Space Travel & Exploration

[Ripster42]

I'm so confused, why were we talking about farming on asteroids?

Stuff.

Even using the phrase "growing crops" helps, because especially in this particular forum, "farming" could be mining - which is what I thought you meant.

[PACOX]

How To Keep The Politicians At Bay 101

I don't think NASA actually wants to launch SLS that many times but is saying it can and will if it has to. I think it's too keep Senators away from NASA as well as insurance just in case Musk manages to run SpaceX into the ground.

Maybe even a bit of motivation for newer players like SpaceX to adopt some exploration and research focused divisions. Boeing and NG are obviously profit seeking comp but they also how to work with NASA is trying to do to do some money burning, 0 profit, scientific research.

[plz delete account]

I'm so confused, why were we talking about farming on asteroids?

Because we can and this is the thread for doing so?

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think NASA actually wants to launch SLS that many times but is saying it can and will if it has to. I think it's too keep Senators away from NASA as well as insurance just in case Musk manages to run SpaceX into the ground.

Maybe even a bit of motivation for newer players like SpaceX to adopt some exploration and research focused divisions. Boeing and NG are obviously profit seeking comp but they also how to work with NASA is trying to do to do some money burning, 0 profit, scientific research.

The new contract cuts the projected cost for SLS in half.

[Osmeric]

The new contract cuts the projected cost for SLS in half.

I have a bridge over the East River to sell you.

[cubby]

I'm so confused, why were we talking about farming on asteroids?

@Lilithvia brought it up, and I'm still not sure what they are talking about. And their usual lack of clarity/communication is making tough. If they come back with more details or info it could be interesting.

- - - Updated - - -

Stuff.

Yeah, no - it came from this:

There's no point in mining carbonaceous condrites for minerals, however since they are made of organic material, they would be good for farming, and there's enough of them to support 30ish billion people for millenia. So I ask again, asteroid farming when

[Osmeric]

Yeah, no - it came from this:

"Loaded with organic materials" implying "good for farming" is certainly a take. Let's plant crops in asphalt, why don't we.

[Ripster42]

Yeah, no - it came from this:

Yeah, what I'm pointing out is why they directed directed it at you.

[cubby]

"Loaded with organic materials" implying "good for farming" is certainly a take. Let's plant crops in asphalt, why don't we.

Right? My favorite so far is feeding 30B people for millennia.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, what I'm pointing out is why they directed directed it at you.

Ah, got it. Indeed why...?

[plz delete account]

Right? My favorite so far is feeding 30B people for millennia.

What part of how dirt easy it is to convert regolith into fertile soil do you guys not understand? You just need atmosphere, bacteria, and to introduce nutrients.


And there's several thousand asteroids that are carbonaceous condrites.

- - - Updated - - -

"Loaded with organic materials" implying "good for farming" is certainly a take. Let's plant crops in asphalt, why don't we.

Yet another uneducated post from Osmeric. Please, please do reading on something for once.

Carbonaceous condrites don't typically contain a lot of rocks on their surfaces. More like patches of fine regolith with minerals typically suitable for encouraging life if given the other building blocks.

Have you guys *ever* read up on how earth got those minerals? Gd.

[Osmeric]

Yet another uneducated post from Osmeric.

I was merely pointing out the vacuity of the notion that carbonaceous chondrites must be good for farming because they have organic compounds.

Organic compounds in soil on Earth are a highly specific subset of possible organic compounds. They come from living matter and its decomposition. Plants are evolved to live in soil containing these sorts of compounds.

The organic matter in CCs was produced by abiotic processes. There's no reason it should even be nontoxic. And the water released by heating of CC meteorites shows elevated levels of lead and mercury.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.04154.pdf (see table 3)

[plz delete account]

I was merely pointing out the vacuity of the notion that carbonaceous chondrites must be good for farming because they have organic compounds.

Organic compounds in soil on Earth are a highly specific subset of possible organic compounds. They come from living matter and its decomposition. Plants are evolved to live in soil containing these sorts of compounds.

The organic matter in CCs was produced by abiotic processes. There's no reason it should even be nontoxic. And the water released by heating of CC meteorites shows elevated levels of lead and mercury.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.04154.pdf (see table 3)

Okay, lead and mercury are problems, but not unsolvable. As for whether the regolith would have toxins, I'm pretty sure that we'd be able to catalogue which ones have them or not, and while that does reduce the number, it's still yet to be seen or documented in any meaningful way (eg the only asteroids visited so far are Bennu, Itokawa, Diomedes/Dimorphus etc... all rubble pile asteroids. It'll take Lucy a few years to get out to the Trojans in Jupiter's L4/L5 regions, etc.

