Got doubts about Curiosity surviving Mars landing

Chronos

Economics are always an issue. The US was certain they could beat the russians to the moon because they could afford it, and expected to profit from the political fallout. While it is hard to quantify that kind of benefit, the US has undeniably enjoyed an enormous brain trade surplus over the years as a consequence. The benefits of a manned mission to mars are less certain, and far pricier. Erecting a permanent moon base would easily be the most logical first step. Asteroid mining from a moon base could actually be profitable.

sophiecentaur

Unfortunately, that involved a hideous war against Iraq, which guaranteed (as I see it) that the Republicans would be out in the cold for some while. If it hadn't been for the triumph of faith over sense (Bush's, that is) and for Tony Blair's joining in with unwarranted support the war wouldn't have taken place. And, any way, the timescale was very short compared with what would be required for major space projects. I can't see popular support having enough momentum to sustain the sort of expenditure (orders of magnitude more than BL cost) that major manned space exploration would involve.

I have to agree that space exploration pipe dreams are great fun - as with any proposal that starts with "imagine you had as much money as you needed". . . .. One could envisage a sufficient non-political incentive, I suppose. If SETI produced some positive results it could change the whole perspective. Shame of it would be that third world people would get an even smaller share of the pie. But that's a separate issue which weighs differently for different people.

twofish-quant

The problem with mining asteroids isn't the cost but the risk. Oil and mining companies routinely spend several billion dollars in oil wells and mines. The numbers I've seen for robotic mining of asteroids (i.e. tens of billions) are things that you could get private investment for *if* those numbers were firm. The problem with asteroid mining is that there isn't the track record that oil wells or chip factories have, so you can't even give investors firm numbers.

The other problem is that you not only have to be profitable, you have to show a higher profit/risk than the other alternatives. There's also the problem that you have a moving target. Suppose we develop the ability to robotically mine asteroids making it profitable. It's likely that you can use that technology to mine stuff on earth much more cheaply. Once you do that then the earth gets flooded with cheap robot mined materials and then this causes commodity prices to drop making your venture.

Chronos

A permanent moon base would require large amounts of raw materials. The cost of importing them from earth would make harvesting asteroids a logical option.