[NetBehaviour] Asteroid Mining For UBI

[John Hopkins]

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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