What rare metals AREN'T in asteroids?

[King Arthur]

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...

You're confusing yourself. The reason lunar regolith (moon dust and whatnot), which is not toxic as far as I know, has very sharp edges that it "eats through spacesuits and boots" is because there are absolutely no mechanisms on the Moon that involve erosion. Erosion, brought on by various mechanisms such as water erosion, air erosion, etc. is what makes rocks, sand, and other materials here on Earth have rounder, shaved off edges compared to regolith.

[Nuke]

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.

idk, can you breathe vacuum?

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Insert quote from victory143 here

I thought that was thea, a protoplanet in a slightly higher/lower orbit then the earths, thus, not being a perfect 1:1 resonance, the 2 eventually collided, and gave us more mass, and the moon.

(Sorry for not being able to quote directly, slow forums for me )

[Diche Bach]

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.

Not a professional geologist, but here goes . . . when the Earth first formed, stuff separated like in a centrifuge. The heaviest stuff went lower. This means (evidently) that most of the Earth's gold, lead, iron and the like is actually in or near the core = completely inaccessible.

At least as far as gold goes, and apparently molybdenum too, the majority of what we have access to in the upper layers of the crust came from outer space objects impacting/landing on Earth after it was more or less fully formed.

Gold's atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher atomic number elements which occur naturally. Like all elements with atomic numbers larger than iron, gold is thought to have been formed from a supernova nucleosynthesis process,[citation needed] although a newer theory suggests they are made by the collision of neutron stars instead.[69] Either way, the resulting explosions scattered metal-containing dusts (including heavy elements like gold) into the region of space in which they later condensed into our solar system and the Earth.[70] Because the Earth was molten when it was just formed, almost all of the gold present on Earth sank into the core. Most of the gold that is present today in the Earth's crust and mantle was delivered to Earth by asteroid impacts during the late heavy bombardment.[71]

Again, not a geologist . . . but, I wouldn't be surprised if this held true for a wide range of the precious metals that we find valuable. With this in mind, the asteroids and planetoids of the solar system, which have never undergone volcanism and do not have an inaccessible crust could in some sense prove to be far more 'valuable' than a given Earthly mineral deposit - discounting of course the obstacles to getting to and from the asteroid and extracting the ore(s). It is my understanding that for most previous metals, tonnes of ore have to be extracted and processed to yield just a kilo or so of the more abundant minerals and mere grams of the more rare stuff. Thus, if any given asteroid is say 50% of useful stuff (probably a mixture as are most ores on Earth) it may be that they are incredibly 'rich' sources of metals.

[shand]

stuff separated like in a centrifuge. The heaviest stuff went lower.

Thats not how centrifuges work, its kinda the opposite. I think you'll find its a gravity density causation.

But yes, the main advantage of asteroids would be the lack of needing to drill through a planet and the deposits MAY be a lot purer.

Once we have a cheap launch vehicle (Skylon, looking at you), and mega efficent engines (nuke reactor based ones i imagine, for longetivity and generating power) we should be well away.

[Diche Bach]

Thats not how centrifuges work, its kinda the opposite. I think you'll find its a gravity density causation

True, a centrifuge is not producing 'gravity.' Mainly I meant the sedimentary force, which apparently works much the same way whether the attractive force is gravity, centrifugation, or magnetism; denser materials will settle farther through a fluid medium (like molten rock) and as a result, materials will tend to become stratified by density with the heaviest on bottom and graded toward least dense on top.

[shand]

Bang on Sir.

The important question is how cheap would launch have to be to make this a viable economic solution.

If we focus on the value that isnt just due to rarity, would skylon make it worthwhile bringing it back from orbit? what is valued at more than £650 a kg?

EDIT: in todays economic climate the 'idiums' are about the only things worth it.

That said you may be launching empty (or combining with satalite launches) which would reduce the cost of launching, so that might make silver worth getting.

All this is assuming that the materials magically appear in LEO and there are no maintaince costs to mining. so in other words, we are a long way off needing to.

