On 27/Apr/16 12:14, Rob Myers wrote:
got it, Rob :-)
Okay, proceeding with some humor (not!)
The initial environmental cost of shipping robots offworld to move the
mining and refining there would very quickly become a net environmental
and political gain. Strip mining, resource wars, refining within the
Earth's atmosphere would all be reduced.
*Emphatically NO*
Examine the total infrastructure demands of the existing 'space' industry (and
the military-industrial system that drives it.
Rare earth metals, high-precision
Cost one of the Mars rovers, and it will begin to give you a sense of
infrastructure scope that a *single* device can involve. And the 'other' hidden
costs from the whole mining infrastructure (you gotta build the damn robots
*here*, and the oil that drives all of that...
There is *NO* way that off-planet *anything* is cost effective in *any* way. Nor
will it ever be environmentally sensible!
Do a quick calculation how to get materials back to earth -- just the
deceleration and landing infrastructure costs *per gram* are out of this world...
(I just heard a 1955 Sci-Fi bubble make a HUGE 'pop'!)
jh
--
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Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
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