Science News Thread (for articles that don't relate to ongoing discussions)

[darthgently]

2 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

What’s more, Ruff found that the quantity of oxygen produced was enough to sustain other oxygen-dependent microbial life in the groundwater.

This bodes well for at least the slow boat case for terraforming Mars that would rely on a microbe chain to free oxygen as on Earth.  This would require many, many generations of patience.  But if the prime goal is to seed life elsewhere, not necessarily turning a planet into Earth 2.0 for human open settlement purposes, it seems a quite viable course to begin and would incrementally make the secondary goals that much easier by increasing atmospheric pressure and oxygen over time

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

31 minutes ago, darthgently said:

terraforming Mars

I've always enjoyed this idea - but it will never happen.  Blue Mars or Green Mars is an impossibility until/unless we manage to give the planet a buff magnetosphere.   More gravity would help as well.

What we could do, however, is a robust subterranean or dome city via these methods.

 

...

If we are really serious - we could "Gaia" Mars with a couple of dwarf planets and a bunch of comets, creating Earth 2.0.  Done just right it gets a moon.*

 

*But by the time we can do this... will we really need to?

[darthgently]

19 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I've always enjoyed this idea - but it will never happen.  Blue Mars or Green Mars is an impossibility until/unless we manage to give the planet a buff magnetosphere.   More gravity would help as well.

What we could do, however, is a robust subterranean or dome city via these methods.

 

...

If we are really serious - we could "Gaia" Mars with a couple of dwarf planets and a bunch of comets, creating Earth 2.0.  Done just right it gets a moon.*

 

*But by the time we can do this... will we really need to?

You are assuming that microbes could not evolve to withstand the radiation.  But they already have.  And the microbes we seed don’t have to start above ground or use photosynthesis.  They just have to free oxygen and increase atmospheric pressure over time.  
An artificial magnetic shield could be a megaproject to aid this process as required, but a thicker atmosphere would go a long way.  Still, I think the main value in your point is that a way to keep any new atmosphere from getting stripped away is crucial

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

42 minutes ago, darthgently said:

evolve to withstand the radiation

Oh - sorry - I meant that the magnetosphere protects the atmosphere from the solar wind - which you spotted.

Gravity helps there to be more atmosphere. 

With low gravity and a stiff wind, our pumping o2 into the air of Mars is just giving it to the wind, not really increasing the pressure for long periods 

I'm not arguing the mutation point: my opinion is that is a rate / percent issue and given that we don't get tentacles or claws out of the radiation, but cancer... That's probably a lifespan issue rather than a precluder of life 

Edited January 18 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[darthgently]

25 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Oh - sorry - I meant that the magnetosphere protects the atmosphere from the solar wind - which you spotted.

Gravity helps there to be more atmosphere. 

With low gravity and a stiff wind, our pumping o2 into the air of Mars is just giving it to the wind, not really increasing the pressure for long periods 

I'm not arguing the mutation point: my opinion is that is a rate / percent issue and given that we don't get tentacles or claws out of the radiation, but cancer... That's probably a lifespan issue rather than a precluder of life 

Agreed on all points.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

More economics than science - this article talks about the space economy, which we often speculate about.  Probably not much new here for some - but it is directed to folks who don't usually look at Space as an economically significant sector. 

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/economists-should-point-their-attention-stars

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

 

Panorama of Andromeda galaxy unveils hundreds of millions of stars

[SunlitZelkova]

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

More economics than science - this article talks about the space economy, which we often speculate about.  Probably not much new here for some - but it is directed to folks who don't usually look at Space as an economically significant sector. 

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/economists-should-point-their-attention-stars

 

Is there any reason to differentiate between the “space economy” and the Earth economy? When actually discussing economics?

Even if we did some small scale mining on the Moon in the near future, 99% of the people using those materials will be on Earth.

It’s like saying that we need to differentiate between the wheeled mining vehicle economy and the tracked mining vehicle economy. What matters is the good, not the means by which it is produced.

EDIT- Unless maybe iron or whatever can be expected to be of higher quality from space than Earth? But I’ve never heard anything about that; the advantage of space resources is quantity.

