to get back as it did to get there if we're talking about the moon. So the delta V is more like 5000+ m/s than 2500 m/s... As for the basic question - and thanks for writing so much - I think the real question is where it makes sense to put a fueling depot. The current approach to get to deep space is to get as much oomph out of the launch vehicle as possible so the spacecraft is as light as possible. If you stop at a depot along the way, that requires your vehicle to be more capable than it would be otherwise (but it can likely be bigger than if the launch vehicle sent it the whole way). I'm not sure that that complexity is worth it. Beyond that, as much as I like using delta-v as a measure, the question is really one of economics. You are comparing the cost of shipping directly from earth to the cost of: 1) Developing an approach for mining water on the moon 2) Shipping all the infrastructure to the moon. 3) Setting up everything on the moon. 4) Operating the mining, the water extractions, the hydrolysis, and the shipping It's really not clear to me how the economics will work out, but the lunar base looks extremely expensive to me, especially if you need people on the surface to run it. How much would something like CRS cost if it ran to the moon rather than to LEO?

[@evil0sheep]

@@EagerSpace Yeah I mean I certainly agree with you that in the short term the cost of deep space infrastructure would make it unprofitable, but I think longer term the difference in propellent cost would come to dominate. The difference is gigantic. Even if your spacecraft weighs nothing the difference between Moon to EML-4 and Earth to EML-4 is .66 grams of propellent per gram of cargo vs 19 grams of propellent per gram of cargo. With a dry mass of 3% (which is generous for a vehicle coming from earth) your difference is is like .7:1 vs 50:1. Just think about the difference in size and complexity of the spacecraft you're using to transport this stuff. Coming from the moon you can have a single -stage spacecraft thats half propellent-to-burn and half propellent-to-sell, and it could likely make the round trip at that ratio (since its mass leaving EML-4 is probably gonna be less than 10% of its mass leaving the moon). Coming from earth you need a gigantic rocket (like falcon heavy size at least) with at least 3 stages or on-orbit refueling just to take a hundred tons of propellent to EML-4. And don't forget that unless your plan is to throw the rockets away you also have to make the return trip to earth, where yes you benefit from aerobraking but you also have to have the hardware to survive re-entry to the earths atmosphere, which adds a huge amount of cost and complexity to your propellent tanker. I just cant imagine that the cost of doing that for every bit of propellent you need is gonna be cheaper than running a water mining operation on the moon and lifting it to EML-4 with a single stage hydrolox tanker that just burns half the fuel in the tank to make the delivery. With respect to CRS style resupply cost: yes CRS from the Earth to the Moon is gonna be way more expensive than CRS from earth to LEO, but a huge part of CRS is food and if you're growing your food at EML-4, shipping it to the moon, and then transporting your human waste back to EML-4 to be used as fertilizer, then I think it could be a lot cheaper than CRS to LEO, at least in the long term. A single stage hydrolox cargo ship could fuel up with 30 tonnes of propellent at the EML-4 propellent depot, move 70 tonnes of food to the Moon, refuel at the Moon, and move 70 tonnes of human waste back to EML-4. Compare that with the cost and complexity of launch 70 tonnes of cargo to the ISS (much less EML-4) and then refurbishing the transport system after it's been exposed to the torture of earth re-entry. And yes in the short term the cost of establishing the mining operation on the Moon in the first place is gonna overwhelm any savings you get on propellent and spacecraft complexity but that cost gets amortized over may years of operation. This is the point I was trying to make about how Mars fits in, and why I think colonizing mars (or at least building an outpost there) makes economic sense long term. Unless you want to ship all of the food you need in cislunar space from the surface of the Earth on giant multi-stage rockets, or unless you can fully automate everything (which fundamentally cannot apply to space tourism) you have to farm in cislunar space, and that directly and unavoidably depends on carbon and nitrogen. And the lowest delta-v-to-EML-4 source of abundant carbon and nitrogen (at least that we know of) is Mars. And again, yes obviously in the short term shipping nitrogen and carbon from earth is gonna be way cheaper than setting up a base on mars and shipping it from there, but in the long term, when there are thousands or tens of thousands of people living on the Moon and in cislunar space, I think the volume of consumption might actually be high enough that the propellent savings would come to dominate. Plus it looks like Elon Musk is gonna pay to make the mars colony anyway so you might as well give the Martians something economically useful to do. Anyway I mentioned this in the last message too but I would argue that when you look at the economics of space on the long term (like the next 100 years or more) that delta-v- to-market and specific impulse of your propulsion technology are actually going to be by far the most important factors in determining the price of something, and that as a nation state we should be trying to move strategically on leading in the space of low-delta-v-high-specific-impulse commodity delivery because on the scale of hundreds of years I think theres going to be an unfathomable amount of wealth to me made doing so. I agree that in the next couple of decades the cost of building and operating bases will make this kind of economic activity super unprofitable and need to be massively subsidized, but I think strategically its a good move to make anyway because I don't think those conditions will hold forever and the first mover advantage is substantial. A couple things I was thinking in relation to this conversation that I wanted to mention: 1) I chose EML-4 because it has stable halo orbits, but this article (www.thespacereview.com/article/1764/1) points out that the stable orbits mean there are debris floating there, and that EML-1 is actually desirable because the station-keeping requirement means its naturally free of debris. Given than, I think EML-1 is probably a better choice than EML-4/5, but I used EML-4 for this message because I already ran the numbers on it. The math does change slightly in favor of shipping things from Earth but I think the overall points remain the same. 2) With respect to asteroid mining specifically, I was thinking that where it would really shine is if you wanted to build something big that would leave the solar system, since you can move materials around the asteroid belt for very low delta-v and you would be that much closer to escaping the sun. 3) My source for all my delta-V numbers is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget

[@mattbland2380]

Bingo! If materials such as metals, various gases, water,etc. are available in asteroids are needed off earth and asteroid mining is the only practical method of capturing them in high volume, beyond shipping from earth, then the actual cost isn’t important and shouldn’t affect earth side prices as they’re not intended for consumption on earth. If they’re vital for survival, or to build engines, electronics or propellant, etc. then capturing and mining asteroids will indeed happen and be more profitable than shipping from the bottom of our own gravity well.

[@TheAmazingchickens]

Worth bearing in mind that a system going from the asteroid belt to earth orbit doesn't have to fight gravity, with balistic capture you don't even need a high thrust capture burn, this allows for more exotic low thrust/high ISP propulsion that isn't possible for earth launchers.

[@MrAlanCristhian]

You didn't watch the video.

[@jeric_synergy8581]

If you're sending a ship up anyway, why not carry a couple satellites UP? --I think the historic name for this kind of thing is "the triangular trade", when 3 ports are involved. It's not like ships traveled around empty. Also, there's the case of aluminum: when it became cheap, we found new uses for it.

[@EagerSpace]

Triangle trade is hard in space because "in space" isn't one location, it's a whole bunch of different locations, and it takes a lot of energy to get from one location to another. WRT cheapness, yes, new uses typically pop up when prices go down, but if you were - for example - building a business where making money depended on platinum being $10 per ounce and it was now $5 per ounce, then you are going to go bankrupt.

[@MrNick99]

I really enjoy your videos. thank you.

[@randomperson1827]

I think you could make asteroid mining profitable if you used the starship to orbit but nuclear rockets for everything else.

[@EagerSpace]

Hmm... I'm working on a video about nuclear rockets in the context of orbital tugs. The nuclear engines I've seen have ISPs of about 900-1000, but they are *heavy* compared to chemical motors and they require large tanks for the hydrogen.

[@randomperson1827]

@@EagerSpace That is true but tanks are a lot lighter in space with none of the engineering constraints of climbing out a gravity well. Also you could probably make them smaller with americium or just highly enriched uranium.

[@AgraFarmsllc]

We are going to Use thorium, less problems all around. At least that is our plan for our tug design. It is also our plan for our moon lander tug energy wise.

[@mattbland2380]

Interesting conclusions. I do really enjoy this channel and your output. Thinking about it, many more diamonds are mined than sold each year. You’re missing the advantage of stockpiling to avoid depressing market prices. Once you’ve amassed your stock you can drop feed the market to avoid saturation. However, the scenario envisaged wasn’t practical anyway. Asteroid mining is most beneficial for space based purposes rather than the importing to earth. In orbit construction and manufacturing, as well as for Mars and the moon, to obtain materials not native to those locations. In terms of cost, food and air in orbit is more as valuable than precious metals, at least where manned outposts are concerned and the cost of bringing them from the bottom of our gravity well is likely more expensive than shipping raw materials from elsewhere in the solar system to us. To flip the saying on its head, If you’re outside of our gravity well as the asteroids are, they’re already half way to our orbit.

[@2150dalek]

Perhaps there's more elements than platinum on asteroids. Besides looking at money, it could reduce strip mining, smelting and other detrimental effects on earth from present day mining methods. Assuming if all the processing could be done in space. Perhaps the mass driver should aim at the moon instead of earth? Materials hopefully not burying itself a mile into the crust upon impact. 😬just tossing ideas.

[@mknochel]

Aerobraking requires a heat shield, which requires more fuel to launch. You save some fuel in the end, but it’s not free.

[@charlesmaurer6214]

Depends on what it is protecting. You don't need a heat shield for a lump of ore, in fact you could use reentry heat to help refine the ore. Some of the best Japanese swords come from meteorite iron.

[@mskiptr]

Huh… this video made me hopeful about maybe seeing some one-off space "mining" mission this century.

