Which place on the surface of Mars will most likely landing spot for a manned mission

[Nibb31]

What makes you believe that asteroid mining or any other of those hypothetical industrial space applications would require a manned presence?

[Mazon Del]

I'm curious how PR and similar enterprises are going to bring mined resources back to Earth. It's hard to find info on this, but the Shuttle could return maybe 20 tons of cargo from orbit, and I suspect it had the most capability of any spacecraft ever launched. (AFAIK, currently there are only 2 operating spacecraft that can return cargo from space: Dragon and Soyuz.) 20 tons of iron is about 2.5 cubic meters, which is about 0.00009% of total current world production of iron ore, and would be worth about US$2000. It's hard to imagine how it could be profitable, unless we're talking an industrial-scale operation. Total global rare earth production is, at present, at about 100,000 tons. To match that you'd need thousands of launches per year. In 2013, there were a total of 81 attempted rocket launches to space worldwide (including 3 which failed). In the 1970's (the decade with the most rocket launches of all time), there averaged about 123 launches per year.

Well the problem with your math there, is that it is making the assumption that they plan to have the cargo reenter inside of a standard spacecraft such as the shuttle or Dragon. With the materials they have up there, all they really need to do is build something like an iron shell, shaped in likely the shape the Soyuz re-entry capsule is shaped, with a core of the materials in question that they like, strap on a simple guidance package with a few small rocket motors and fins (for a bit later in the atmosphere) and just slam it down into the ground somewhere far away from anything useful, like the desert, or a particularly shallow point on the ocean. Sure you will lose a good bit of the iron due to re-entry effects, but who cares? It's simple iron. you just dropped 500 tons of Neodymium or whatever. Now, obviously there is the question of how big can you get before the...landing...causes you problems too large to deal with cheaply.

As far as why I believe that asteroid mining, refining, assembly plants, etc would require a manned presence? Simply because humans don't trust machines, they ESPECIALLY do not trust multi billion dollar machines to do things by themselves if they can help it (note, NASA has no choice for their probes, a near Earth Orbit asteroid mine on the other hand has a choice). And they SUPER ESPECIALLY do not trust machines to appropriately target a 500 ton meteor without a human in the loop at the launch facility.

A point that was brought up earlier is that eventually robots will be self repairing. As a roboticist I can agree that eventually you will have robots capable of performing repairs on other robots. However, for the next 20-30 years plus robots are only particularly likely to be capable of autonomous maintenance. IE: Removing a slightly damaged panel to replace it with a new one. And would be less capable of dealing with a situation where the way you remove that panel is by removing the three nearby panels, cutting the section of the framework that was impact welded to the panel when the 'incident' occured, then replacing all of the above. Robots are good with well defined repeatable tasks, they are not particularly good with unknowns or coming up with solutions on the fly. We are working on that, but if it cost you say 1 billion dollars annually to have a human on site to direct the robots at your 60 billion dollar facility that generates 30 billion annually, would you prefer that to the possibility that the facility will be unable to repair itself, or accidentally takes incorrect actions? What reason can you give me that perfectly guarentees to the investors that your robot will ALWAYS be able to keep the system in operating condition? Historical data would be nice, but how are you going to get historical data on the first one? You won't. You will only have simulations, and trust me when I say that simulation data won't get very far when it comes to guarantees to investors. Having a human on board is great. Highly versatile, ideally capable of performing any repair including ones unimaginable to the designers, able to improvise and improve the station as it operates, motivated to keep everything in working order (to not die, and also is probably being paid a truly obscene amount of money), smarter than the robots (for now anyway), etc.

There just isn't any really good reason to not have humans on the stations just yet. We haven't demonstrated the robotic capabilities that would be necessary for such things, but more is the fact that people who are invested at the point of billions of dollars are not going to be happy if they find out that the only thing between them and bankruptcy is the chance that a brand new untested system in one of the most hostile environments known to man, will be able to take care of every problem it might run into.

Curiosity's much vaunted navigation program doesn't do everything, in fact quite frequently it comes to the conclusion that it needs to stop all movement and ask for help from Earth. Those coordinates it is given are more like a road map of instructions rather than a destination point. IE: They don't just say, "Climb mount sharp!" they plop them down every couple hundred feet or so. The navigation program has some very simple rules it follows and if the conditions are perfect, then it will take independant action (IE: drive around a boulder), otherwise it defaults to "HELP ME!!!!!" mode. Why? Because not even NASA trusts it to make decisions that could put it at risk.