Edited January 19 by SunlitZelkova

[AckSed]

Raw space resources have quantity, but finished goods or intermediate building blocks like microgravity-cast steel beams and semiconductor boules will have a quality advantage.

[darthgently]

2 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Is there any reason to differentiate between the “space economy” and the Earth economy? When actually discussing economics?

Even if we did some small scale mining on the Moon in the near future, 99% of the people using those materials will be on Earth.

It’s like saying that we need to differentiate between the wheeled mining vehicle economy and the tracked mining vehicle economy. What matters is the good, not the means by which it is produced.

EDIT- Unless maybe iron or whatever can be expected to be of higher quality from space than Earth? But I’ve never heard anything about that; the advantage of space resources is quantity.

We are used to talking about cost of kg to orbit currently.  There will come a time when we will talk a lot more about cost of kg from orbit.  It isn’t cheap to safely deorbit things so if there is a market for it up there it could be more lucrative because of cost from orbit.

Now you have me wondering what is the heaviest payload Starship could deorbit and land?  Probably a lot less than a single semi truck 53’ trailer typically hauls.  So whatever it is it better be very rare on Earth to make it worth bringing down here.

Edited January 19 by darthgently

[darthgently]

This is beautiful, load it in 4k

 

[Superfluous J]

On 1/19/2025 at 4:09 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Is there any reason to differentiate between the “space economy” and the Earth economy? When actually discussing economics?

People differentiate economies of different countries on Earth. Which of those should we lump Space into?

[AckSed]

Per the Outer Space Treaty, outer space and its resources are "res communis": they do not belong to anyone, but can be used by everyone, like the air and water on Earth. So we can assume that the countries and organisations in those countries to have a presence in space and using the resources - be it orbital space, Lunar materials or Lagrange points - that the mines and satellites belong to them and that country's economy, and can be assumed to have a claim on that orbit or asteroid, but claiming anything else is (supposed to be) not kosher.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

57 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Which of those should we lump Space into?

I think the point of the article was to get economists to think about "Space" as a different category of Market.  The gist is that "Space" is no longer a niche thing that governments do for science, prestige and power... but an actual Market that might have investment opportunities for a variety of players.

Truth told - We can count only a few players from a very few nations as active in this market, but that looks to be changing.

[SunlitZelkova]

9 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

People differentiate economies of different countries on Earth. Which of those should we lump Space into?

Space isn't a country, it's... space. Like the ocean more or less, as AckSed pointed out.

Future economists, IMO, won't classify iron mined from an asteroid as "space iron" it will just be American iron or Chinese iron or whatever country's iron. Cool detail is that it comes from space, but that doesn't have much consequence in how a buyer would look at it.

Lots of caveats involved of course. Asteroid mining would somehow need to become cost effective enough to be both a worthwhile investment and competitive with Earth mining in the market.

[farmerben]

I see a conflict between land speculators on the one hand and squatters / claim jumpers on the other.  

Most of the time its reasonably easy to define artificial objects as property.  We will need some sort of international agreements about salvage of derelict craft.  But the real complexity comes in when you claim real estate, especially mining claims, and then leave the property unmanned and dormant.  Or the case of lunar ice on the south pole.  What do you do if somebody is mining the ice crater and others want to compete to mine the same deposit?

 

[AckSed]

It's said you should never generalise from fiction, but I think the Inner Sphere of the BattleTech universe is a pessimistic yet grounded take on space resources vs. space ownership. In short, once you settle it, it's yours... until either the people with bigger guns come to take over/raze it, or you're too inconsequential/too much of a faff to be taken over.

(Side note: it's definitely on the harder end of the SF scale, with no anti-grav. Further, finding out their form of fusion was impossibly efficient led to (slow) FTL jump drives and Heinlein-level fusion torch drives. Then everything else followed.)

[darthgently]

6 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Space isn't a country, it's... space. Like the ocean more or less, as AckSed pointed out.

Future economists, IMO, won't classify iron mined from an asteroid as "space iron" it will just be American iron or Chinese iron or whatever country's iron. Cool detail is that it comes from space, but that doesn't have much consequence in how a buyer would look at it.

