MINING in SPAAAACE! Asteroid-scoopers? Nah - consumers will be the real winners

Re: The Wild-West days are here again

I'd blag my short story, but will refrain as it's my first and that would be unfair use of this thread, but that's exactly how I set it up.

Mining planet for fuel (as what else is the main cost up there), is kept in "control" by not being made self sufficient. Plus some other secret control measures. ;)

If I get to write another, it would also cover that possible lawless/breakaway effect of colonies. Though it'll cover the time after the "independence" wars.

Re: The Wild-West days are here again

See also "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" which detailed throwing rocks from top of gravity well way before your reference.

Re: The Wild-West days are here again

I think that because they seem to be the subject of much pulpy space adventure from the golden age of scifi, that a lot of people discount lasers or DEWs. A DEW would only have to heat a target spacecraft to a temperature that causes component failure, given a spacecraft's relatively small mass and poor heat dissipation this task seems workable. Of course building a single death ray would be less than optimal and probably quite hard to do, so instead the weapon would most likely be composed of the most efficient single power output for a single DEW module times number of modules required to form an array of DEWs to arrive at a desired total weapon output power. While throwing rocks is effective, a weapon that has near unlimited range (compared to conventional weaponry), is highly scaleable, has near unlimited ammunition and travels at c would be terrifying indeed to spacecraft, especially considering it would take months to get that rock to arrive at the target destination.

Re: The Wild-West days are here again

A mining operation can't cede if it wants to keep selling stuff on the home planet. Especially not a space mining operation which relies on critical supplies for life support. (Every attempt to create a closed self-sustaining ecology to date has ended in disaster. Sitting on a big pile of platinum is unlikely to fix that.)

And if said mining operation threatens Earth with a few big rocks, a lot of nukes could be sent in their general direction. (Not to mention the fact that killing your own customers is kind of stupid.)

You're repeating the 'governments don't matter' fantasy beloved by USian glibertarian fundamentalists.

In realpolitik, governments continue to matter a lot.

Remember John Perry Barlow's declaration of cyberspace independence? Remember 'The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it?'

How's that working out for everyone in - say - China? Or (coming soon...) East Molesey?

Re: The Wild-West days are here again

"being at the top of the gravity well trumps being at the top of the food chain. And throwing rocks can be terribly effective."

Robert Heinlein got that in about 10 years earlier than Niven in "The moon is a harsh mistress". But trivia aside, spot on about the gist of the argument. Of course "self-sufficient" is a huge (huge, huge, huge, huge) ask anywhere in space, but it's achievable (probably not this century, maybe in the 2 after that, almost certainly after that as long as humanity hasn't consumed all planetary resources like greedy little locusts)

*Yes I know technically it's the other way around, humans adapted to Earth environment

That's ok, we have an atmosphere. Once another gets the tech and resources to send an asteroid, defending from such is a similar level of expertise. When the size of an asteroid makes a big difference in both effectiveness and time required to move it, things will hopefully balance out.

Bigger rocks are easier to see and take longer to reach us, giving time to respond, smaller ones might just burn up.

More like:

You want taxes? Hmm, can they be paid as a percentage of the minerals we're extracting?

x

Re: consumers... real winners

You might not be as rich as the founders of Intel or Microsoft or.. but we are all certainly more than a bit richer because of them and there are a lot more of us than there are of them.

Re: No property rights

"So can anyone explain why this would be a bad thing?"

No one would invest in working it out in the first place.

Re: No property rights

"You've worked out how to get helium 3 from the lunar regolith? Excellent: but with no private property then anyone else able to get to the Moon can do exactly the same."

Actually, since the moon is fairly big, no one company would ever conceivably be given property rights over more than a tiny fraction of it. So even WITH very strong property rights, "anyone else able to get to the Moon can do exactly the same", just on a different patch of moon.

Re: " As one of those capitalists, you're not going to skimp on $100k or $200k on wages"

More likely a percentage I suspect, with a decent base salary... but to me $200k seems a bit on the low side for such a risky job...

Although I bet you could probably offer room & board and STILL get enough applicants to take the job at the start....

Re: says

While I am sure it could be done mainly with computers, and much of the work will be automated...

human interaction is always needed for anything complex, otherwise why would they need large crews on earth for mining and tunneling?

I suspect the transfer of goods will be automated (with room on the transfer vessel for passengers, i.e. replacement crew) but the main job of mining will be robotics overseen by a few meat bags to fix the problems when they occur...