What rare metals AREN'T in asteroids?

[ajshell1]

The title says it all.

I'm planning for a price crash in valuable metals if we ever start mining asteroids.

[King Arthur]

The price tag for any extraterrestrial materials being sold here on Earth will at least involve the total cost of launch vehicles, propellants, hardware (maybe reusable?), and so forth.

A price crash? The only thing that's crashing is the asteroid mining market itself since nobody will buy unless:

A. Absolutely no more of the stuff are left on Earth, or

B. Cost for launches and space hardware is significantly (as in several magnitudes) reduced.

[ajshell1]

Okay then. Thanks for the info.

But, just for the sake of maintaining the thread, suppose we do accomplish "B" somehow.

[Kryten]

Given the earth is ultimately the product of millions of merging asteroids, there's nothing here that isn't in them apart from artificial isotopes.

[Zaeo]

The exception to this is that Asteroids are more abundant in rare earth metals, such as Iron, Platinum, and many many others, but only in terms of accessability. The materials are here on earth, but are far beyond our means to harvest. Take for example, Iron. our core is a large chunk of both solid and molten iron, as well as diamonds the size of small continents, and many many other materials, completely inaccessable unless we blow a large chunk out of our planet.

So while, yes, the materials are here, they are barred from being utilized for consumption.

Perhaps the most valuable asset that asteroids hold is Water, believe it or not. This is true because of two reasons, One, the obvious one: Water for earth, and two, Water for exploration vessels.

If we had cheap access to space, we most certainly WOULD mine asteroids. the problem is getting the stuff into space to actually mine it.

[pxi]

I have the feeling I am missing something, but it's news to me that Iron is considered a rare metal. I know the core is where most of it is, but I was still under the impression that it was still reasonably plentiful in the upper crust as well.

As for water, well it is true that there is a looming water shortage in terms of potable water, but there is plenty of water on Earth for our needs. Any water ice on asteroids is going to have at least as many contaminants as sea water, and distillation of sea water on Earth seems like a much simpler solution to me. Again if I'm missing something, do point it out.

I've a feeling that if we ever do look seriously at colonizing the solar system, the asteroid belt would make a good candidate though.

[Zaeo]

Iron is rare-er than one might think.

It is abundant in earth's crust for one reason: the moon. Without that collision, Iron would be very sparse like other minerals are. That being said, take a look for iron. It really isn't that abundant.*look for rust color in rocks*

We have a large amount of it because of mining projects like this:

As for water, What I am referring to is fresh water. Sure, earth has a massive supply of water, but it is almost completely unsuitable for drinking. For space missions, water found on asteroids is priceless, as it does not require much fuel to obtain it, rather than launching a supply vehicle for any shortages that may occur in space. Take for example a moon colony. are you going to take a supply run from earth, or one from an asteroid field? Water ice on asteroids is *to my knowledge* completely sterile, so no bacteria, requires FAR less fuel to obtain, and is relatively abundant.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Zaeo

[NGTOne]

The water in the 'roids would be useful as a source of spacecraft propellant - it could be processed into LOX and LH, removing the need to launch fuel from Earth and paving the way for larger-scale exploration (and exploitation) of the Solar System.

The main advantage of mining the asteroids is that they possess most of the materials required for spacecraft production - you could use them to fuel your orbital shipyards, and save on launching the raw materials (which are bulky and heavy) from Earth. Same goes for the Moon, for that matter. Lots of raw materials to be had on the Moon, or so I'm told.

[pxi]

Yeah I did a bit of rtfm on the subject, and Iron does seem to be a bit rarer than I first thought. The naive 'check wikipedia' answer tells us that iron is the fourth most abundant element in the upper crust. You'd think that's a lot, but of course the purity of the iron is important too. In fact I came across one claim to the effect that we could actually run out of workable iron deposits in as little as 64 years, which I have to say did suprise me.

On the other hand, consider the table you will find on page 8 of the ICMM Trends in the mining and metals industry October 2012 Report - www.icmm.com/document/4441

Page 8, Table 2 lists values for various metals produced in 2011, I'll summarize the total world production values here (tonnes):

Tantalum - 790

Tin - 354,000

Gold - 2,724

Tungsten - 72,000

Iron ore - 1,993,000,000

Lead - 4,670,000

Zinc - 12,964,000

Copper - 16,035,000

On the face of it, iron would still seem to me to be the last one in that list that you would consider rare.

And on the subject of water, by potable water, again I too was referring to fresh water. But I somehow doubt that the ice found in asteroids or comets is drinkable off the bat, you'd have to purify it just as you would seawater, probably more I would assume. To the best of my knowledge it is mixed with a bunch of other stuff - most sources make reference to 'volotiles', of which ice is a scignifigant constituant, I'm not sure what the rest is, and I would love to be corrected on this point.

Of course all this is moot when we are talking about doing stuff in space. The stuff that's up there out of earth's gravity well wins hands down.

Edited August 30, 2013 by pxi

[Nuke]

id like to think that asteroid mining will actually pick up as the number of people living in space increases. resources mined in space will feed an economy and provide growth for human space colonization. water found in space would make excellent propellant without being separated (filtered and distilled maybe). things like met thrusters will be able to use it directly and give nerva-ish isp (not sure about thrust) with existing power systems. of course the thing i would mine in space is radioactive materials.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Nuke

[shand]

on a small note: from memory skylon is looking to reduce payload costs to around £200 per kilo - well down from the current *from memory* £1,800 or was it £18,000. hmmm i cant remember.

But point is - we could be able to see cheap transport of goods to LEO, which would really really help!

[Nuke]

it would be much easier to send goods back to earth than it would be to launch new mining ships. so for a space mining and refining system to be economically viable (skylon or not) it needs to be mostly reusable. i dont really think a single do-everything ship would work very well for multi-asteroid missions, since every time an asteroid was consumed you would need to move the whole ship and all its goods to a new asteroid after you have completed mining operations (though it might be feasible for big rock mining). instead you would have permanent stations and bases, support, survey and transfer craft. the system would include refinery stations or surface bases (on ceres and other large asteroids, where some gravity is preferable for the production of a specific good), since this is the heavy part of the mining system, needing entire factories, reactors, fuel storage, and launch bays/complexes, habitation if manned. having more than one at different phases in an otherwise similar orbit might make things more efficient. you can just ship ore to the nearest one to help trim your delta-v budgets. sending unrefined ore back to earth is wasteful so its better to keep the ore hauling to very short runs. these would be large heavy installations that do bulk processing of ore and creation of shippable products. pseudo-reusable light survey vessels would scan multiple asteroids to find valuable deposits, they would be cheap, small, light, and could be serviced/refueled, but its not a huge setback to loose one, and they would become unnecessary as you build a catalog of high value 'roids. id like to think it would be some kind of cubesat type thing, where many could be carried on other ships in the system and one can be launched whenever the need/opportunity arises. you need reusable short range ore haulers. their job is to go get a load of ore and take it to the nearest (delta-v wise) refinery station. ore hauling is going to be the least efficient part of the process, so high efficiency engines and large propellant tanks would be needed. mining stations stay at an asteroid until it is mined out, they bust up the asteroids into manageable pieces and load ore haulers. these would be reusable, so would just be transported to the next asteroid (probibly with an ore hauler). they will probibly grapple directly to the more solid asteroids, or would station keep near a rubble pile. equipped with cutting lasers, robotic arms and the like. would also have minimal refining capabilities mostly for generating usable fuel for operations (and refueling ore haulers). these are much smaller than the refinery bases. the last component is a long range cargo delivery ship. similar to ore haulers but designed for long haul operations. they take products from the bases to the consumers, wherever they may be. these might be disposable. i imagine a cargo container with an engine/tankage/navigation pod docked to it. the pod might be reusable or just a one shot system based on need. containers would be somewhat reusable, some might be re-entry capable, others might be rigged for moon landing, and so on. another idea for containers is using a ceres-based mass driver to fling them on flyby trajectories and have an intercept ship retrieve them at their destination. all this stuff would need to be self supporting, meaning that everything needed for mining operations would be produced on site. even consumable bits like containers, booster pods, and survey sats. and while some of the components could be manned, many of them would be better off being robotic. like the ore haulers and the cargo ships, which just need to move stuff around. mining stations would be manned with a few technicians for when things go wrong, but would be primarily robotic. as for your refinery bases/stations, thats your basis for colonization. i think that all resources mined in space should be used to increase our foothold in space, rather than be shipped back to earth. e: dont know whats wrong with this thing, it keeps deleting my paragraphs

Edited August 31, 2013 by Nuke
idk where all my paragraphs went

[Anton P. Nym]

As for water, What I am referring to is fresh water. Sure, earth has a massive supply of water, but it is almost completely unsuitable for drinking.