Lots of caveats involved of course. Asteroid mining would somehow need to become cost effective enough to be both a worthwhile investment and competitive with Earth mining in the market.

Good thoughts.  I’m even thinking that American or Chinese is too broad.  It will be mostly private goods on the market as per norm

[darthgently]

Interesting concepts and comments

 

[AckSed]

Speaking of commercial space (should we have a general thread?), K2, they of the cheap and cheerful flat-pack sats, have done the vertical-integration thing and propose a 20kW satellite bus for defence and science for $15 million. Lockheed Martin's equivalent costs approx. $100 million and up: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/company-aims-to-build-larger-satellites-for-new-era-of-launch-abundance/

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Space isn't a country, it's... space. Like the ocean more or less, as AckSed pointed out.

Future economists, IMO, won't classify iron mined from an asteroid as "space iron" it will just be American iron or Chinese iron or whatever country's iron. Cool detail is that it comes from space, but that doesn't have much consequence in how a buyer would look at it.

Lots of caveats involved of course. Asteroid mining would somehow need to become cost effective enough to be both a worthwhile investment and competitive with Earth mining in the market.

Who is true on earth today because cheap transport costs, its not the case in space. That is unless you have multiple suppliers in an orbit. Depending on who orbits ending up getting most used. 
Think items produced in space will either be pretty simple items for use in space,  cheap solar panels is high end. Or expensive items getting  only simple molecules from space and to return to earth. 
Optical fibers, medical stuff and crystals for chip production. 

Asteroids has an benefit of low dV compared to the moon, downtime is long travel times back to earth. So I think the moon will win out in the start, 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

13 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

Asteroid mining would somehow need to become cost effective enough

Yep.

Spot price of iron ore is $101 usd/dry metric ton. 

Lead ~ 2k, copper 9k, and nickel ~ 15k/ton.

For space to be marketable / competitive we would either need severely constrained terrestrial supply or unbelievably cheap space transportation.  Literally they'd need to find that something like a metal rich asteroid is especially rich in something that we have difficulty finding / producing here with current tech. 

Even a craft as large as Starship that can boost 100 tons to space cannot land 100 tons 

Mining trucks carry 20-400 tons.  Each.  Rail cars are 100 tons each: multiple cars per train. 

Thus, you'd want to figure out how to process the ore and only bring... Concentrated ore or bar stock(?) (don't know what they sell semi finished / raw metals as) down to the surface... And even then I don't think it's cost effective. 

I'm thinking whatever we mine in space stays in space (off planet) unless it's something like easy sourced rhodium or palladium - and that will crash the price... 

FWIW rhodium is currently $4700 per ounce. 

Edited January 22 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[farmerben]

Platinum wiffle balls from space.

[StrandedonEarth]

For the less expensive metals, what if they were formed into a simple lifting body shape, add some rudimentary elevons, and glide it in for a rough landing in a desert or dry lake bed? Some would be lost to ablation, but it seems more palatable than a ballistic impact delivery. 

As for crashing the price of valuable metals, imagine what humankind could do if there was a large, cheap supply of a potent catalyst like platinum? Fuel cells might finally become cost-effective…

[Nuke]

On 1/18/2025 at 9:02 AM, darthgently said:

You are assuming that microbes could not evolve to withstand the radiation.  But they already have.  And the microbes we seed don’t have to start above ground or use photosynthesis.  They just have to free oxygen and increase atmospheric pressure over time.  
An artificial magnetic shield could be a megaproject to aid this process as required, but a thicker atmosphere would go a long way.  Still, I think the main value in your point is that a way to keep any new atmosphere from getting stripped away is crucial

i always figured a giant magnetic deflector station at the l1 lagrange point could do this. which would divert or slow down charged particles on non-mars-intersecting trajectories. another idea involves placing giant solenoids at the poles. the lagrange station makes a lot more sense. you would have considerable power from solar (unless you can power it from the charged particles directly). the station would be huge and you might as well have a habitable ring, an ag ring and an industrial hub. these facilities would take up a mere fraction of the station's mass.