Ore Refinery Ship?

[BrotherBenny]

Is it possible to build an ore refinery ship which could conceivably land on an asteroid to mine the ores?

How big would this ship have to be in order to produce a reasonable amount of usable metal and could said ship also house the necessary equipment to turn the metal into something usable such hull plates or equipment?

I'm looking into asteroid mining and the use of a ship being able to mine ores and turn the product into usable metal in addition to being a habitat for the miners. I need to find specifications, and the feasibility of building such a vessel.

 

[SilentP]

Before we can answer any of this, is this for your aforementioned fictional universe, or would this be using today's technology with maybe a few extrapolations?

 

[BrotherBenny]

Before we can answer any of this, is this for your aforementioned fictional universe, or would this be using today's technology with maybe a few extrapolations?

Both.

My universe follows a different path to ours from the 1930s onward, to the point that they're slightly more advanced than we are by the 2010s, so today's technology with extrapolations will work for that universe.

 

[T'Girl]

Is it possible to build an ore refinery ship which could conceivably land on an asteroid to mine the ores?
Given the typical gravity of a asteroid, you wouldn't so much "land," as "softly bump into." In some cases, the ship would be physically larger than the asteroid it was mining.

How big would this ship have to be in order to produce a reasonable amount of usable metal and could said ship also house the necessary equipment to turn the metal into something usable such hull plates or equipment?
If you want to haunt a used book store, find a copy of Harry Stine's The Third Industrial Revolution. It goes into detail on this exact question, without getting too heavy for the layman. Your library might have it.

If you're only turning the asteroid into ingots or plates of metal, given the zero gee environment, you would likely be talking about something the size of a modern day medium-large cargo ship. A space ship with the capacity to also produce finished products would involve basically attaching a factory to the refinery ship. the more diversity in the number of products, the larger the ship.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Is it possible to build an ore refinery ship which could conceivably land on an asteroid to mine the ores?
Given the typical gravity of a asteroid, you wouldn't so much "land," as "softly bump into." In some cases, the ship would be physically larger than the asteroid it was mining.

I was thinking only of the larger asteroids, at least to start with. Small ones could probably be captured instead of mined...will have to think on that.

How big would this ship have to be in order to produce a reasonable amount of usable metal and could said ship also house the necessary equipment to turn the metal into something usable such hull plates or equipment?
If you want to haunt a used book store, find a copy of Harry Stine's The Third Industrial Revolution. It goes into detail on this exact question, without getting too heavy for the layman. Your library might have it.

If you're only turning the asteroid into ingots or plates of metal, given the zero gee environment, you would likely be talking about something the size of a modern day medium-large cargo ship. A space ship with the capacity to also produce finished products would involve basically attaching a factory to the refinery ship. the more diversity in the number of products, the larger the ship.

Thanks, I'll look for that book.

I was thinking of the refinery ship being able to produce the metallurgical products necessary to create more refinery ships and space habitats. So, basically, hull plates, crucibles, etc.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

I was thinking of the refinery ship being able to produce the metallurgical products necessary to create more refinery ships and space habitats. So, basically, hull plates, crucibles, etc.

Well you could have a fleet of mining ships and a few other ships following them around that are basically flying factories. There is no real need to connect the two types of ships together. You would want the mining ships as maneuverable as possible.

 

[sojourner]

You would want the mining ships as maneuverable as possible.

Um, why? They're mining, not dodging lasers.

 

[throwback]

When I read PurpleBuddha's post, i immediately thought of the Japanese whaling fleet. In this fleet, the harpoon ships target and kill whales, while the larger factory ship processes the whale.

I am thinking that, using this analogy, that a small number of asteroid-capturing ships would scan, target, and capture asteroids, while the larger factory ship would process the asteroids. As the asteroids are processed, the asteroid hunters would be busy with the hunt, so as to keep the factory ship busy and to maximize costs and efficiency. Speed and maneuverability would be essential for the hunters.

 

[sojourner]

^This might be true if asteroids ran from approaching ships like whales.

 

[throwback]

Unlike their depiction in movies, asteroids are spaced very far apart. In this article, the scientists state that the average distance between asteroids is five million kilometers. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=in-science-fiction-movies) For asteroid mining, and to meet the needs of the corporation involved, spaceships will need to be fast - these ships need to find an asteroid with the right ratio of minerals to rock, capture the asteroid, and deliver the asteroid back to the factory ship.

For the video game Dead Space, humans have built massive planet cracking spaceships which can break up an inert planet for the minerals. This process is called planet cracking.

Planet Crack - http://deadspace.wikia.com/wiki/Planet_Crack
USG Ishimura - http://deadspace.wikia.com/wiki/USG_Ishimura

Interestingly, the USG Ishimura is an example of a spaceship where both the functions of an asteroid hunter and factory ship have been combined.

 

[sojourner]

^Unlike their depiction in video games, most asteroids are in stable orbits and aren't going anywhere soon. More than enough time to survey and bring your smelter ship to the asteroid. The wise move is to choose an asteroid big enough to keep you busy for a while. Then send out small survey ships to find the next asteroid while you're smelting the current one. Bringing lots of small asteroids to you with "capture ships" is inefficient.

