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Space is starting to look like the better mining operation | Mining in space might be less environmentally harmful than mining asteroids on Earth. (arstechnica.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Space is starting to look like the better mining operation | Mining in space might be less environmentally harmful than mining asteroids on Earth.::Mining in space might be less environmentally harmful than mining asteroids on Earth.

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[–] 34 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Less harmful to Earth's environment, anyway. The environment on those asteroids is going to be all kinds of fucked up, hard luck for any giant space slugs that might be living there.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I mean this is kind of a ridiculous take. There is no environment there. They are asteroids. The asteroid belt represents ~3% the mass of the moon.. There are plenty. Enough with the hand wringing.

    It would be great if we could move this environmentally destructive practice to a place where there is no environment. Its one of the few justifications that really makes sense for investment in space travel. Not because it could be profitable, but because it could help us preserve literally the only habitable place in the universe we know of. That alone should be justification for investment.

    Its just another implication of how hard it is for humans to understand that "space is big".

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think it was a joke

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I've legit read articles from people unironically saying we shouldn't ruin the environment of the moon with mining. The moon. The place often compared to bombed cities. They were worried we would look up to the moon and see big dust clouds, which doesn't even work without an atmosphere.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    There is no atmosphere on the moon, but the moon is composed of rock which is very responsive to vibrations.

    The lunar impactors from the 60s and 70s made detectable vibrations on the other side of the moon when they struck. We know this because one of the Apollo missions left a surface experiment running when they left. That experiment also picked up the vibrations of the descent module as it expanded and contracted due to the sun. Vibrations on the order of millimeters being picked up from a 70s era instrument placed several meters away from the descent stage.

    I do wonder if large scale mining on the moon could negatively impact any human settlements, as the vibration from the mining would certainly propagate to them eventually.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    That’s so weird! Why doesn’t earth rock do that?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I mean, it does. But it takes a lot more energy.

    We have earthquakes all the time, but the earth is very big compared to the moon, and we have a hot liquid mantle and core that probably dampens a lot of those vibrations.

    The moon is basically a giant rock, with no other medium to transfer energy into. So when it gets hit by something, that energy just gets transmitted around the surface of the moon until the energy is depleted.

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