Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Why the heck would you want to dive down a gravity well in the first place?

Easy Natural Resources, Safety, & Potential
Mark Eby — (archived)

No asteroid has anywhere near the potential resources of Mars. The asteroids have valuable resources and some of them are more accessible than similar resources on Mars, but the amounts are limited in comparison. Moving on to the next asteroid is also far more difficult than exploring different sites on a planet or large moon once you've established a base. Certainly as the basis for a colony there is no comparison. It's also been proven that gravity is rather important to human health.

The big advantage of a gravity well is being able to support an atmosphere. An extensive one can be regenerated on Mars and last for millions of years and I'm sure an imported one one on the Moon would last at least thousands of years, but that would kill one potential advantage the Moon does have. An atmosphere provides both protection and potential resources.

Mars has CO2 and readily recoverable H2O to make rocket fuel and the Moon has maglev capabilities which require much more investment, but long term usefullness. I haven't seen plans for asteroids that seem as efficient or as easy as either of these. Now of course it's easy to escape from the surface of an asteroid, but you still have to provide fuel for the delta V to change orbits to reach onother destination. It takes more delta V to reach an asteroid beyond Mars than to reach Mars and the deltaV to land on Mars is not much when aerobreaking is used. NEOs require less deltaV, but few are much more than a few kilometers in size.

I strongly disagree that asteroids are have easier to reach raw materials as someone who actually makes a living processing materials. Mining is a tough mechanical process even on Earth requiring intensive maintenance to keep going. The gas phase reactions needed to produce fuel on Mars are FAR easier and easily adaptable to untended automation. Now if you are talking about metals you are correct in terms of initial investment, but you aren't looking at the repeated reinvestment needed every time you have to move to another asteroid.
There may even be some metals you can get on asteroids that aren't available on Mars, but the same is true in reverse to a greater extent.

I agree with you on colonization, but do you expect NASA to go into the mining business? Whether you are argueing over resource potential or colonization potential you are arguing about long term potential as a reason for NASA to explore not what NASA is going to do itself.

Regards,
Mark

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (116 posts)