Timeline for Would it be feasible to set up a temporary space settlement on a moving asteroid?
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22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 5, 2016 at 21:13 | vote | accept | fi12 | ||
| Mar 23, 2016 at 2:53 | answer | added | Thucydides | timeline score: 0 | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 21:57 | comment | added | Jim2B | Also $15 \cdot 10^{12}$ dollars gross value of asteroid metals aren't worth nearly as much in net value. They are only worth the difference between Price at market - (asteroid mining + refining costs). This number is likely to be negative. Even worse, you'll face competition from terrestrial producers of those materials. Which means in almost every case, your cost of production will be higher (you'll lose money). The only market who might be interested in your product are other space infrastructure projects because you don't have to pay terrestrial launch costs. | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 17:36 | answer | added | Jim2B | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 12:30 | comment | added | Separatrix | I think there's a second question implicit here. "Would it be possible to stop an asteroid?" | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 5:03 | comment | added | January First-of-May | @JDlugosz I thought I recognized the asteroid name "Chariclo", so I wasn't too surprised with the unrealistically low number. Turned out I was thinking of 10199 Chariklo. (Which is indeed nearly 200 miles in diameter - this is very big for an asteroid, incidentally - and its number starts with 101, so very possibly the question asker was thinking of it too. Completely different orbit though.) | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 2:31 | history | edited | Brythan | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 22, 2016 at 1:16 | comment | added | JDługosz | 772 is Tanete, and 101 is Helena. If you are going to make up asteroids to get just the details you want, don't use unrealisticly low numbers! Those are tge first ones to have been discovered. See here. | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 1:04 | answer | added | Schwern | timeline score: 14 | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:33 | comment | added | January First-of-May | But going back to reasons this wouldn't work... delta-v again, and acceleration that goes with it. If your spacecraft (or what passes for one) isn't nimble enough (not enough acceleration) to escape Chariclo and land on Ersa (or escape Mars and land on Chariclo, for that matter) in the short distance between them without running out of life support, you will fail. Given your weird descriptions of failure modes, this seems to be what you're going for. | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:30 | comment | added | January First-of-May | A silly (and not really close, but whatever) real-life comparison that might explain my point: when I go home from the supermarket, I take a bus. Between waiting for the bus, waiting while the passengers enter and exit, and the actual travel time, it is actually a bit slower than just walking all the way (it's about a half-mile). But it is definitely an awful lot more comfortable, and, depending on what the road looks like, might well be safer. | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:24 | comment | added | January First-of-May | On asteroids going off course in the deep abyss of space... are you silly? Asteroids do not work that way (especially big ones). They do move constantly, sure, but this movement is already known to within a few kilometers in several years; otherwise stuff like the Rosetta mission would've been impossible. This only becomes easier with 22nd century computing technology. (And I would've probably made an answer out of all this, but I'm tired, shouldn't really be at a computer in the first place, and due to wake up in 3.5 hours; if this is still open 4-5 hours later, I'll post an answer.) | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:20 | comment | added | January First-of-May | @Mikey - that's basically what my comment is about. Such a trip would not make sense in a modern-tech setting; but with future tech, where delta-v is not a problem (within low enough level), and life support normally isn't either but your spacecraft sucks so can't hold life support for extended travel time, "short hop on asteroid, stay a bit, short hop from asteroid to destination" is completely reasonable. | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:19 | comment | added | fi12 | @CAgrippa I'm concerned if maybe my asteroid could go offcourse somewhere into the deep abyss of space. Also, I'm not too sure to whether the Ersa would experience constant movement. | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:13 | comment | added | Mikey | I suspect to accelerate to catch an asteroid, you have acheived the acceleration you need to match an asteroid's speed, no? | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:12 | comment | added | Hypnosifl | Given the premise you set up, I'd say it's feasible...but is it really plausible that by the 22nd century they'd need humans to do the mining, as opposed to just sending robots to do it? Life support is going to add a lot of expensive payload mass... | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:09 | comment | added | CAgrippa | I guess what I'm not seeing is any reason you can't. But you've very carefully explained the question, so I suspect you are concerned about some specific difficulties. Can you add them? Otherwise I think the answer is "yes." | |
| Mar 22, 2016 at 0:09 | comment | added | January First-of-May | The big problem with space travel is delta-v, and the delta-v will probably be far higher for such an intermediate path than for travelling directly. (It will definitely be at least slightly higher, because following Chariclo's orbit is one possible path of getting to Ersa, and you'd have to expend extra energy for takeoff and landing.) But yes, if you have a space-tent that can only be set-up at an asteroid - in other word, if you do have a spacecraft, but its life-support sucks, and has to be refueled - this is indeed quite a reasonable possibility. | |
| Mar 21, 2016 at 23:48 | history | edited | fi12 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 21, 2016 at 23:36 | history | edited | fi12 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 21, 2016 at 23:34 | comment | added | HDE 226868♦ | I have three questions: 1) Why can't you get to Ersa 772? 2) How fast is Ersa 772 traveling? 3) Where, in general, are both asteroids? | |
| Mar 21, 2016 at 23:30 | history | asked | fi12 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |