Future Matter Processing via Orbital Space Facilities

[Kamen Rider Blade]

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Particle_Fountain_Project

Given that we saw the Particle Fountain Orbital Mining facility, could future forms of mining for supporting the Space Faring life style be similar?

Have a Orbiting Facility literally pluck matter from the surface of a chosen planet and process it into a base state to help fill the Replicator raw matter storage tanks for processing or for Orbital DryDocks / Construction Sites?

Same with processing Gas's and Liquids?

 

[DSG2k]

The Particle Fountain is one of the more remarkable forms of Trek ubertech.

It certainly makes more sense than orbital ore processing, at least if you're talking about transportation of bulk rock to orbit to get at what you actually wanted.

(See: http://weblog.st-v-sw.net/2019/07/the-logic-of-terok-nor.html . . . and thanks for the inspiration to finally get that old thought out of my head.)

 

[Tenacity]

One reason Earth might be considered a "paradise" is that heavy industry has been moved off world. Into orbit space or further out.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

One reason Earth might be considered a "paradise" is that heavy industry has been moved off world. Into orbit space or further out.

I highly doubt that. Industry might be "Green", but not far away. The cost of moving stuff, processing it, always has a price. The further out you make it, the more resource intensive you make it.

 

[Ithekro]

While there is certainly still starship building in Earth orbit, it seems like the majority of the shipbuilding has moved to Mars by the 24th century.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

While there is certainly still starship building in Earth orbit, it seems like the majority of the shipbuilding has moved to Mars by the 24th century.

I swear Mars is being harvested for it's raw matter to convert into StarShip building Materials. Ergo the convenient location of the ShipYards in Orbit.

 

[valkyrie013]

In a logical sense, unless it is a mineral/material that you can only find planet-side, it makes almost no since to mine a planet once you have space travel technology.. You can find everything on earth in asteriods.. even more so sometimes because some minerals are lower in the earths crust, and hard to find. You can just process an asteroid and get more material than leveling a whole mountain!
take Helium 3, hard to find on Earth, some on the moon, but abundent in jovian atmospheres..
So to me, some industry maybe planetside, but the bulk material gathering would happen in space..

 

[Leathco]

I swear Mars is being harvested for it's raw matter to convert into StarShip building Materials. Ergo the convenient location of the ShipYards in Orbit.

I wouldn't think Mars would be harvested, as it's considered a colony world. Rather, the asteroid belt that is right beside Mars would be a convenient source of resources, with a short jaunt over to martian orbit all that would be needed to supply the shipbuilding process. Perhaps it's Ceres that is being harvested in the asteroid belt for raw material?

 

[valkyrie013]

So.. lets say a Galaxy Class Vessel has a mass of say.. 30,000 Tons.. for an example..
So you go to the asteroid field, find an asteroid with the equivelant mass.. then you "Beam/Replicate" the asteroid, and when done beaming.. you have a completed Galaxy class..

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

So.. lets say a Galaxy Class Vessel has a mass of say.. 30,000 Tons.. for an example..
So you go to the asteroid field, find an asteroid with the equivelant mass.. then you "Beam/Replicate" the asteroid, and when done beaming.. you have a completed Galaxy class..

Matter Processing would be a bit more complicated than that. But the concept is right. Just that there are lots of missing steps in the over-simplification.

 

[Tenacity]

unless it is a mineral/material that you can only find planet-side, it makes almost no since to mine a planet once you have space travel technology.. You can find everything on earth in asteriods

On planets, geological process concentrate minerals for you into veins, with asteroids the minerals would be non-concentrated.