Reddit Reddit reviews Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets (Helix Book)

We found 20 Reddit comments about Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets (Helix Book). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets (Helix Book)
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20 Reddit comments about Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets (Helix Book):

u/rocksinmyhead · 26 pointsr/askscience

Firstly, there are huge startup costs. Secondly, it's very hard to see how it could be cost effective (transport to and from an asteroid is non-trivial), even with platinum and gold nearly $1,600/oz. Thirdly, zero-g refining techniques would have to be developed, as would techniques to operate in the very low (almost non-existent) gravity of an asteroid. And I'm sure there other points, I've missed...

Edit. For a most positive view of asteroid mining, you may want to read Mining the Sky by John Lewis.

u/dinoturds · 24 pointsr/SandersForPresident

I agree with you in the short term. In the long term we could mine the whole asteroid belt and have effectively limitless resources for thousands of years.

Source:
Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets (Helix Book) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0201328194/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_J-uIDbQK4XAPE

u/Uzza2 · 20 pointsr/technology

208,333 pounds, or 94.5 metric ton, of platinum is just a cube with a side of 1.65m.

John S. Lewis, author of Mining the Sky, have said that a 1km asteroid with a mass of 2 billion tons, could contain as much as 7500 metric ton of platinum. That would equal a cube with a side of 7.08m.

All the platinum ever mined is roughly 5300 metric ton, or a cube with a side of 6.3m.

I don't think it would be hard to break even if they found a platinum rich 500m asteroid as they're planning on.

u/Senno_Ecto_Gammat · 8 pointsr/space

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Eugene Cernan.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

u/thirdoffive · 7 pointsr/space

Bah, the OP deleted his post after I got finished writing a big long explanation of why space flight is worthwhile. So screw it I'm posting it anyway since I spent half an hour writing it...

In regard to your other point:

>Why, other than satellite technology, should we not dump that money into renewable energy and the social sciences? Or education?

I would passionately argue that developing outer space would hugely improve the quality of life on Earth and more than that, it is essential for the survival of humanity.

If we can develop economical access to space that doesn't cost a fortune then we'll have access to amounts of energy and resources that are unimaginable by today's standards. With cheap access to space we could solve the energy problem you spoke of easily. If we could get orbital power stations up there we could build them as large as we wanted and beam enough renewable energy back to Earth to power all civilization.

There's also as much metal in the asteroids and the moon as you could ever care to mine. There are actually more precious metals in one asteroid than have ever been mined by humans in history. If you have the time you ought to read Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets to get an idea of just how much of a game changer getting at all those resources would be. The author John S. Lewis predicts that if we could colonize space and tap the material wealth of space we could support a 1st world society of 10^16 people.

Aside from all the wealth we could ship back to Earth I think we need to develop space simply because it's a bad idea to keep all your eggs in one basket. If a nuclear war, rogue comet, super volcano, or some unforeseen disaster takes out humans on Earth it would be nice to have some space colonies as a back up. JPL scientists and Stephen Hawking agree with me.

So if we work on cheap space flight we could solve our energy crisis meaning no more CO2 emissions, dead coal miners, oil wars, mercury in the lakes, and all the other bad stuff that comes with terrestrial energy production. We could get all our metals from space so no more strip mining and acid lakes. On top of that we could have an immortal civilization too, so what's not to like?

/space nerd rant...

u/heathkit · 5 pointsr/AskReddit

1- Space-based solar power. There's no need to be concerned with "Microwave Death Beams" at the expected intensity levels
>At the Earth's surface, a suggested microwave beam would have a maximum intensity at its center, of 23 mW/cm2 (less than 1/4 the solar irradiation constant), and an intensity of less than 1 mW/cm2 outside of the rectenna fenceline (the receiver's perimeter).[54] These compare with current United States Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) workplace exposure limits for microwaves, which are 10 mW/cm2,[55] - the limit itself being expressed in voluntary terms and ruled unenforceable for Federal OSHA enforcement purposes.[citation needed] A beam of this intensity is therefore at its center, of a similar magnitude to current safe workplace levels, even for long term or indefinite exposure.

The benefit from SBSP isn't concentrating a large amount of energy in a small area - it's that placing the solar array in orbit allows a consistent, predictable source of power unaffected by weather, able to provide power for most of the day.

2- Asteroid Mining. From that book, Lewis estimates that "at 1997 prices, a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (1 mile) contains more than $20 trillion US dollars worth of industrial and precious metals."

3- Habitat. World population is expected to grow to 9-11 billion by 2050. There are real reasons to believe that the Earth may not be able to provide enough food and fresh water to sustain that many people, at least not in a sustainable way. Many studies indicate that the Earth can only sustain a population at American levels of consumption at around 2 billion. However, there are resources within the solar system to comfortably support a population into the trillions. Space colonization would allow us to build new land, and remove some the burden on our terrestrial life support systems.

4- Manufacturing. Not well explored, but the space environment offers ready access to a hard vacuum and microgravity, environments which are difficult or impossible to create on Earth. There's the possibility that high quality drugs or semiconductors could be produced in space cheaper than on Earth, but obviously that's not happening any time soon.

Of course, there are challenges in the way of all of these. Launching material into space is prohibitively expensive, making the use of space resources uneconomical. Even if launch costs come down, there are real environmental concerns about the damage to our atmosphere a large number of space launches may cause. However, if we manage to bootstrap an economy in space using available materials, the resources of space could be a great boon to humankind.

u/willcode4beer · 4 pointsr/technology

A bit dated but, this book covers the topic pretty well.

u/montgomerycarlos · 3 pointsr/AskScienceDiscussion

I'm probably a bit late here, but I had a spell for six months or so (more than a decade ago), when I was rather distracted by reading (putatively non-fiction) books about space colonization. So here's my late-night ranting summary of this research (links to some key references at the end of this post):

A strong argument can be made that the short- and long-term goals of colonizing space should NOT be to colonize other planets, but in between.

In the "short" term, this could help people on Earth solve certain specific resource scarcity problems (particularly with rare metals and energy production), but colonizing space (or other planets) is NOT a general solution to Earth's overpopulation, pollution, war/conflict, famine, disease, etc. The fuel costs of getting off the Earth are just too outrageous to ever lift a significant fraction of people into space. If anything, the probable isolation of space colonies (planetary or otherwise) could easily create all sorts of issues by themselves. Long-term, this would just be about expansion, spreading life out across the solar system for reasons already in this thread.

If you, erm, dig into the space colonization literature, a lot of the most compelling things have to do with building very large orbital space colonies that spin to simulate gravity, and then recovering natural resources from space, mostly solar power and mining asteroids to sustain and grow colonies and provide attractive merchandise to the Earth.

The classics of the genre (which is much larger than I expected) were written around the time of the space race and focused on bootstrapping self-sustaining orbital colonies, and importantly were built around technology and principles from that time period, not requiring huge leaps in technology (or remotely reasonable computing power). So now these things would (in principle) be more feasible today than, say, the 1970s. The basic notion is that it is far too expensive (and kind of pointless) to focus on colonizing planets. We would basically increase our costs massively, since we would constantly have to climb out of massive
gravity wells. So we should just live in space itself. This isn't saying that we couldn't settle worlds, but that would be a side-show to the main event.

The initial costs are outrageous (though not compared to colonizing Mars), and I personally have a hard time justifying any of it, when we have a hard time dealing with some basic-ass shit just in the US much less the world, but given some disposable income and solidarity, the people of Earth could do it. Should we? In my mind, outside Earth orbit, I'd focus on using robots, until we get our shit together (perhaps helped by robots bring from space the feedstocks for clean fusion plants).