[Nibb31]

Well the problem with your math there, is that it is making the assumption that they plan to have the cargo reenter inside of a standard spacecraft such as the shuttle or Dragon. With the materials they have up there, all they really need to do is build something like an iron shell, shaped in likely the shape the Soyuz re-entry capsule is shaped, with a core of the materials in question that they like, strap on a simple guidance package with a few small rocket motors and fins (for a bit later in the atmosphere) and just slam it down into the ground somewhere far away from anything useful, like the desert, or a particularly shallow point on the ocean. Sure you will lose a good bit of the iron due to re-entry effects, but who cares? It's simple iron. you just dropped 500 tons of Neodymium or whatever. Now, obviously there is the question of how big can you get before the...landing...causes you problems too large to deal with cheaply.

Asteroid mining is another one of those far-fetched justifications for spaceflight. There is nothing in our solar system's asteroids that isn't already available on Earth. Why? Because our Earth was formed by those same asteroids. If you are planning to use the stuff on Earth, then it will always be cheaper to get it from Earth. Extracting the small concentrations of platinum or gold from seawater would be cheaper than bringing it back from asteroids.

And your method still requires non-invented technology like orbital furnaces and ore extraction and processing facilities and some low-cost propulsion system to deorbit 500 ton lumps of metal.

None of the companies that you mentioned are anywhere near having a viable business model, let alone the technology to pull off asteroid mining. They are venture capital funded outfits and their founders move on to other activities when it becomes apparent that they are vaporware and the VC money runs dry. It's common practice in the so-called "new space" sector.

As far as why I believe that asteroid mining, refining, assembly plants, etc would require a manned presence? Simply because humans don't trust machines, they ESPECIALLY do not trust multi billion dollar machines to do things by themselves if they can help it (note, NASA has no choice for their probes, a near Earth Orbit asteroid mine on the other hand has a choice). And they SUPER ESPECIALLY do not trust machines to appropriately target a 500 ton meteor without a human in the loop at the launch facility.

Industry, transport, energy, telecom, military or health services already trust machines every day, for far more life-threatening stuff than this.

Working in space is nothing like working on Earth. Adding human rating to an orbital mining factory adds a huge amount of complexity and extra weight. You need to add life support, habitation, EVA facilities, supplies, docking facilities, workshops, tools, equipment, spares... Why would a business do that if they could simply use a teleoperated RMS with something like Robonaut on the end for a fraction of the cost, complexity, risk, and mass? With a high-speed communication loop and VR controls, there would be zero difference compared to actually sending someone up there to do the work. Surgeons already use teleoperated robotics with haptic feedback and VR displays for remote operations over the internet or to perform micro-surgery.

There might be a slight lag, but nothing unsolvable, and it would be orders of magnitude cheaper than sending people up there to do the work.

It's a no brainer. There will never be space miners or space cowboys. Space is not the Wild West.

Edited August 29, 2014 by Nibb31

[rtxoff]

Never say never.

[PakledHostage]

Never say never.

You just did. Twice.

[rtxoff]

Something i found:

Asteroid mining will open a trillion-dollar industry and provide a near infinite supply of metals and water to support our growth both on this planet and off. (infographics)

http://imgur.com/a/6Hzl8

[Superluminaut]

Again, it's not about the numbers. It's not about speed or distance or the quantity of rocks it can bring back. It's about the scientific return on investment and the quality of the data.

Actually quantity and speed is very important in science.

You want multiple samples, not a huge amount cause you can prove anything with that. However you want statistical power. Science is all about reproducibility.

Speed is important for the process of experimenting. It's rare for an investigate to envision the perfect experiment for a hypothesis. Usually it is a trial and error process until a good methodology is found. Technicians on the ground can do this.

However there is a problem with this. It requires a complete lab, fully stocked for the duration of activity.

This can also be a blessing though. Science equipment production is basically stagnant. Most labs are filled with equipment 50-15 years old. Unless its a newly developed technique, ancient crap gets used. Given the current science funding crisis, the whole world is crying out for cheap, reliable, and if possible space and power efficient equipment. It's a demand not supplied, begging for some entrepreneur to utilize government funding to develop this stuff.

