Science Forums 2

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Jeez - I wished I shared your optimism, Moontan.

You propose to accelerate ore from a Lagrange Point around Jupiter, to Earth.

1) How do you propose getting the ore to the L point in the first place?
2) How do you expect to stop the ore, Earthside? You proposed atmospheric braking, which means you're happy with it raining rock all over the world? This, of course, is ignoring the utter and total cock-up you'll make of the atmosphere, as 80%+ of your ore burns up into the atmosphere, before hitting somebody's house to smithereens.

The ore is already at the Lagrange points of Jupiter, there are many large asteroids at Jupiter's Lagrange points, not to mention ices. I was using them as an example. Moving things around the solar system is easy as long as you take long slow orbits and it is not energy intensive. Refined metals from any asteroid can be easily moved to Mars or the Earth by simply imparting a small deceleration to it and small motors that add or subtract tiny accelerations as you move it around. You are still thinking fast orbits from one planet to another. If your cargo can take years then you can use very easy orbits. As for hitting people houses again you are assuming that these cargoes will just be dropped like rocks from the sky. I haven't noticed any of our decelerating space craft hitting people houses with any regularity.

Spaceflight is cool. Space colonization is cool. Hell, it's awesome. But so are ten gazillion other pie-in-the-sky concepts. And the amount of available ore of any kind in the Earth's crust will be cheaper by orders of magnitude for many, many years.

So we just continue to rape the planet's surface when we could be getting refined metals from space with out the the pollution and destruction that mining and refining the ever more rarefied deposits of metal on the Earth leave behind?

If we run out of tin, what to do? Did all the tin ever mined, magically disappear? No, they're lying in landfills. Landfill mining will, also, be much more profitable than any space-based mining you can imagine.

At some point mining, even mining landfills, will destroy the environment. Such mining and re-refining of the metals contained there in will be just as bad as the original processes were.

Also, as to the cliché about the Wright Brothers inventing flying: Imagine if the purpose of every flying machine ever built was merely to get the pilot to Antarctica. Would it be such a good idea? Airplanes are cool, because they get you from one perfectly hospitable place to another.

This argument doesn't hold water, the first airplane flights were just for fun, they had no reason nor did they need to have a reason. People came up with things for airplanes to do. the airplane wasn't built with wow we need to fly to Europe next year. They were built to see if it could be done. Purpose for the airplane came later.

I want humans to go to the planets, the stars, and eventually the entire galaxy. But I need a damn good reason. And I haven't heard a single one. Not a peep.

So, convince me.

I think I've given you several, resources, colonies, knowledge, and simple exploration. What else could there be?

Work to do, food to eat, a place to sleep, what else is there?