The bootstrapping comes from mining and extremely excellent solar power (which are both much better in orbit than on a planet). The original idea of beaming energy to Earth via microwave radiation is perhaps a bit hare-brained, but maybe not completely. However, asteroid mining could be extremely lucrative, given self-sustaining orbital bases of operation. Mining on Mars or other non-Earth planets is absolutely NOT profitable in most cases, because the cost of lifting material into orbit would kill the margins. Space elevators are a possible futuristic thing for Mars, certainly compared to Earth (though see potential Mars-wide catastrophes a la Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy).

The massive exception to planet-based mining is Helium-3. Helium-3 is extremely scarce on Earth, and mostly obtained as a byproduct of nuclear weapons manufacturing. But large amounts of the stuff could feed clean fusion plants (i.e. not producing radioactive waste). The bootstrap here is a bit destructive, since it involves strip mining the Moon (no elevator needed to save fuel during off-Moon transport, just a big rail gun). But it would be much better to dip robots into the gas giants to filter helium for helium-3 for this potentially outrageously lucrative source of income that could lead to a post energy scarcity world.

Many of the intensely researched books in this area are a bit needlessly provincial in their world view, offering a sort-of space suburbanite 1950's White Americana feel, but they are written by some serious scientists/engineers, and I think they have a lot to offer in the vein OP is seeking. An oddity that might define the genre is that they probably legitimately qualify as non-fiction, but frequently use the future tense, which is, well, unusual, and most of them kind of go off-the-rails at some point. Nevertheless, there are some pretty serious ideas in these classics and their ilk about how this could be done in a way that is really Earth-centered at the outset, where the whole point is to find a new untapped resource to exploit.

Okay, so as not to lose track of OP's main question, I'll stop.

Core reading list:

The original classic is Arthur C. Clarke's The Promise of Space, published in 1968. This sets the stage for the idea that terraforming is not the main event and the man that proposed the geosynchronous orbit covers some serious ground.

The CLASSIC classic is Gerard K. O'neill's The High Frontier, published in 1977. This is essential reading for the space colonization aficionado and forms the foundation of the "non-fiction" genre around the subject.

The mining classic w is Mining the Sky by John S. Lewis, published in 1997. This really lays out the mining thing, especially with respect to the shittiness of big gravity wells and how abundant supplies of helium-3 could be transformative.

I'll quit. There's so many more possible references that explore very proximate things, like how to insure rocket launches and way more far-out stuff, like how to minimize inbreeding on generation ships, but I think if I were to pick three things to read, those are them.

EDITS: for some typos and grammar that I saw.

u/KhanneaSuntzu · 3 pointsr/FutureWhatIf

To get here costs about 20 trillion of 20 years. It would destroy the monopolies of a million billionaires on the planet. The 1% sure as hell do not want super abundance for the masses.

http://www.amazon.com/Mining-The-Sky-Asteroids-Planets/dp/0201328194

u/dalovindj · 2 pointsr/Futurology

Sure. On the matter of food resources for the future - vertical farming and printed food:

Food

Vertical Farming is Here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ydeazX2W6M

3D Printed Foods
http://io9.com/5936317/billionaire-peter-thiel-invests-in-the-development-of-3d-printed-meat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/18/3d-printers-food-sustainable

Brain Scanning and Modeling
Mind-goggling - http://www.economist.com/node/21534748

The Blue Brain project, which has the goal of reverse engineering the human brain, has been making incredible strides:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120917152043.htm


Advancing Computer Power

Experts say Moore's law is going to continue right on in the coming decades. This means working at ridiculously small scales which we are already doing. Here's some ideas of what the next paradigms might be:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/42825

And here is an example of the amazingly small things we are already doing (quantum bits - next up logic gates) - https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/technology/breakthrough-bid-create-first-quantum-computer

So we've got the food covered , and it looks like computation power will continue to advance as our modeling of the brain gets more advanced. Perhaps you are a 'ghost in the machine' guy, and think the brain can't be modeled. I'd call you superstitious in that case. Nature has built intelligence, therefore it can be done. It's simply an engineering problem. One that shows all signs of being solved bit by bit.