 

[BrotherBenny]

For the purposes of my story, the mining/refinery ship/habitat would land on the surface of an asteroid and then begin mining the asteroid. I thought of several ways this could be done, singly or in conjunction:

• Drilling mine shafts and having robots or drones extract the ore for processing
• Small automated drone ATVs roaming the surface of the asteroid to collect surface rubble and perform scans for mineral content
• Large drones with jackhammers for digging up the surface of the asteroid piece by piece (the drone would also collect the material the jackhammer cracks and when at capacity would return to the ship)

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sojourner]

Some ideas on how to mine here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

 

[Shatnertage]

You might want to play around with different techniques to mine different sorts of minerals...might jazz it up a little. Maybe some minerals require a delicate touch to safely mine, while others can be had by pulverizing the asteroid and vacuuming up the remains.

 

[BrotherBenny]

You might want to play around with different techniques to mine different sorts of minerals...might jazz it up a little. Maybe some minerals require a delicate touch to safely mine, while others can be had by pulverizing the asteroid and vacuuming up the remains.

One particular mineral does require a delicate touch, lest it blow up, but the rest I guess could be pulverized.

I need to do some research on how mining works before I get started on the story, but for now I'm just plotting it out and seeing what other research I need to do.

Thanks for all the information and keep it coming.

 

[Pavonis]

For the purposes of my story, the mining/refinery ship/habitat would land on the surface of an asteroid and then begin mining the asteroid. I thought of several ways this could be done, singly or in conjunction:

• Drilling mine shafts and having robots or drones extract the ore for processing
• Small automated drone ATVs roaming the surface of the asteroid to collect surface rubble and perform scans for mineral content
• Large drones with jackhammers for digging up the surface of the asteroid piece by piece (the drone would also collect the material the jackhammer cracks and when at capacity would return to the ship)

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Off the top of my head, the roving jackhammers would double as decent seismic sources. With an array of seismometers distributed on the asteroid, you'd be able to investigate the internal structure of the asteroid and get an idea of what kind of rocks and minerals might be inside it, and where they'd be. Then you'd have to have at least one geophysicist/seismologist character to interpret the results.

You might want to play around with different techniques to mine different sorts of minerals...might jazz it up a little. Maybe some minerals require a delicate touch to safely mine, while others can be had by pulverizing the asteroid and vacuuming up the remains.

One particular mineral does require a delicate touch, lest it blow up, but the rest I guess could be pulverized.

I need to do some research on how mining works before I get started on the story, but for now I'm just plotting it out and seeing what other research I need to do.

Thanks for all the information and keep it coming.

I'm not aware of any minerals that are explosive. Have you come up with a fictional material as a plot point in your story? There's really nothing up there in the asteroid belt that doesn't exist down here on Earth, too. If your unobtainium compound is that unstable, how did it survive billions of years before your characters could mine it? Why would it be available in the asteroids but not on Earth?

 

[BrotherBenny]

In my universe it is buried deep within the Earth's crust (several kilometers down) and was uncovered after a meteorite impacted Earth. It is also in the asteroids and far easier to mine there than on Earth.

 

[Pavonis]

It'd take a large impactor to expose something several miles deep in the crust. Apocalyptic-level, in fact. That might be something to incorporate into your backstory. Alternatively, it could've been discovered by a deep-mining operation. The Kola borehole in Russia goes at least 7 miles down.

If it's a mineral that requires certain pressure and temperature conditions to form and maintain, then I could see why it would only be found deep in the crust, but to find it on the Earth and in asteroids would be unexpected. Though I suppose if it were metastable, then it could be found in both. How it would've formed on the asteroids would be the question, then.

 

[BrotherBenny]

It'd take a large impactor to expose something several miles deep in the crust. Apocalyptic-level, in fact. That might be something to incorporate into your backstory. Alternatively, it could've been discovered by a deep-mining operation. The Kola borehole in Russia goes at least 7 miles down.

If it's a mineral that requires certain pressure and temperature conditions to form and maintain, then I could see why it would only be found deep in the crust, but to find it on the Earth and in asteroids would be unexpected. Though I suppose if it were metastable, then it could be found in both. How it would've formed on the asteroids would be the question, then.

The meteorite was near-apocalyptic size, already worked it into the backstory. What I need now, is what happens almost a century later...an ore refinery ship that can land on asteroids and process them into oblivion. I need help on creating the vessel's specifications. I have the engine worked out and I'm getting help on that front already.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

You would want the mining ships as maneuverable as possible.

Um, why? They're mining, not dodging lasers.

Um, because.

Any time you have to approach a moving object and attach to it, maneuverability is always important. Maneuvering a factory to connect to an asteroid would be a lot more time consuming and carry a higher risk of incident than a ship without said factory. Granted, if we are talking about the true monster sized asteroids, it wouldn't be a huge factor.

Still, though, there would be advantages. You could have one larger ship to refine and process with smaller mining ships attached or docked to it. This way it would also be easier to have several little ships mining a larger rock from all different sides.