Edited September 2, 2013 by shand

[thereaverofdarkness]

The most important stuff in asteroids is the platinum group metals, such as platinum, palladium, and iridium. Platinum group metals are special in that they are highly non-reactive (some moreso than gold), and conduct electricity extremely well. They are excellent for use in electronics, though there are plenty of other uses as well. Iridium in particular is special because it has absolutely no occurence on Earth except for relatively recent asteroid impacts, ie. within the past 1-2 billion years. When Earth formed, there wasn't any iridium in the Solar System.

Considering how valuable iridium is at current, it is definitely possible for a corporation to make a profit by mining it from asteroids. Of course the price will "crash". It will go from priceless to some extreme value much higher than platinum. The real value is dependent on how much you can convince anyone to pay for it. There is a limit to how much will be wanted by rich corporations, but the market will only very gradually saturate. Even if iridium were as abundant as iron it would still have a significant price as it is both difficult to work and has an extremely high number of industrial uses.

Edited September 2, 2013 by thereaverofdarkness

[Drunkrobot]

What is going to happen when some previously extremely useful, yet dastardly rare elements become ubiquitous? I'm not sure, but it's happened before.

Go back to Napoleonic France.

This Napoleon.

You could tell how well you were doing in life by what material you're cutlery was made of. The troops has utensils made of Tin, the richer members of French society had Silver and Gold. Guess what Napoleon had to impress visiting diplomats, to show off the vast resources at his command?

Aluminium

Remember, it's pronounced "Alumin-IUM".

This may sound very odd to you. After all, isn't 8% of the Earth's solid mass Aluminium? Well, you're right, it's just that in the early 19th century, we couldn't access the vast majority of it. It wasn't until later on that Electrolysing opened up Aluminium's potential.

The thing to remember is this-many of the current applications for Aluminium didn't occur to those at the time it was literally worth more than its weight in gold. Engineering freak he was, I doubt Napoleon imagined giant man-made birds made of Aluminium as he gave his son an Aluminium-Gold baby rattle. Today is the same. The useful and rare elements are going to get more useful and less rare as asteroid mining develops into a real-life part of humanity's economy. It's just that we don't know what those new uses will be.

Fictional secondary example: The MJOLNIR armour of FPS franchise Halo, made mostly of Titanium. Where was it developed and built? Why, the colony world of Reach, humanity's military capital, of course. Why yes, Reach IS incredibly rich in Titanium.

That is the goal of the space program, to connect the technological and industrial expertise of Earth with the vast resources of space. The creation of agriculture opened up a massive supply of food, and freed up people to, instead of hunting and gathering, begin the first civilisations.

Pictured: The day humanity conquered the world.

The Industrial Revolution made the pioneering nations rich enough to put aside money for social progress , birthing public education and healthcare.

They could've been a bit faster on the social progress, we'll admit, but hey, we're from the first county to industrialise, and we can expect to live longer than 30.

When we link the Moon and NEOs to our mastery of the elements (it's a question of "If", not "When". Progress can slow down or speed up, it can never stop.), every single living thing on this planet is going to benefit from it.

You know a field of science and technology is good for humankind when "harnessing the raw power of the Sun for our purposes" is a practical benefit.

So, yeah, I think asteroid mining is a good idea. It would be nice to have "too much" rather than "too little".

[lajoswinkler]

idk, can you breathe vacuum?

When Apollo astronauts were returning to their lunar modules, they would pressurize the cabin and remove their helmets. Apollo 11 astronauts didn't do much on the Moon, but later missions did. Apollo 17 team did the most. Three days. They were covered in regolith. They've messed up the whole cabin, so yes, they were breathing it in.

Not a professional geologist, but here goes . . . when the Earth first formed, stuff separated like in a centrifuge. The heaviest stuff went lower. This means (evidently) that most of the Earth's gold, lead, iron and the like is actually in or near the core = completely inaccessible.

At least as far as gold goes, and apparently molybdenum too, the majority of what we have access to in the upper layers of the crust came from outer space objects impacting/landing on Earth after it was more or less fully formed.

Again, not a geologist . . . but, I wouldn't be surprised if this held true for a wide range of the precious metals that we find valuable. With this in mind, the asteroids and planetoids of the solar system, which have never undergone volcanism and do not have an inaccessible crust could in some sense prove to be far more 'valuable' than a given Earthly mineral deposit - discounting of course the obstacles to getting to and from the asteroid and extracting the ore(s). It is my understanding that for most previous metals, tonnes of ore have to be extracted and processed to yield just a kilo or so of the more abundant minerals and mere grams of the more rare stuff. Thus, if any given asteroid is say 50% of useful stuff (probably a mixture as are most ores on Earth) it may be that they are incredibly 'rich' sources of metals.

While it's true that asteroids never experienced stratification (except Vesta and maybe few other huge ones) which means even their surfaces offer the same stuff as their insides, it also means nothing is concentrated. You would have everything, but you'd have to process lots of the material. That's a quite large problem.

The foundries would have to be in space, preferably on the asteroid itself. Powering them would be a nightmare. They would require vast surfaces of solar panels.

The most important stuff in asteroids is the platinum group metals, such as platinum, palladium, and iridium. Platinum group metals are special in that they are highly non-reactive (some moreso than gold), and conduct electricity extremely well. They are excellent for use in electronics, though there are plenty of other uses as well. Iridium in particular is special because it has absolutely no occurence on Earth except for relatively recent asteroid impacts, ie. within the past 1-2 billion years. When Earth formed, there wasn't any iridium in the Solar System.

Considering how valuable iridium is at current, it is definitely possible for a corporation to make a profit by mining it from asteroids. Of course the price will "crash". It will go from priceless to some extreme value much higher than platinum. The real value is dependent on how much you can convince anyone to pay for it. There is a limit to how much will be wanted by rich corporations, but the market will only very gradually saturate. Even if iridium were as abundant as iron it would still have a significant price as it is both difficult to work and has an extremely high number of industrial uses.

The main and most important usage for PGMs is catalysis, and that's why the whole mining would be very useful.

[NGTOne]

While it's true that asteroids never experienced stratification (except Vesta and maybe few other huge ones) which means even their surfaces offer the same stuff as their insides, it also means nothing is concentrated. You would have everything, but you'd have to process lots of the material. That's a quite large problem.

The foundries would have to be in space, preferably on the asteroid itself. Powering them would be a nightmare. They would require vast surfaces of solar panels.

Why is everyone so hung up on the solar panels? Past a certain minimum threshold, it's far more economical to construct a nuclear reactor on-orbit (and you get a whole load more power out of it, too). Then you ship it out to your space foundry. If something ever goes wrong with it, just fire up the SRBs, blow the decouplers, and watch it fly away into deep space, never to be seen again.

Clean energy, low-risk, and far more energy per mass unit (even far out in the Solar System, where solar panels stop being effective).

That's the future of space mining, I think - nuclear-powered. And space mining is definitely the future, especially as the radical green crowd complains more and more about mineral extraction back home on Earth. Eventually, I think, tighter environmental regulations will FORCE a lot of resource extraction and heavy industry into space, just to get away from the restrictive taxes and emissions regulations. But first, of course, we need a practical means of shipping equipment up there. You think any of the world's governments would be willing to pony up a few billion for a cargo-only mass driver?

[lajoswinkler]

Why is everyone so hung up on the solar panels? Past a certain minimum threshold, it's far more economical to construct a nuclear reactor on-orbit (and you get a whole load more power out of it, too). Then you ship it out to your space foundry. If something ever goes wrong with it, just fire up the SRBs, blow the decouplers, and watch it fly away into deep space, never to be seen again.

A

Clean energy, low-risk, and far more energy per mass unit (even far out in the Solar System, where solar panels stop being effective).

That's the future of space mining, I think - nuclear-powered. And space mining is definitely the future, especially as the radical green crowd complains more and more about mineral extraction back home on Earth. Eventually, I think, tighter environmental regulations will FORCE a lot of resource extraction and heavy industry into space, just to get away from the restrictive taxes and emissions regulations. But first, of course, we need a practical means of shipping equipment up there. You think any of the world's governments would be willing to pony up a few billion for a cargo-only mass driver?

I'm not hung on solar panels. Quite the contrary, but you don't seem to understand the amounts of energy we're talking about. How much power would those reactors have? 50 kW? 100 kW? It's very difficult to reach higher power because the only way of cooling is by radiation. Nuclear reactors require huge heat sinks so they're always built near lakes, rivers or seas.