[cubby]

Okay, lead and mercury are problems, but not unsolvable. As for whether the regolith would have toxins, I'm pretty sure that we'd be able to catalogue which ones have them or not, and while that does reduce the number, it's still yet to be seen or documented in any meaningful way (eg the only asteroids visited so far are Bennu, Itokawa, Diomedes/Dimorphus etc... all rubble pile asteroids. It'll take Lucy a few years to get out to the Trojans in Jupiter's L4/L5 regions, etc.

Sure sounds like a certain and inexpensive way to grow crops - much easier than growing then on earth, where we know they grow, and don't need soil, and where gravity actually works.
Remember when you asked:

farming on asteroids wen

From your own information, I would say "never". But that's only if your opinion is an informed one.

[plz delete account]

Sure sounds like a certain and inexpensive way to grow crops - much easier than growing then on earth, where we know they grow, and don't need soil, and where gravity actually works.
Remember when you asked:

From your own information, I would say "never". But that's only if your opinion is an informed one.

Plants don't need gravity, see the ISS lettuce closet for that. And farms take up a lot of space... where there's a ton of space in space
And if we're taking the "Don't need soil" route, plants technically don't need it in space either.

Either way, a lot of people will be living and working in space a whole lot sooner than you think. And it's expensive to ship food up a gravity well as opposed to down that gravity well.

[cubby]

Plants don't need gravity, see the ISS lettuce closet for that. And farms take up a lot of space... where there's a ton of space in space
And if we're taking the "Don't need soil" route, plants technically don't need it in space either.

Exactly. Farms take up a lot of atmospheric space. Setting up protected domes on an asteroid would be nearly impossible. And certainly beyond any practicality it might solve. And while Vertical Aeroponic gardens don't need soil, they do need tons of other stuff. Especially if you're talking about feeding 30B - which you suggested it would solve.

It won't.

Either way, a lot of people will be living and working in space a whole lot sooner than you think. And it's expensive to ship food up a gravity well as opposed to down that gravity well.

Not that many. Not in this century. I would be shocked if we had more than 10,000 people working in space. And that wouldn't include colonists on the Moon or Mars or other.

You're talking about mass farming efforts on a randomly orbiting, non-controllable, asteroid with few people on it and huge costs to transport whatever was "grown" on it to the people who need. Since the product of that asteroid farming effort would be in other areas of our solar system, and since that product would take massive amounts of coin and effort and blood to grow on an asteroid, and since we can already do all that growing on Earth, and since Earth's gravity well is getting cheaper and cheaper to go up (thank you SpaceX!), I can almost guarantee that asteroid farming-of-food will likely never happen.

Interesting thought exercise though. Thanks for that.

- - - Updated - - -

Asteroid mineral farming will more than likely be almost 100% automated, with perhaps human visitors to set up and monitor. So keeping those people alive on the asteroid, if it's even necessary to have people on an asteroid we're mining for minerals, won't need a hydroponic solution to keep said people alive. We can just send them ISS food.

[Nerraw]

Ariane 6 debut delayed to Q4 2023, which obviously means 2024. Arianespace is going to be without heavy lift capability for quite a while.

[cubby]

Ariane 6 debut delayed to Q4 2023, which obviously means 2024. Arianespace is going to be without heavy lift capability for quite a while.

SLS still delayed as well. They are tied up with both a tight launch window and the usual shenanigans that comes with that system.

[Nerraw]

SLS still delayed as well. They are tied up with both a tight launch window and the usual shenanigans that comes with that system.

At least they're actively pushing for November still.

[cubby]

At least they're actively pushing for November still.

Agreed, that is very good news. It would be nice to have more than one consistent heavy launch platform for the United States' space needs.

[PACOX]

The US is also about to be without heavy launchers if there's any deals.

SLS is technically a heavy but it's not really going to be used for anything but human flight.

Starship will have heavy lift capabilities but it will be like the space shuttles where it might not be feasible (at least until SpaceX has a ecosystem that supports the theoretical capabilities of Starship).


Delta Heavy - effectively retired. Production of the rocket has ended.

Falcon Heavy - I don't know why this rocket rarely gets used but there some scheduled flights in the future. Got to see it go (think it's only flown twice). Beautiful night launch.

Vulcan - new rocket in line to replace Delta, planned maidan flight at the beginning of 2023. It's success relies on Blue Origin being able to keep up with the demand for engines.


Finally there's New Glenn. I'd be surprised if one goes up before the end of 2024.

[Nerraw]

Falcon Heavy - I don't know why this rocket rarely gets used

Customers keep fucking up their payloads. We should have had 6 launches this year. Now we might get lucky with 2.