[Nibb31]

Actually quantity and speed is very important in science.

You want multiple samples, not a huge amount cause you can prove anything with that. However you want statistical power. Science is all about reproducibility.

Speed is important for the process of experimenting. It's rare for an investigate to envision the perfect experiment for a hypothesis. Usually it is a trial and error process until a good methodology is found. Technicians on the ground can do this.

You fail to explain why speed is important and how it is related to trial and error. Speed is only important if you have limited time, which is true when you have humans that rely on limited supplies. Robots have all the time in the world. They can spend 10 years analyzing a single rock if necessary. There is no hurry.

As for diversity of samples, dozens of robots picking up hundreds of 1mg samples from different locations on the globe provides better statistical value that a human picking up 1kg rocks in a 10km radius around his base.

However there is a problem with this. It requires a complete lab, fully stocked for the duration of activity.

This can also be a blessing though. Science equipment production is basically stagnant. Most labs are filled with equipment 50-15 years old. Unless its a newly developed technique, ancient crap gets used. Given the current science funding crisis, the whole world is crying out for cheap, reliable, and if possible space and power efficient equipment. It's a demand not supplied, begging for some entrepreneur to utilize government funding to develop this stuff.

Completely irrelevant. Given the cost, you would only send state of the art equipment on such an important mission, whether it's teleoperated or manned. Not sure what your point is...

[Nibb31]

http://imgur.com/a/6Hzl8

And from what source is that claim ?

Unsurprisingly, Planetary Resources. A company that is solely based on hype and powerpoints and has none of the technology needed to achieve their claimed goal. Their business model is to produce infographics to raise money to pay the founder while he can produce more infographics to raise more money. All the Powerpoint slides in the world won't create an "trillion dollar industry". They have no idea how to technically proceed with asteroid mining, let alone how to do it cost-effectively. They have zero technical achievements. They have no idea of the technology that they're going to use, and therefore no idea of the costs involved, and therefore no idea how to make money out of it. And even if they did have the tech, there is simply no market for space-mined resources.

Believe me, PR looks more like snake oil than a "modern gold rush".

Edited September 1, 2014 by Nibb31

[Seret]

Have to say I agree 100% with Nibb31. Don't believe the hype. They're looking to relieve investors of their money, of course they're going to make things look rosy. Whether there really is a buck to be made remains to be proven, let alone a trillion of them.

[rtxoff]

It's a simple calculation, the price of Platinum is something like 45000USD/kg. Return a ton of it to Earth and you are selling it for something like 45.000.000 USD right now. Of course it is very expensive to build up the infrastructure for it right now. But if anyone is able do pull it off that one would make a lot of cash afterwards. The technology is not here at the moment but i have no doubt that it will be possible at some point in the future. Saying something will never be possible is like staying in medieval time without believing in progress. I can't do that even if some will say it's not possible because of scientific reasons. Science already proofed many times wrong in the long history of humans, only a few people brought innovation which at first where treated as lunatics and fools. I rather believe in a lunatic if he promises progress then in someone working strictly by the book staying forever in the stone age. Also it's not forbidden for a company to look for investors, nobody is forced to give them money and everybody must know for theirselves if it is worth.

[Nibb31]

It's a simple calculation, the price of Platinum is something like 45000USD/kg. Return a ton of it to Earth and you are selling it for something like 45.000.000 USD right now.

You are only selling it if you have people buying it. The biggest current demand for platinum is jewellery and catalytic converters for the automobile industry. By the time we are capable of mining asteroids to get the stuff, we will either have moved on from using oil as our major power-source, or sufficated to death or blown ourselves to smithereens fighting for it, so the need for platinum as a catalyst will have withered. As for jewellery, the value comes from rarity and the volumes are ridiculously low. If you dump tons of it on the market, there goes the attractiveness of platinum jewellery, and you probably wouldn't have demand for tons of it in the first place anyway.

Of course it is very expensive to build up the infrastructure for it right now. But if anyone is able do pull it off that one would make a lot of cash afterwards. The technology is not here at the moment but i have no doubt that it will be possible at some point in the future.

There is also platinum in sea water. It's too expensive and not practical to extract it from there, but it will always be much cheaper than the sheer amount of energy needed locate an asteroid, send up all the heavy mining equipment, and bring the minerals back to Earth. Plus all the R&D to actually develop the technology for all that.