Even with 500 kW (0.5 MW) you can do sh*t. Typical steel foundries require several thousands of kilowatts and I don't think it's much different for other metals with high melting points.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/manufacturing/resources/metalcasting/pdfs/umr22_fs.pdf

I don't know what are the requirements for lanthanide metals. They're made by electrolysis of molten salts, but I suspect the initial compound separation requires lots of energy because it's difficult to separate those very similar elements.

Anyway, you'd need a large array of nuclear reactors with very large radiators on an asteroid to deliver enough energy into the melting chambers. Somehow I think it would be easier and safer just to make lots and lots of solar panels, and when I say lots, I really mean it.

Maybe even a solar tower surrounded by mirrors, for direct usage of infrared radiation... if the asteroid rotates slowly enough.

I think asteroid mining is still a pipedream. I don't see it happening before we go to Mars.

Edited September 3, 2013 by lajoswinkler

[Nuke]

Bang on Sir.

The important question is how cheap would launch have to be to make this a viable economic solution.

If we focus on the value that isnt just due to rarity, would skylon make it worthwhile bringing it back from orbit? what is valued at more than £650 a kg?

EDIT: in todays economic climate the 'idiums' are about the only things worth it.

That said you may be launching empty (or combining with satalite launches) which would reduce the cost of launching, so that might make silver worth getting.

All this is assuming that the materials magically appear in LEO and there are no maintaince costs to mining. so in other words, we are a long way off needing to.

650 a kg is for launch. i have a feeling returning goods will be much much cheaper than launching mining hardware. even with conventional launchers you just need to launch the mining hardware, and some re-entry capable containers (which may very well be manufactured in space). so if you launch 100 tons of hardware and with it you return a 10000 tons of goods, its easy to see how 'roid mining can be profitable. but the operations are going to need to be huge, space infrastructure building huge, to really be profitable and could very well result in a manned ceres base. but were talking really high mass invested to mass returned ratios.

[Zaeo]

Why is everyone so hung up on returning it?

The idea is to use the resources in space for space missions. Returning is a waste of fuel, and could potentially mean some nasty things...*increased gravity over the span of 100 years due to the asteroid mining kicking off and becoming corporate...and possibly more problems in a 3 million year cycle.*

Yes, processing the asteroids is difficult, And that's really the only thing stopping us aside from Budget.

Once we come up with a way to generate the heat needed to create a foundry on the asteroid, The only barrier is mastery of null-G Construction.

[magnemoe]

Why is everyone so hung up on returning it?

The idea is to use the resources in space for space missions. Returning is a waste of fuel, and could potentially mean some nasty things...*increased gravity over the span of 100 years due to the asteroid mining kicking off and becoming corporate...and possibly more problems in a 3 million year cycle.*

Yes, processing the asteroids is difficult, And that's really the only thing stopping us aside from Budget.

Once we come up with a way to generate the heat needed to create a foundry on the asteroid, The only barrier is mastery of null-G Construction.

Initial mining will be for resources to use in space, fuel is most obvious, metals for structure would be next, probably other stuff as in anything who can be extracted and used without heavy equipment or large factories.

Then we start going after expensive minerals while still doing the materials for space uses.

And dropping so much stuff it increase gravity would not be an issue, even if you deorbited the moon the gravity on earth would not change much however you would notice in other ways

[Nibb31]

Why is everyone so hung up on returning it?

The idea is to use the resources in space for space missions. Returning is a waste of fuel, and could potentially mean some nasty things...*increased gravity over the span of 100 years due to the asteroid mining kicking off and becoming corporate...and possibly more problems in a 3 million year cycle.*

Yes, processing the asteroids is difficult, And that's really the only thing stopping us aside from Budget.

Once we come up with a way to generate the heat needed to create a foundry on the asteroid, The only barrier is mastery of null-G Construction.

Ok, so the only thing stopping us is technical difficulty, budget, heat, and mastery of null-g construction... What are we waiting for?

[Aghanim]

If either of this was true..

1. Polywell reactor (easy fusion reactor)

2. Woodward effect (reactionless drive)

[falofonos]

Technical difficulty : solved by application of imaginative human brains, no obstacle.

Heat is available in infinite amounts in space to anyone with a mirror, the main problem is getting rid of the heat from your melted samples.

