Cost efficacy.
this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Throwback to an ancient thread on Reddit by AdmiralPelleon
It takes 6 BFR launches to put a fully fueled BFS in orbit, going for $7 million/launch. I'll be generous, and pretend that the BFS making the trip to the asteroid doesn't lose value along the way (hint: it does).
So let's plug in the Rocket Equation for a fully-fueled BFS in orbit, let's see how much fuel we must expend to get the BFS to the asteroid to pick up it's cargo:
Delta-v to Ryugu (a near-earth asteroid) has $95 billion of minerals on it = Raptor Engine ISP * ln( (start fuel mass + empty mass)/ (start fuel mass - fuel used + empty mass) )
OR: 4666 = 3759.81ln((1100+85)/(1100-fuel used + 85))
fuel used = 851.67
So just getting the BFS to the closest near earth object takes up 851,000 kg of fuel! This is before we've loaded any minerals on board. To calculate how much payload we can bring back do earth, it's the same equation except:
Delta-v to Earth = Raptor Engine ISP * ln( (start fuel mass + payload + empty mass)/ (payload + empty mass) )
OR: 4666 = 3759.81ln((1100-852+p+85)/(p + 85))
payload = 28.893 metric tons
So that sucks! We go all that way, launch 6 rockets, spend probably years in outer space, and all we get are 29 metric tons of cobalt!?! At current prices, that's worth ~$899,000. Compare that to the "best case" cost of 6 BFR launches or $42 million.
BUT WAIT!
It's commonly agreed that some sort of ISRU (creating fuel out of the asteroid itself) will be required for space mining. The asteroid Ryugu probably has water, and while I don't think it has carbon, amateur scientists like us need not be constrained by such petty laws of chemistry! Let's assume that, once the ship arrives, it is fully refueled at zero cost. Now our return-payload looks like:
Delta-v to Earth = Raptor Engine ISP * ln( (start fuel mass + payload + empty mass)/ (payload + empty mass) )
OR: 4666 = 3759.81ln((1100+p+85)/(p+ 85))
payload = 345.5 metric tons
The good news is we've increased our revenues by an order of magnitude (~$ 10,710,500)! The bad news is we are now at just over 25% of our fixed, "best case" costs. (I'm actually not sure if the BFS could land with that much payload, but at this point it doesn't really matter does it?)
These numbers can be made to work for elements like Helium 3 and Platinum, due to their super-high cost-per-kg (345.5 metric tons of Platinum is technically worth over $10 billion). However, the world's yearly supply of platinum is roughly just 243 metric tons, and increasing this significantly would serve to quickly crater the price.
All this is to say that no, asteroid mining is not, and may never be, feasible>
All this is to say that no, asteroid mining is not, and may never be, feasible>
Not through rockets no, but if we ever manage to build a space lift or a sky hook then the maths will radically change.
It's feasibly if you don't have to launch 6 rockets to get it up and and going, i.e. if you've allready got a regular supply line into space to a permanent space station or a moon station.
If you want to go from London to Liverpool by train, it'll cost you millions to build the rail and purchase a locomotive. Except it'll actually only cost you a couple pounds for a ticket, because all that infrastructure is allready in place. Because generations before us invested in all that stuff to supply the mines and the factories.
Very fair point. But the biggest barrier is always going to be fuel spent vs potential payload.
Trains an incredibly efficient once built, able to move huge payloads for very low ongoing fuel use.
Thank you for sharing that! Great to see with numbers, but also quite depressing.
putting shit in space is still too expensive and wastefull for it to be cost-effective and/or profitable.
We as a species are not yet capable of doing this.
We can barely land successfully on our moon, we haven't made it to Mars with humans and many of the robots we did send crashed before becoming operational.
We don't have the capability to run completely automated mining on Earth, people are so far always needed on site.
If we're going to mine asteroids, we'll need to have a lot more capabilities than we currently do.
Note that I'm scratching the surface here, we haven't yet discussed travel time, keeping humans alive and sane, fuel or Earth resources required to mount the effort.
Not to mention we have tried to land on asteroids a couple times now, but failed. Best we coukd do was smash against them to analize the dust.
The OSIRIS-REx did manage to bring back some material from Bennu. We retrieved 121.6 grams and it cost around a billion dollars. It took 8 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSIRIS-REx
Edit: Fixed how much it cost.
Yes, but it still didn't land. It very slowly approached then bounced while collecting the dust. This is probably the closest we have so far of landing.
I thought Rosetta was successful, somewhat?
I mean, kinda. It didn't land, it tumbled on the asteroid and got itself stuck on a dark pit. I guess landing on your face is a kind of landing.
You have to understand, as an environment space will kill you and everyone with you.
This isn't like mining underground or underwater where if you screw up, you die. In space you have to do EVERYTHING right or you die.
Unless we find an asteroid of pure gold/platinum/diamond the risk/reward ratio is too damn high.
https://builtin.com/articles/top-space-mining-companies
Investment and systems development/integration. We have all the parts needed, but they're expensive, and you can't really just stuff them on a rocket and hope they'll work. There's a billion details to get straight before launching, and each detail costs a lot.
Thanks for the link, I had no idea companies already existed for this.
You should take into consideration that AFAIK none of these companies have launched anything, let alone started mining.
Of course, just surprised they actually exist.
Then again, I guess it shouldn’t be a total surprise since people are trying to raise capital and invest.
Surface-to-intrasolar-space propulsion technology, in its current iteration, to reach escape velocity is prohibitively expensive.
Currently, we use combustion. My instincts tell me that an "electro-gravitic" paradigm in propulsion is next.
Before that, we must have a revolutionary breakthrough or discovery in our fundamental understanding of physics.
Basically, we're not smart enough and too low on the Kardashev scale to get a decent ROI on such an endeavour.
Stupidity, mostly.