It's Time to Get Serious About Going to Mars, NASA Says

[Buster's Uncle]

That is why I don't believe in privatizing the space program.

[Unorthodox]

Again with the asteroid mining. 

It's no more profitable than Mars will be. 

The only way it becomes profitable is if we manufature with the ore in space, you save tons of money.  Problem is, we have no concept of even how to do that yet.  Capture/return is a pipe dream. 

[testdummy653]

Again with the asteroid mining. 

It's no more profitable than Mars will be. 

The only way it becomes profitable is if we manufature with the ore in space, you save tons of money.  Capture/return is a pipe dream.

I think you under estimate the value of metals and mining.

[Unorthodox]

Ore is NOT THAT VALUABLE. 


Nasa's mission to capture an asteroid is listed as 2.6 BILLION to bring in 500 tons of asteroid to ORBIT, not to surface.  And it's a piss poor target they are going after, too, mostly iron. 

Iron ore currently sells for $139 per ton.  We'd need to strike a good amount of the platinum spectrum metals to even approach paying for the mission to orbit, and that's not even calculating the unknown cost of safe return to surface. 

Our first target needs to be water/ice. 

A water/ice rich asteroid brought into orbit to PROCESS WATER IN SPACE would be revolutionary.  Water could be used for fuel, potentially even renewable fuel by capture/recycling in various machinery.  Water rich asteroids tend to also contain other combustibles that could potentially enable refuelling.  The water alone would cut the need for station resupplies and eventually pay for itself it it was used no other way. 

[Geo]

In short, a small COMET is what some space mission needs to bring into Earth orbit. 

[Unorthodox]

Technical differences, but yeah, and point being whatever they bring STAYS IN ORBIT.  Bringing back to surface is currently not cost effective. 

If they were to mine ore in space and somehow fabricate in space, it's FAR more efficient than attempting to launch items.  I could see framework for a really big station/ship being fabricated in orbit and the fuel/water as well.  That's a lot of weight you don't need to launch.  I just don't know how you do the fabrication at present. 

[Geo]

I'd say also unnecessary, at least until there's a space elevator/needle/noodle/fountain in operation.
Once that is in operation, you almost need to have downward cargo to keep the balance of the whole structure.