Yeah, that ain’t happening for the next 50 years. The amount of logistics and technology required for that is beyond immense, never mind risks
Comment on Geologists doubt Earth has the amount of copper needed to develop the entire world
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 week agoThere’s also the idea of crashing a metallic asteroid somewhere convenient, like the Outback.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 week ago
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 week ago
Oh, and you say risks, I say: military application potential.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 week ago
Well, I suspect we’ve got enough copper for the next 50 years, so… good timing.
And, you don’t start with a Manhattan sized rock, you practice with little ones just big enough to survive re-entry and work your way up. The key is learning to operate long term with “rock moving tech” in solar orbit. We’re not there, which is why we should have started 50 years ago…
astropenguin5@lemmy.world 1 week ago
If you have the tech to do that, just capture the asteroid in orbit and mine it in space.
MangoCats@feddit.it 1 week ago
I’m envisioning extracting more copper and other metals that would be utilized in space, so - yeah, if you can develop smelting and refinement capabilities on-orbit there’s some attractiveness there, but down on the mud-ball we’re going to use over a million times as much material as we are currently utilizing on orbit and beyond, so getting that material down is going to be a whole lot cheaper and more efficient as a “natural skyfall” than any kind of controlled re-entry.