Asteroids: Prospective Energy and Material Resources
Language: English
Pages: 689
ISBN: 3642392431
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The Earth has limited material and energy resources while these resources in space are virtually unlimited. Further development of humanity will require going beyond our planet and exploring of extraterrestrial resources and sources of unlimited power.
Thus far, all missions to asteroids have been motivated by scientific exploration. However, given recent advancements in various space technologies, mining asteroids for resources is becoming ever more feasible. A significant portion of asteroids value is derived from their location; the required resources do not need to be lifted at a great expense from the surface of the Earth.
Resources derived from Asteroid not only can be brought back to Earth but could also be used to sustain human exploration of space and permanent settlements in space.
This book investigates asteroids' prospective energy and material resources. It is a collection of topics related to asteroid exploration, and utilization. It presents past and future technologies and solutions to old problems that could become reality in our life time. The book therefore is a great source of condensed information for specialists involved in current and impending asteroid-related activities and a good starting point for space researchers, inventors, technologists and potential investors.
Written for researchers, engineers, and businessmen interested in asteroids' exploration and exploitation.
Keywords: Asteroids, Asteroid exploration, Asteroid exploitation, Energy sources, Space Resources, Material Resources, In-Situ Resource Utilization, Mining
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2012 at the closest distance of only 3.2 km and with a relative speed of 10.73 km s-1. In the images obtained with the star observation cameras onboard the spacecraft, Toutatis resulted to be an highly irregular object, probably made by two distinct lobes, as already discovered in previous observations from the Goldstone’s Solar System Radar (USA). 1.3 The Future of Asteroids Space Exploration Several space missions are already in construction or planned to deepen our knowledge of the asteroids
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current and possible future surveys. 4 Prospecting Asteroid Resources 101 4.5.1 NEO Optical Ground-Based Surveys Ground-based surveys are only practical in the optical band. This is due to the affordability of very large optical detector arrays and the high atmospheric transparency and low background in the optical band. Ground-based surveys have inherent limitations. Each can view only the hemisphere the telescope is in (North or South). As a result a pair of telescopes is needed to cover
shape and thermal conductivity of the NEO are known, then the size of the Yarkovsky effect can be used to calculate the mass of the NEO. Unfortunately, the prospects for bulk measurement of NEO masses from this technique appear poor. On a decade timescale, normal astrometry can rarely detect this effect. Nugent et al. (2012) were able to detect the Yarkovsky effect in just 54 out of ~1250 NEOs. The ESA Gaia mission will achieve few milliarcsecond positions with a telescope area equivalent to a
bodies. LPSC 25, s. 1439 (1994) Walker, G.: The MOST Asteroseismology Mission: Ultraprecise Photometry from Space. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 115, 1023–1035 Weidenschilling, S.J.: Formation of planetismals and accretion of the terrestrial planets. Space Science Reviews 92, 295–310 (2000) Willman, M., et al.: Using the youngest asteroid clusters to constrain the space weathering and gardening rate on S-complex asteroids. Icarus 208, 758 (2010) Wright, E.L., et al.: The
