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A Starry Outlook -- The Broken Pieces: Asteroid Mining

Introduction

There is much speculation on how the asteroid belt was formed. One such theory was that in the beginning and forming of the solar system, planetesimals (chunks of rocks—substantially bigger than asteroids—which form planets) were gathering at the place where the asteroid belt now is and tried to form a planet. However, the irregular pushes and pulls of Mars and Jupiter tore these clusters apart in spectacular bursts and scattered the remains throughout the belt. It is thought that this was the origin of the asteroid belt which we now see today.



Today, I will be talking about how we may make use of the asteroid belt. I would like to state, however, that the methods I propose aren’t the only ones, and another great example of how this may be executed is this Kurzgesagt video on asteroid mining.

Where to?


So, we need to get to the asteroid belt, but as you know, the asteroid belt is made of... well, asteroids. Asteroids are extremely inconvenient to deal with, as they don't have much gravity and they might smash into each other, and whoever/whatever is on it goes splat. We don't want that. Instead, we need an outpost near the asteroids, ready to send out drones and robots to mine the asteroids, or... Ceres. This solution is one that I came up with after doing quite a bit of research, Ceres is a dwarf planet that has a diameter of 945 km or so, probably one of the most massive things in the asteroid belt. Also, there is presence of water ice there, and for my OG readers, you know what that means. By settling on Cers, the base will be more stable, and since Ceres is in the belt, we can send out the mining missions very easily. This will be much easier than setting up a space station in the belt, which will lead to many complications.


Anyways, now that we have decided that we are putting a base on a dwarf planet: Ceres. How should we go about doing this? If you have seen my last two articles about colonising Mars and Moon, you will know about the general requirements for surviving in space: food, oxygen, water, building materials, power, and for this mission, very importantly: Fuel. My other articles have already talked about this in quite an in-depth manner, so I won’t waste time on that. If you want to revisit these concepts, however, by all means! We need it because we have to launch spacecraft to the other asteroids... A lot. Here, you may ask: Why?

All in good time.

Off to the Asteroids:


Have you ever wondered about why so much precious metals congregate in craters, which I so often talk about as a benefit to space exploration? Because of asteroids! Asteroids from the belt come crashing down and send their treasures all over the crater. The grey, boring rocks are bursting with all kinds of awesome ores & minerals just waiting to be mined. This is the reason we came to the belt that I had been so mysterious about before. Many of these barren-looking rocks contain loads of gold, platinum, iron, nickel, cobalt, rhodium, uranium... The list goes on and on. So, now I've filled your head with the prize which awaits... How will we get there?


Before we fly off, however, there are several things which need to be built, one of the most important of which is the electromagnetic launch ramp. This is basically the package is contained within a cell-like parcel, which will be accelerated with a slide-like structure. This structure will contain extremely strong magnets and magnetic levitation to achieve optimal efficiency. Basically, the magnets will cause the parcel to be sped up due to magnetic repulsion & attraction, and then throwing it into the skies. Though this description is rather crude, it is quite a unique and sophisticated machine. However, there are other more basic ways to do this, to explore this topic, check out the Gauss Rifle.

In addition, we will also need a designated area which is not far from the base, yet has wall-like structures around it. This is where we will harvest the asteroids. Around this area will be a settlement of workers controlling sophisticated mining robots as well as truck-like vehicles which will carry back the refined resources. This also means that a refinery for materials must be built, consisting of pulverisers, furnaces, centrifuges (to separate resources) and ingot casters.

As for the actual robot going into space, the concept is simple: A self-powered robot is sent up via ramp, it scans for resource-rich asteroids, and upon detection, it will in some way send it back to the designated crash site I mentioned above.

How this is done, however, is the real question. Aforementioned, it needs to scan for an asteroid, this can be done by shooting strong electromagnetic waves at surrounding asteroids, and from the degree of which these waves bounce back, the robot may decide whether or not to send it back. In the case that it does, the robot will send a small rocket booster (the main cargo of this spacecraft) which will attach to the asteroid, sending it towards our base. However, this booster must be “smart” as well. It will only boost at specific intervals, which means that it will have a rough range of areas where it may land. This would make it accurate enough to land in our “crash range” which would span a very large surface.

Next is the question of how the robot functions. Firstly, how it avoids smashing into an asteroid. This may be avoided by simply planting an accelerometer (a machine which tests for the acceleration towards a certain direction) within the machine. Once it is accelerated towards a direction it didn’t boost towards, that means it has been affected by the gravitational field of an asteroid. “What if?” You ask, “the machine is headed directly towards an asteroid?” Well, once it enters the gravitational field of any stellar object, there will be an unnatural increase in acceleration. As soon as this is detected, the robot will blast its engines directly towards the direction of attraction. This means that the robot will have engines in all six directions: Up, down, front, back, left, and right. The combination of which will allow it to fly away from any direction. It may function like a Roomba, as soon as it detects gravitational influence, it boosts away from it.

It may look something like this:



By sending an army of these robots from Ceres, we will be able to gather resources from the very heavens. Literally, it would be raining money -- something we all love. After this, there is one final step: we build rockets which will carry our resources back to Mars, the Moon, and our home planet: Earth.


Conclusion


By mining the asteroids, we have essentially exploited one of the most cash-filled places in the solar system. If we want to expand our civilisation through the solar system and beyond, the asteroids will provide the necessary materials we need to build our machines and ships. To reach the stars, these space rocks will be an unavoidable stop in our path.


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