Yes, fresh water is much less common than salt water; however we won't ever be importing comets or asteroids to make up the difference. With the energies involved in hauling bulk material out of solar orbit and landing it here, it takes far less energy (and is thus cheaper and less wasteful) to desalinate sea water.

For space missions, water found on asteroids is priceless, as it does not require much fuel to obtain it, rather than launching a supply vehicle for any shortages that may occur in space. Take for example a moon colony. are you going to take a supply run from earth, or one from an asteroid field?

I'd take it from the Moon's own water-bearing resources; again energetically it makes more sense. The great impediment to asteroid mining is the energy required to supply the delta-V needed to move materials. All other factors end up secondary considerations when compared to the energy cost of just moving stuff between vastly disparate orbits.

-- Steve

[victory143]

Well, apparently all our molybdenum, which is used in thermal panels on space craft, came from a Martian asteroid. Because of this I think if we are to expand in the solar system to gather resources cost-effectively, we need to start mining Mars or at least think of it as a realistic competitor for what and where to colonise. No molybdenum, no expansion.

Edited September 1, 2013 by victory143
correction

[Kryten]

Considering molybdenum production is about 200,000 tons a year, that must have been one big asteroid. Also seems rather impressive how this one asteroid managed to plant large amounts across multiple continents.

[ZedNova]

Unobtainium.

[Morrigi]

Considering molybdenum production is about 200,000 tons a year, that must have been one big asteroid. Also seems rather impressive how this one asteroid managed to plant large amounts across multiple continents.

That's what happens when gigantic rocks hit planets. Bits and pieces go everywhere.

[Vaebn]

Anyway. The answer, which I give very intuitively, is none. Minus radioactive elements whose half life has caused them to decay ever since the initial creation of all heavy elements.

Said heavy elements were created in a nova (or novas?), which in turn seeded/were part of the hydrogen cloud that made the solar system.

So if you can find it on earth, you can find it in asteroids too. It was the same cloud everywhere!

The only reason planets seem to be "poor" in them, is because during planet formation most of the heavier stuff settled within, like a sexy planet sized layered cocktail.

[Benzschwagel]

I would think that colonizing the moon with an outpost / "stepping stone" would be more appropriate with Mars as the target. get stuff to the moon, it's a somewhat stationary point in space, you can launch from there much easier than from earth, and then there's the helium3 fuel that permeates the moon. You would just have to find a way to deal with the toxicity of the moon dust, apparently it's so sharp it eats through spacesuits and boots. but it could be a distribution hub until you got mars up and running. My point would be that it is very close to earth, has a fairly small gravity well as compared to earth, it would be a good stopping point to do checks of things, offload/reload passengers, kind of a shuttle stop. But, when they said they were going to scrub the moon base idea for a mars base instead, they must have had a good reason, maybe the toxic dust posed more of a danger than we realized...

[victory143]

So, how did Neil Armstrong survive on the Moon when he got out of the Lunar Lander?

[victory143]

Well this Asteroid COULD Have been the 'Missing Planet' Eros. Which had a Elliptical (correct me if I'm wrong) orbit around Mars and eventually collided with Earth: that's why we have the Moon

[Morrigi]

Technically speaking, Moon dust is not chemically toxic or corrosive. However, the tiny size of the quartz particles can cause silicosis and gets all over everything. Because quartz dust is particularly sharp, white blood cells would kill themselves attempting to surround and neutralize it and it is practically impossible to remove from the lungs.

That said, it's just dust. With proper filtration and cleaning systems, I doubt it would be a critical issue, though dust storms have caused problems with solar panels in the past. When this happens on a manned mission, I'm sure NASA will be able to develop some kind of Advanced Dust Removal System utilizing some fancy-ass magnetic field. Or, you know, someone could bring a broom outside.

[lajoswinkler]

Almost every metal is just about everywhere, on every planet, star... Quantities are different, and in most cases the elements aren't dispersed equally in one body. Most of uranium on Earth is in the core, where it contributes to heating.

Don't expect huge surprises with asteroids. They should be a lot more homogeneous because they've never experienced melting on a large scale.

[Kryten]

Your guess is as good as ours. He should have dropped dead shortly after taking his first few heady lungfuls of the rich lunar air...

Edited September 1, 2013 by Kryten

[lajoswinkler]

Inhaling large quantities of any dust, including regolith, would lead to spasm of the larynx. Something like that notorious cinnamon challenge.

Nobody would be dead shortly. It takes a long time until problems would arise. Something like asbestosis, I guess.