Saying something will never be possible is like staying in medieval time without believing in progress. I can't do that even if some will say it's not possible because of scientific reasons. Science already proofed many times wrong in the long history of humans, only a few people brought innovation which at first where treated as lunatics and fools. I rather believe in a lunatic if he promises progress then in someone working strictly by the book staying forever in the stone age.

And there is an even larger number of people who were treated as lunatics and fools who were actual lunatics and fools. In the vast majority of cases, when someone has a stupid idea, it really is stupid. People telling you that you're wrong is rarely a guarantee that you're right. Most of the time, you are wrong.

I didn't say that asteroid mining will never happen. It might happen one day as cost-effective alternative if ever need to start building stuff in space. It will come after we find a way to actually find a lucrative way to use space, and after we develop the technologies to actually transform any mined resources into something useful. We are nowhere near that stage, and we won't be there before at least 50 years, if ever.

What I did say was that if it does happen one day, it will not involve large amounts of space workers. In order to be cost-effective, it will have to be a highly automated activity that will minimize any manned presence. There will be no space miners or space cowboys, because space is not the Wild West and reality isn't science fiction.

Also it's not forbidden for a company to look for investors, nobody is forced to give them money and everybody must know for theirselves if it is worth.

What was that PT Barnum quote again ?

Nibb's Free Financial Tip Of The Day: "Never take commercial powerpoints at face value".

Edited September 1, 2014 by Nibb31

[Seret]

It's a simple calculation, the price of Platinum is something like 45000USD/kg. Return a ton of it to Earth and you are selling it for something like 45.000.000 USD right now.

As a business plan that's so vague that it's essentially this:

No one disputes that there are large dollar values of minerals sitting around in space. It doesn't simply follow from there that it would be profitable to mine those minerals right now. After all, there are plenty of mineral deposits here on Earth that are uneconomical to extract, and that's with costs that are much, much, much lower.

If they can make it work, then good luck to them. They'll make lots of money. Sometimes it takes a crazy idea to break new ground. But most of the time those crazy ideas just eat a lot of investors' money. I'm told VCs count themselves lucky if more than one in ten new businesses they back make any money.

[rtxoff]

I agree with the 2 last posts. I guess there's nothing more to add or discuss about here.

[Seret]

I dunno, maybe someone could do something crazy like make an on-topic post?

[Superluminaut]

You fail to explain why speed is important and how it is related to trial and error. Speed is only important if you have limited time, which is true when you have humans that rely on limited supplies. Robots have all the time in the world. They can spend 10 years analyzing a single rock if necessary. There is no hurry.

I think you misunderstand the problem. The robot isn't actually doing the science, it is done by investigators competing for missions, time, priority, and funding. The Curiosity situation is, that it is a small, limited, and very slow laboratory with researchers from all over the world elbowing for a chance to conduct research. 10 year projects are not going to get funded, and few investigators are in a career situation that allows for such a lengthy and costly project. The hardware may last 10 years on mars, however all the conventions of any other lab on earth still apply.

As for diversity of samples, dozens of robots picking up hundreds of 1mg samples from different locations on the globe provides better statistical value that a human picking up 1kg rocks in a 10km radius around his base.

Not necessarily. It’s usually not diversity that is desired but replication. You can email a technician to go out, pick up some of sample type x, y, and we would also like to experiment with z if you see any. Experience can make this very quick work for a person, as in done before noon. It would take dozens of robots in that same 10km radius to get similar results. Research is full of those nuances that robots can’t yet do. Take a geologist to a site and within a few minutes they can determine all the points of interest, the most valuable samples, determine how the geology came to be, quickly turn over a few rocks, break away some layers, do a quick rappel if needed, while it would take a robot months to do the same.

Take a look at this.

http://youtu.be/RBK7hmOR9_g?t=12m55s

Completely irrelevant. Given the cost, you would only send state of the art equipment on such an important mission, whether it's teleoperated or manned. Not sure what your point is...

The point is that state of the art lab equipment is extremely massive, requires a lot of power, has a huge volume, is unreliable, and is prohibitively expensive. This is why everything on the rovers is developed mission specific. Technology developed for space often fills niches back home. Lab equipment for mars, if produced in quantity to lower unit costs, meets all the requirements desired by labs all over the planet (and beyond), and would make a lab on mars much more affordable.