A Hero's Journey To Space

Story synopsis: Centuries have passed since the time when man only lived under the shadow of

one moon and even now settlers were traveling on their way to places where they would no

longer bathe under the gaze of the original sun. As mineral resources had begun to run low in the

previous centuries, an interspace asteroid mining economy had developed. The story follows the

journeys’ of a miner on a long range mining venture in search of rarer materials which had been

depleted in NPAs. The young miner marvel’s at the beauty of space and its wonders while he

performs experiments to test and retrieve minerals. The story will focus heavily on currently

theorized asteroid retrieval and mining methods in addition to asteroid composition

Thus, any transport craft must be readily equipped with much more resilient and reliable descent

tactics. Previous space ventures have only involved leaving items in space, and very rarely

brought anything back. It took the Apollo crews many missions, years and over $24bn (in 1960’s

money) to bring back a mere 380kg of moon rocks (Kluger 2012). Bringing objects back from

space is an area where there is no expertise and no experience. It is purely trial and error. Yet as

earth’s orbit becomes more and more cluttered with damaged and outdated satellites threatening

modern ones, space and orbit retrieval of objects may soon be a necessity. Again, carbonaceous

chondrites could become useful, providing refueling for spacecraft carrying resources home.

This way spacecraft would not have to carry fuel for the return trip on launch (remember they

need a lot of fuel to carefully descend while carrying heavy resources). The other option for

resources mined in space is to not return them to earth and rather refine and build objects in

space with the resources. Even if materials are eventually returned to earth, fuel costs are

Position and composition are both obvious considerations. An asteroid must be

cheap to get to and have something valuable to mine upon arrival. However, the other

consideration is time frame. Unlike Saturn or other planets, earth does not have an asteroid belt.

Rather, many asteroids come in and out of earth’s orbit. As mining infrastructure grows, mining

could expand to include passing asteroids or capturing smaller asteroids, pulling them into

earth’s orbit and then storing them for later consumption. In conjunction with time frame comes

delta v, the most costly aspect of any prospective asteroid. The higher the difference in velocity

the more costly it will be to catch up to and mine asteroids. Suggestions to reduce this cost

include using planetary assists to gain speed and intercept asteroids (O’Leary). In addition, the

more fuel required to capture/reach an asteroid, the less material that can be retrieved due to fuel

usage. In the distant future, habitation of or settlement near systems/planets with large asteroid

belts could prove extremely profitable, provided mining infrastructure has been