Quote:
Originally Posted by Occam's Shaving Cream
Did anyone see 'The Fifth Element'? I was thinking of Phloston Paradise with the flying luxury liner (which, of course eventually explodes). There is also the game Freelancer (with around 50 explorable solar systems) that also feature a company that offers 'paradise planets' and (orbiting) luxury liners.
But if it's mining you're after, you need a different approach. Who knows, these two factions might one day peacefully coexist on and above Venus  |
I think at the first decades mining will be the priority.Bulding paradise ships and terraformed paradise planets are nice, but bohemian luxury.Mining on the other planets, imho will be a necessity in the next decades...Even Iron will be depleted in 2500 and rare metals like gold and copper even in 2020 and 2050, respectively.
Mercury will be a great source of metals, Venus of the same materials as Earth except oil of course, asteroids, if metal rich, will be also useful.Some iron from Mars and some metal and helium 3 from the Moon will be also useful, but outer solar system icy moons of gas planets will be not much useful, except as a source of water for Mercury and Moon colonies.Probably even hydrogen from the gas giants can be mined.
My list of potentional mining colonies in Sol system, arranged from the best to the poorest:
1.Mercury (EXTREME amouts of metals)
2.Venus (metal, minerals)
3.Mars (water, iron, metals, minerals)
4.Moon (some metals,minerals, helium 3 - to fusion reactors)
5.Titan (methane fuel, some water)
4.Gas giants (hydrogen, helium)
6.Metal and mineral rich asteroids
5.Ceres, other asteroids and comets (water) and icy moons (also water)
6.Pluto (too far away to be feasible even in the far future, a bit of methane and water)
The low gravity bodies (asteroids and comets) will be mined invasively using robots, other colonies will have some sciencific/recreational uses except Pluto, because of extremly low gravity and being too far away.
EDIT:A good idea about planets used both ways
, because even the recreational colony will need some materials, fuel and water, but also the personell maintaining the surface mining operations needs some vacation...but in the early years of the space colonisation, there will be a rotating crew and they will go to a vacation on Earth.