Mastery of null G construction takes a little forethought, planning and experience. Not really an obstacle.

The unfortunate truth is that almost everything required in the construction and running of an asteroid mining facility can be achieved by remote operated robot. No reason to send monkeys into space to tighten screws or enjoy the view.

The only real barrier to asteroid mining is cost of getting the infrastructure set up. The profit cycle for this kind of venture is way too long for anyone aside from true believers to invest in it at the moment.

[Nibb31]

I was joking about Zaeo's post, because he was pretty much handwaving away the real roadblocks for commercial space exploitation. And technical difficulty is not always solved by human brains. Some problems remain unsolved, some might be solved in the future, some might turn out to be unsolvable or just impractical.

The real issues are physics and economical feasibility. It takes huge amounts of energy to accelerate a single ton of equipment to beyond 24000km/h. It also takes a lot of energy to bring any mined materials back or to transform them into something useful. Energy is never going to be free, so the means of producing that energy are going to be expensive and require massive investments.

Massive investments can only come up if there is a planned ROI. There currently simply is no business case for mining asteroids. There isn't a single industry that would benefit from it. There isn't a single mineral that we couldn't extract from Earth for much cheaper than venturing into BEO space. Asteroid mining is only space enthusiasts grasping at straws to find a purpose for space exploration. It's a solution looking for a problem.

[NGTOne]

It's a solution looking for a problem.

Personally, I'm of the view that it's a "necessary first step" - i.e. a loss leader for the profitable commercial exploitation of space. I do believe that there are some industries today that would benefit from access to space (for instance, the semiconductor industry - space is the ultimate cleanroom, and I'd wager that 0G has other benefits for microchip manufacture as well). Space industry needs a jump-start, like many fields have - television, the Internet, and a lot of other areas that we consider vital to our everyday lives likely would never have taken off without someone willing to lose a bit of money on them in the beginning (with those two, the government - paying for development of the Internet and public TV programming back in the day).

[SargeRho]

It isn't a solution looking for a problem. You said it yourself, it's very expensive to move stuff to space and to earth escape velocity. Most of that mass is always fuel. So don't carry all your fuel from the surface, instead build a depot in orbit, and fly there, pick up the fuel for the trip, and head off then. The equipment to extract hydrogen out of an asteroid or the moon can be origami'd to quite a small size I think, making it feasible to send it off on a single rocket, such as the Delta 4, Ariane 5 or perhaps a Falcon Heavy. Fuel will probably be the main ressource asteroid mining will provide at the beginning.

But when access to space beyond LEO becomes cheaper, it becomes more feasible to do stuff there comercially. Most asteroid ressources will be used in space anyway, not on Earth. Exept Helium 3 perhaps, but it's probably more practical to get that from the Moon.

[-Velocity-]

There isn't a single mineral that we couldn't extract from Earth for much cheaper than venturing into BEO space. Asteroid mining is only space enthusiasts grasping at straws to find a purpose for space exploration.

At this stage of technology, maybe. But eventually, advances in AI and space construction techniques should lead to self-sustained space mining operations, with no need to launch ANYTHING from the surface of Earth. These two areas of technology are VERY FAR from being mature, and they are both seeing continuous advancements, so it's an almost certain bet we can and will develop them a lot more in the future.

We ARE running short on the rare-earth elements we need in our electronics and magnetics industries. China has a virtual monopoly on many of them right now. Also, consider the environmental destruction that many types of mining cause. True, we might be able to get some of the minerals out of the ground for cheaper, but at what cost to the environment? The more we mine out a certain resource, the more expensive and environmentally destructive mining that resource becomes.

So eventually, it seems unavoidable that we will start mining asteroids, unless civilization collapses before we achieve the necessary technologies. And if civilization DOES collapse, it will probably just rise again, humans are now the most adaptable organism on the planet and thus one of the least likely to go totally extinct. The second time around, we would hopefully learn from our previous mistakes and make a more lasting civilization.

Edited September 12, 2013 by |Velocity|

[Kryten]

China doesn't have a monopoly on rare earths because other countries ran out; it has a monopoly for reasons of cost, mostly due to economies of scale. There are plenty of deposits elsewhere that have been considered economically viable to mine in the past, and it won't take major changes in price or cost of extraction to make them so again.