[@aldenconsolver3428]

I had a contrary opinion about this long ago. Someday when we have effective factories in space near asteroids and enough business on the outer planets and moons, hey maybe it will work.

[@Hailfire08]

Great video! I think asteroid mining is feasible but _only_ when we already have well-developed space infrastructure. Probably we'd be relying on nuclear engines too, since chemistry just doesn't carry all that much energy. (And not for ground-based stuff, or not until we both exhaust what little platinum there is down here, and generate so much up there that it's considered a waste product. But if you want to build a station in deep space, you might as well use the materials already there)

[@EagerSpace]

WRT nuclear you might want to watch this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXnbXoidebKHoqs

[@phineasphogg2125]

a lot more known about starship by jan 2024, but still just rough estimates. If using Raptor v3.0 with Isp.sealevel=330 and Isp.vac=380, booster dry ~218mT + 3400mT prop, starship dry ~164mT + 1200mT prop, This is starship with 1000m^3 cargo volume. Booster gross dV~3308.5m/s, starship gross dV 6091.8m/s (7800m/s effecitve + 1600m/s losses = 9400m/s gross.) if both are carrying just full prop load, starship can return ~433mT from 196km. (ss: 1100mT prop to orbit, 84.3mT deorbit burn, 16.9mT landing burn) platinum is still $29.55/g, so $12.8 B/load, minus launch costs. :) hopefully, by the time they start reuse, we'll see lower dry masses and/or higher thrust than estimated. If you use 1000m^3 of cargo space for combined prop, that gives an addtl 844mT prop (2044mT tot) without stretching starship, then it can return ~811mT from 196km (ss: 1847.2mT prop to orbit, 169.3mT deorbit burn, 27.5mT landing burn) $23.9 B/load, minus launch costs. Beyond LEO is still a problem.... still gonna take 6-12 launches to fill a 1200mT depot @ 196km. If depot loiter can be extended (kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJu6dHh8ntSHlbs, thank you very much!) to 304d for LOX and 246d for LCH4, then you could use electrical cryo-chillers to extend even farther. {liquefying NG @ 55bar uses 800-860kJ/kg.) (www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-Requirements-for-Oxygen-Production_tbl1_227303325) need to reliquefy ~3.14727mT/d LOX(1731kWh/d=72.1kW cont), ~1.06mT/d LCH4 (21.913kWh/d=0.913kW continuous), so for 913W continuous, you could keep LCH4 almost indefinitely and top off LOX periodically, or for 73kW continuous, keep both LOX & LCH4 chilled.

[@charlesmaurer6214]

Two flaws, you assume the only goal is to just return to Earth and second in the payloads your using you assume using the capsule to return product. Instead you really just need to deorbit the material to a chosen site, perhaps wrapped in a bubble of material or with an attached parachute. I would note the biggest use of space mining is to build in space instead of lifting everything to space. In time cost may come down but it is going to be more useful with colonizing Mars and orbital structures.

[@EagerSpace]

If you deorbit, you need some way to control the path of your material or it turns into a weapon of mass destruction. If you want to keep it in orbit, you need a way to get it into orbit, which means engines or something that can survive aero braking.

[@charlesmaurer6214]

@@EagerSpace You only need something to slow the fall, you don't need a full container, in fact you might even use the heat of reentry to pre-refine some ores, many traditional Japanese swords are made of meteorite iron. Tons fall every year that make landfall without causing major destruction. A manageable size and receiving area would need to be determined. Perhaps an existing crater lake would serve. The majority of all space expense is lifting out of a gravity well. Adjusting the orbits of a massive number Near Earth objects during a pass takes little energy and can be figured out. Also as you brought up safety, I would suggest using a lunar orbit for holding areas and use a moon base for managing. The lower gravity well means a craft the size of a VW beetle can do the same job as a Saturn V would with Earth. As I pointed out your first error was assuming the only goal was to return stuff to Earth. That is like in colonial days demanding not to live off the land and shipping all product from the Americas to Europe. That was one of the causes of the revolution by the way. Sugar and rum had to be shipped to England before being permitted to be sold in back in the colonies just north of the source. The goal is not to add mass to the Earth though some return trade would offset some cost like steerage or cargo passage on ocean liners. The goal is for man to leave the cradle and settle new worlds. Mars first, One long term space project might be building mirrors to warm Mars or Cool Venus with placement near legrange points. (Stable points in orbit with planets not around planets) As for what does get sent down to earth your estimates for the first samples would likely go as you say and be expensive but so is the basic setups for most mining today with 10 to 15 years of production before any profits are made.

[@AgraFarmsllc]

All true. We have to make large space bound infrastructure in la grange points and which is highly controlled by earth or moon operators highly automated. Once we have the ability to build out space only ships we will need the ability to build out infrastructure as needed. A full blown space economy with colonies supplying the energy and materials will allow mankind to move beyond our current gravity well.

[@mudkatt2003]

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