As for the supporting capacity of the Solar System, that's from John Lewis, who has done some of the most interesting thought and calculations on the subject. His book 'Mining the Sky' is an excellent read.

http://www.amazon.com/Mining-Sky-Untold-Asteroids-Planets/dp/0201328194

Here's a bit about slowing down subjective time with faster minds (quoting Kurzweil here):

"Another good example is the extraordinarily slow computing speed of
the interneuronal connections, which have about a 5 millisecond reset
time. Today's conventional electronic circuits are already 100 million
(108) times faster. Three-dimensional molecular circuits (e.g.,
nanotube-based circuitry) would be at least 109 times faster. Thus if
we built a human brain equivalent with the same number of simulated neurons and connections (not just simulating the human brain with a smaller number of units that are operating at higher speeds), the resulting nanotube-based brain would operate at least 109 times faster than its biological counterpart. "

Ultimately biology isn't the most efficient way to run an intelligence. It's a way that works, but a better one would process information at the highest possible speed. Whatever substrate allows this (computronium) will be where intelligence will land. And Moore's law suggests that will be a very interesting place.

u/NortySpock · 2 pointsr/space

Non-fiction: Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis

Goes a little into the technical details of space colonization, especially valuable minerals, mining processes, the rockets required to get there and a quick risk/reward analysis. I found it a very enjoyable read, and highly recommend it.

u/baetylbailey · 2 pointsr/printSF

Up Against It by M. J. Locke has some good bits on asteroid mining. The young protagonist's POV can be annoying, but the mining bits and the parts about belter society are worth it.

The Quiet War by Paul McCauley is largely about how people could live in the outer solar system.

In Nonfiction, there are a number of books on similar topics, e.g. Mining the Sky, though they tend to be a bit slow for me.

u/HopDavid · 2 pointsr/asteroid

I recall John S. Lewis saying blast blankets would be likely be used in excavating asteroids.

For smaller dust clouds, toss a tarp over the dust cloud and pull it to the ground. On earth dust particles suspended in air would blow out the edges as the tarp was pushed to the surface. But the asteroid dust particles would be floating in vacuum.

u/jaybman · 2 pointsr/geology

I really enjoyed Mining the Sky by John Lewis.
Its looks at the economic and technical feasibility of mining asteroids, but is well written and an enjoyable read.

u/GuruOfReason · 1 pointr/science

> In space, there is nothing. There is not enough heat, water, atmosphere, energy, anything. I predict that any space colony will be completely dependent on shipments of supplies from Earth, putting further strain on Earth's resources.

Sorry, but I cannot let that slide. There are FAR more resources in our solar system than there are on Earth. In fact, enough to sustainably satisfy more than 10 quadrillion people. Read the book Mining The Sky . The myth that there are no resources in space needs to end. They are all there. But you have to mine your own atmosphere and water.

u/theorymeltfool · 1 pointr/technology

Well, if they start taking investors I'll be sure to relinquish a good amount of my portfolio towards the cause. I've dreamnt of a company like this existing since I first read about it about ten years ago in the book Mining the Sky, and I'm not about to miss out on it now that it is technically feasible.

u/Anen-o-me · 1 pointr/CapitalismVSocialism

Nothing science fiction about it. Gerard O'Neill says we've had the tech to do it since the 1980's.

What's missing is only the people doing it. The economics of space-commercialization look extremely good, see Mining the Sky by Lewis.

We will likely begin mining asteroids within 15 years, and several asteroid mining companies currently exist and are operating.

Science fact.

u/TheIcelander · 1 pointr/space

If you haven't already read it I highly recommend the book Mining the Sky. It talks in very great detail about just how much material exists in our solar system.

u/ar0cketman · 1 pointr/postearth

Most of my related books are buried, but I remember really being jazzed by "Resources of Near Earth Space", Lewis 1994 and "Mining the Sky", Lewis, 1997. "Islands in the Sky", Schmitt and Zubrin, 1996 looks pretty good, but I haven't read it yet.

Edit for URL.

u/Torrfell · 1 pointr/suggestmeabook

So for Space colonization you really cannot go wrong with: