this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
612 points (91.0% liked)

Memes

45583 readers
1299 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. That's not the reason Space Karen and other billionaire are pushing for space colonization. They want to make their own kingdom where they don't need to follow Earth's rules, Elon pretty much said it himself.
  2. Space mining is cool, but you don't need to go to Mars for it, mining the Moon and captured asteroids would be far more practical.
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As for point 2. For any space project for resource gathering you want to stay FAAAR away from any major gravity wells as escaping them is currently 99% of the cost for our current rocketsm it's genuinely wasteful in terms of fuel and most of the rocket is shed afterwards too.

Gravity wells would be one way delivery only while resource gathering operations, as you said, would stay on dwarf planets, asteroids and lesser moons like our own.

Just felt like giving an explanation to your post for anyone who reads by and doesn't understand why mining asteroids/ the moon is a plainly superior option.