Guys seriously guys, I love the idea of mining space. I mean not like a little serial, I'm being super serial. Like super duper serial.
Space resource utilization is something that has started to move from the fields of speculative fiction, to the early stages of corporate development, firms like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries are starting to put tangible efforts into advancing the goal of many futurists, moving humanity beyond our earthly bounds. One critical challenge of space mining developments stem from the need to minimize the energy required to extract a given unit of mass from a celestial body. What this introductory outline would like to propose is a unique means of which to alter the course of a given asteroid or comet to a location that would be useful for future human use, including but not limited to one of the Earth's five Lagrangian Points, Lunar orbit, or high orbit around the Earth. In the Wandering Across Asteroids article I discussed one potential approach for modifying the orbital trajectory of an asteroid enough to eliminate potential threats to human civilization on Earth, by means of having a large walking robot to serve as a gravitational tug. I would now like to suggest creating a child design of the gravitational tug walker and the orbital ring concept.
The rationale behind building an orbital ring around an asteroid is very similar to the logic of using the walker approach. The system would allow for the dynamic application of a significant enough mass near the center of gravity of an asteroid to alter the orbit. Placing the gravity tug relatively close to the surface of the selected asteroid would be achieved by building and/or deploying a magnetic levitation (maglev) track at slightly above the maximum radius of the asteroid. The maglev track allows the counter mass to rapidly position itself along any point of the circumference. The more rapid the ability to reposition the greater the degree of control of the asteroid. The major differentiation between using an orbital ring versus a walker style close proximity gravity tug stems from the number of moving components required for motion (once the system has been deployed). A walker would have any number of moving components while an orbital ring, and how ever many cars riding on its track way, could have as few as zero moving parts. *
*The asterisk here is to let me quickly say that while zero moving parts is nice and all, there is no guarantee that doing so would actually make any real engineering sense, seeing as there are a range of unknown variables that still need to be accommodated.
Space resource utilization is something that has started to move from the fields of speculative fiction, to the early stages of corporate development, firms like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries are starting to put tangible efforts into advancing the goal of many futurists, moving humanity beyond our earthly bounds. One critical challenge of space mining developments stem from the need to minimize the energy required to extract a given unit of mass from a celestial body. What this introductory outline would like to propose is a unique means of which to alter the course of a given asteroid or comet to a location that would be useful for future human use, including but not limited to one of the Earth's five Lagrangian Points, Lunar orbit, or high orbit around the Earth. In the Wandering Across Asteroids article I discussed one potential approach for modifying the orbital trajectory of an asteroid enough to eliminate potential threats to human civilization on Earth, by means of having a large walking robot to serve as a gravitational tug. I would now like to suggest creating a child design of the gravitational tug walker and the orbital ring concept.
 |
| Totally Not to Scale Front View |
The rationale behind building an orbital ring around an asteroid is very similar to the logic of using the walker approach. The system would allow for the dynamic application of a significant enough mass near the center of gravity of an asteroid to alter the orbit. Placing the gravity tug relatively close to the surface of the selected asteroid would be achieved by building and/or deploying a magnetic levitation (maglev) track at slightly above the maximum radius of the asteroid. The maglev track allows the counter mass to rapidly position itself along any point of the circumference. The more rapid the ability to reposition the greater the degree of control of the asteroid. The major differentiation between using an orbital ring versus a walker style close proximity gravity tug stems from the number of moving components required for motion (once the system has been deployed). A walker would have any number of moving components while an orbital ring, and how ever many cars riding on its track way, could have as few as zero moving parts. *
*The asterisk here is to let me quickly say that while zero moving parts is nice and all, there is no guarantee that doing so would actually make any real engineering sense, seeing as there are a range of unknown variables that still need to be accommodated.
Research Stuff
Kinetic Impact Analysis using traditional launch means
http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/archive/15_1-Koenig-Chyba.pdf
ESA call for deflection ideas
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50499682/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/got-good-idea-how-bash-asteroids-they-want-hear-it/#.UcamwvnVBsk
(physorg version)
http://phys.org/news/2013-01-asteroid-deflection-mission-ideas.html
NASA proposal for Lassoing asteroids
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50398762/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/nasa-might-lasso-asteroid-drag-it-orbit-near-moon/#.UcamyvnVBsk
Asteroid capture article (potentially for mars mission)
http://www.euronews.com/2013/04/11/nasa-unveils-plan-to-catch-asteroid-as-step-to-mars-flight/
Asteroid tug boat, giant engine that will strap on an asteroid to change its orbit http://b612foundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Asteroid_Tugboat.pdf
wikipedia list of asteroid avoidance tech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance
another paper on asteroid deflection
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~sue/TJA_LindhurstLabWebsite/ListPublications/Papers_pdf/Seismo_1621.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_tractor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Beam_Shepherd
more deflection options
http://theweek.com/article/index/239846/6-clever-ways-to-avoid-getting-hit-by-an-asteroid
Asteroid capture animation
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2308660/Animation-released-shows-Nasa-intends-CAPTURE-asteroid.html
nuking an asteroid for deflection
http://www.adrc.iastate.edu/files/2011/09/AAS-11-403.pdf
I need to reread this, I don't think this is the same idea as mine, but it might be
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=7431
http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2008-6254
This seems like a cool idea. Presumably this would be used to change asteroid/comet trajectories such that they are accessible years or even decades down the road?
ReplyDeleteExactly, this approach is very much targeted for space mining and colonization. The extra mass/complexity required to build this kind of structure around an asteroid makes it unlikely that it would be a rational approach for basic deflection. Who knows, it might actually be "simple" enough for both, relatively, near term deflection and long term orbit control, but my gut right now is saying otherwise.
ReplyDelete