Thread: World's First Trillionaire Will Be an Asteroid Miner

^ How many kilometers has it done ?

^well these things are all relative according to a special theory I read.

But I can say it is in excellent condition for its age (which would be a sprightly 4.568 billion years).

Just a couple of minor dings from the odd passing female asteroid that should buff right out!

Originally Posted by Latindancer

Ok...I'm interested.

When it gets close enough, just park it in low earth orbit, will you ?

I'll pick it up on my next trip out.... I've had a bit of trouble with my booster O-rings, and my navigator is now in multiple places.

Is one hundred trillioin Zimbabwean dollars ok ?

Don't knock it, Z$100 tr was worth $0.40c just 3 years ago, and now <drum roll> $276...excellent investment if they can keep that up, might be time to reshuffle my crypto portfolio, will check with Dragonfly.

^^We have a deal sir!

^Is Mugabe dead yet?

If his famous micro-tache is on the other side of that blue beer coupon then I will be quids in when he turns up his boots.

And 3 asteroids piled up on the obverse. This is fate tapping at my door...

I already have a Saddam Hussain bill in mint condition purchased in 2003 in Dubai after Rumsfeld and friends chased him down that rabbit-hole.

Damm it ... if only was alive today to pen a thread like this

How about something a little bit closer to home.

This guy.....

Originally Posted by uncle junior

they wouldn't have to. All they would need to do is bring back enough product to make building a fucking huge re-entry vehicle the size of an American nuclear aircraft carrier and then double it in order to get it into orbit in the first fucking place worth the trip....you know like a trillion or 2 dollars.

I regret to inform you that you are too stupid to realise just how dumb you are?

Michio Kaku (^^) has some rather novel ideas, like building a land-based platform all the way into space allowing rockets to be hauled up and take off from its own launchpad, saving on the fuel needed to leave Earth's atmosphere; to be fair he did stress that one of the many downsides is if any of the tens-of-miles-long steel moorings ever broke away it would bounce around destroying everything within twanging distance.

Maybe Musk has the right idea, miniaturised nuclear or solar power in vast amounts will take time to become viable, but far from impossible.

Originally Posted by jabir

building a land-based platform all the way into space allowing rockets to be hauled up and take off from its own launchpad, saving on the fuel needed to leave Earth's atmosphere

How would that work?

The fuel is used to escape the gravitational field, not the atmosphere.

Even at the 400km height that manned space stations orbit the earth the earth's gravitational field is still 9/10 of what it is at the surface. If you look out the window of the ISS Earth still fills your field of view on one side of the craft and so its gravitational pull is still enormous.

The reason astronauts experience weightlessness is because the ISS is orbiting so fast, not because they are outside the gravitational field.

Originally Posted by Looper

The reason astronauts experience weightlessness is because the ISS is orbiting so fast, not because they are outside the gravitational field.

If they moved the station a little closer to earth or slowed it down, would the astronauts stick to the floor then?

Originally Posted by OhOh

If they moved the station a little closer to earth or slowed it down, would the astronauts stick to the floor then?

At 400 km high the astronauts need to be going about 7 km/s so they 'fall' to earth (inside the ISS which is also 'falling' to earth) in a circle that never results in orbital decay.

Any slower or any lower and orbital decay will take them (and the ISS) into orbital decay and back to Earth.

A platform to reduce gravity by even 50% would need to be nearly 3000km high. Far above Low Earth Orbit where space stations are found.

The base for such a structure would need to be hundreds or even thousands of kilometres wide and it would risk having satellites crashing into it.

^^Thank you. Not a useful manoeuvre then.

Originally Posted by Looper

How would that work?

The fuel is used to escape the gravitational field, not the atmosphere.

Even at the 400km height that manned space stations orbit the earth the earth's gravitational field is still 9/10 of what it is at the surface. If you look out the window of the ISS Earth still fills your field of view on one side of the craft and so its gravitational pull is still enormous.

The reason astronauts experience weightlessness is because the ISS is orbiting so fast, not because they are outside the gravitational field.

My bad, couldn't think of gravitation pull so used atmosphere; either way the concept of a haulage platform into the sky-based launchpad generously seems a bit weird, but who knows what the next centuries will bring.

Good luck in building a 400km tower that even hold itself up and then there is the provision of the power/"ropes" to lift the load up to the top.

Michio Kaku on the space elevator

Originally Posted by Latindancer

Apparently the temperatures required to achieve helium-3 fusion reactions are much higher than in traditional fusion reactions. Why should we not just use fusion ?

Helium 3 fusion is a boondoggle. Brought up by mad environmentalists. In theory He3 fusion would be aneutronic which would mean no secondary induced radiation. That would be the only advantage. Normal Deuterium Tritium fusion does produce radioactive elements from thermal neutrons as you all will know. But it is many orders of magnitude lower than on fission reactors. Take the radioactive hull material and store it for maybe 60-80 years and radioactivity would be down to safe levels. The material can be used again. Let's achieve Deuterium Tritium fusion before we even think of He3

Also He3 may be abundant but in concentrations that you need to process thousands of tons of regolith to produce a few pounds of it. A major task even with all the technology we can use on earth. Much harder on the moon.

Do you fuck using someone else's cock too?